HF Habs: The official 2023-2024 tank thread

[DAChampion]

There is no one best recipe to win, a good GM like any good leader needs to be adaptive to his own circumstances.

That of Hughes is that he cannot simply tank and draft a core that includes two of {Crosby, McDavid, Malkin, Kame, Toews}. Those players are not available in these drafts, the team can't finish last and in any case there's a flatter lottery now.

 

[Lshap]

It's not a satisfying answer but IMO the no Canadian cup thing is largely just a fluke. Montreal made it in 2021, Vancouver lost in game 7 in 2011, Ottawa lost in 2007, Edmonton in game 7 in 2006, and Calgary in 2004 lost in game 7 in a cup they likely would have won under today's video review system. I'm just skeptical that there's some fatal flaw that's causing all these Canadian teams to be good enough to make it to the finals 5 times in 30 years and have multiple other deep conference finals runs, but then lose five straight finals appearances including three game 7 series losses.

The reason I'm skeptical of these kinds of grand narratives is that most of the guys running the cup winners of the past ~15 or so years have all been traditional hockey old boys club guys too. Ken Holland, Brian Burke, and Peter Chiarelli won cups and they're all punchlines now for being old-school hockey men. Stan Bowman is well...Stan Bowman, Sutter won two cups playing dump and chase grinding hockey, Rutherford is the quintessential hockey lifer and won two cups, two of the consensus best GMs in the league are Yzerman (which I disagree with but it is consensus) and Sakic, etc.

I think some Canadian teams have just made some individually weak hires and got some bad luck in conference/Stanley Cup finals series, and some of these old school hockey men (Burke, Chiarelli, Holland for example) just have a short shelf life in a cap system and were in the right place at the right time to win when they did.

You make a good case that American teams are no more progressive in their hiring practices than Canadian teams. When it comes to winning Cups, Canada is handicapped by other things – fewer teams, no-trade clauses, increased fan pressure... and bad luck. But luck changes. We're due for a run of Canadian dominance where two, maybe three, northern teams are the top contenders for a decade.

 

[Milhouse40]

This is something Habs fans always do. We extrapolate success when there isn't any based on small sample sizes. Brian Savage was never a 50 goal scorer. Similarly, Suzuki isn't a PPG player until he is, and Caufield isn't a 50-goal scorer until he is.

Caufield is the closest thing we have to s star talent, but he doesn't hold a candle to the Kanes, Crosbies, Hedmans, or Ovies of this world. He's too one-dimensional. We do have guys that can be somewhat talented in a vacuum. The problem is when you compare them to what other teams have. There is nothing in our system that makes our core more talented than... Arizona's for example. Or the murderer's row of the Atlantic. What sets us apart? The 6'2" safe defenseman we just drafted?

You're stuck on the Crosby, Kane and Ovie. On the one player.
But if you're building a team.....

It's debatable but I do believe we have everything we need to build a fantastic forward group with only our prospect coming in from position #2 to #13.

I also believe we have more than everything we need to build a fantastic D-squad from #1 to #7 just with our prospect group.

But since a team won't be built only with our prospects, we're in a position that we only really need half of them to work out. And Goalie is so unpredictable, but we have so many and in this case we only need one.

So other than that one instant superstar you're looking for, Habs have everything else and more.
For that superstar, we have so much quantity that we might found our Kucherov, Pastrnak, Robertson.....or trade for it.

And yes I took the situation Suzuki should be in most of the time going forward and extrapolate a little.....but even that situation was under what he should have next year, in fact he should start the season in a better situation to produce than those 25 games I took.

Dvorak had a game once where he scored 3 goals. Man… if he could do that every game, the Habs would have a 240 goal player!

Ok… jokes aside

Even if I agree the Habs need a top C, using 25 games doesn’t seem like a very solid argument.

MacKinnon took time but still had 63 pts rookie year and Rantanen destroyed the AHL. I don’t think the Habs have anyone with that kind of ceiling, which is the main problem they have. They could just be recreating a Koivu 2.0 situation.

The 25 games had a reason behind it.

This was the only time last season we saw Suzuki between two potential 1st line skilled players with him.....and another Top 6 center with him able to split the load.

So yes this matter to me a lot since that's how it is supposed to be. Suzuki aren't supposed to play with Hoffman, Anderson, RHP, Gallagher, Ylonen or whatnot but that's what we got for most of the year.

During that time, there's was still some brutal situation that hurt every forward's production : we a had the actual worst D-squad in the NHL offensively on the ice. That shouldn't be the case going forward.

Mackinnon took time......or needed some skills next to him in order to explode and that's where Rantanen comes in.

 

[dcyhabs]

It's not a satisfying answer but IMO the no Canadian cup thing is largely just a fluke. Montreal made it in 2021, Vancouver lost in game 7 in 2011, Ottawa lost in 2007, Edmonton in game 7 in 2006, and Calgary in 2004 lost in game 7 in a cup they likely would have won under today's video review system. I'm just skeptical that there's some fatal flaw that's causing all these Canadian teams to be good enough to make it to the finals 5 times in 30 years and have multiple other deep conference finals runs, but then lose five straight finals appearances including three game 7 series losses.

The reason I'm skeptical of these kinds of grand narratives is that most of the guys running the cup winners of the past ~15 or so years have all been traditional hockey old boys club guys too. Ken Holland, Brian Burke, and Peter Chiarelli won cups and they're all punchlines now for being old-school hockey men. Stan Bowman is well...Stan Bowman, Sutter won two cups playing dump and chase grinding hockey, Rutherford is the quintessential hockey lifer and won two cups, two of the consensus best GMs in the league are Yzerman (which I disagree with but it is consensus) and Sakic, etc.

I think some Canadian teams have just made some individually weak hires and got some bad luck in conference/Stanley Cup finals series, and some of these old school hockey men (Burke, Chiarelli, Holland for example) just have a short shelf life in a cap system and were in the right place at the right time to win when they did.

Yeah I'm not really thrilled about the Xhekaj pick. Hopefully I'm wrong but I just don't think there's much upside there, to me the best case scenario is he's Pezzetta 2.0 and Pezzetta 1.0 is only really worth a roster spot exactly because he has no real upside so you don't feel bad about keeping him around for 800k to be good in the room and play 8 minutes a night so you can keep more talented players developing in the AHL.

I would push back on the goalie thing, as I really don't think there's any issue with it. They drafted goalies out of three different feeder systems to spread out the contracts and asset value effectively. Fowler was the last guy remaining in the consensus top tier of goalies and checks every box for the slot he was taken. Miller I can't say too much on but the Habs would benefit from a CHL goalie that they can add to Laval in a couple seasons, and I'm always in favour of taking late gambles on European goalies as you keep their rights so much longer (and you never lose them for Russian Gs), there's value in spreading all those things out so you aren't forced to try and fit 3 goalies in Laval.

There are so few non-traditional hockey GMs at this point it's hard to judge. The habs have had pretty uniform groups, though, Toronto as well, Edmonton was mostly ex-players from their heyday for a good while... Former expansion teams may have one of those guys in the GM seat because they need someone who can talk to the rest of the league, but lots of those teams have other people involved, advanced stats, business guys for the cap, guys who actually did stuff other than play hockey from ages 5-40. Most of the more recent teams have real scouts, too, as opposed to ex-players the team needs to find jobs for. Things are changing, but a lot of the Canadian teams really didn't keep up over the last few decades, the habs least of all until the last year or two.

The Canadian teams have hung on to the old guys pretty hard, and in some cases the ownership defers to them. Some of the best GMs, Bowman and such, were way beyond their colleagues at least in part because the whole group was chosen as the best from a pretty unqualified bunch.

I don't expect Florian to do much, but the chances a 4th rounder will come through are low enough it barely matters. Making his brother happy may have more value than 25 of the fourth round picks this year.

 

[ML16]

There is no one best recipe to win, a good GM like any good leader needs to be adaptive to his own circumstances.

That of Hughes is that he cannot simply tank and draft a core that includes two of {Crosby, McDavid, Malkin, Kame, Toews}. Those players are not available in these drafts, the team can't finish last and in any case there's a flatter lottery now.

For better or for worse, the Habs’ tanking days are over in the foreseeable future.

Getting rid of Hoffman and Pitlick - and not keeping Petry until TDL 2024 to extract actual value, but rather focus on goodwill points - can only mean one thing: the Habs clearly intend to use 2024-2025 as a development year for their U25 core - and needless to say that a losing/loser environment is hardly fertile grounds for such aim.

If the missing « high-end talent » doesn’t develop from within (Slafkovski, Dach, Hutson, Reinbacher, etc.), the Habs will have the means to either: trade cost-controlled Ds + draft capital or UFA big-game hunting; Draisaitl in the summer of 2025 maybe? One can sure hope.

 

[Twisted Sinister]

You're stuck on the Crosby, Kane and Ovie. On the one player.
But if you're building a team.....

It's debatable but I do believe we have everything we need to build a fantastic forward group with only our prospect coming in from position #2 to #13.

I also believe we have more than everything we need to build a fantastic D-squad from #1 to #7 just with our prospect group.

But since a team won't be built only with our prospects, we're in a position that we only really need half of them to work out. And Goalie is so unpredictable, but we have so many and in this case we only need one.

So other than that one instant superstar you're looking for, Habs have everything else and more.
For that superstar, we have so much quantity that we might found our Kucherov, Pastrnak, Robertson.....or trade for it.

And yes I took the situation Suzuki should be in most of the time going forward and extrapolate a little.....but even that situation was under what he should have next year, in fact he should start the season in a better situation to produce than those 25 games I took.


The 25 games had a reason behind it.

This was the only time last season we saw Suzuki between two potential 1st line skilled players with him.....and another Top 6 center with him able to split the load.

So yes this matter to me a lot since that's how it is supposed to be. Suzuki aren't supposed to play with Hoffman, Anderson, RHP, Gallagher, Ylonen or whatnot but that's what we got for most of the year.

During that time, there's was still some brutal situation that hurt every forward's production : we a had the actual worst D-squad in the NHL offensively on the ice. That shouldn't be the case going forward.

Mackinnon took time......or needed some skills next to him in order to explode and that's where Rantanen comes in.

I think our D will be ok, but, unless Hutson really, really does well... like hits the tippity top of his ceiling without being a defensive liability, I just don't see it being dominant. Reinbacher and Guhle I think will be good players. Nothing about them screams dominant to me. Go look at the size of Vegas' defense this year and then tell me what those two guys bring to the table in terms of being able to dominate NHL forwards.

As for Suzuki, I've always said I see him as a number 2 on a good team. Nothing about his size or toolset screams dominant #1 center to me. He has yet to prove me wrong, both on the offensive and defensive side of the puck. Lots of players have great bursts of production... But they're not PPG players until they are.

There is no one best recipe to win, a good GM like any good leader needs to be adaptive to his own circumstances.

That of Hughes is that he cannot simply tank and draft a core that includes two of {Crosby, McDavid, Malkin, Kame, Toews}. Those players are not available in these drafts, the team can't finish last and in any case there's a flatter lottery now.

Michkov was available. You miss 100% of the shots you don't take on elite talent.

Do you believe Hughes had the power to finish last but deliberately chose not to? It doesn't work that way. Primeau might have played better than Allen and won more games. No-names like RHP and Pezetta should've helped us lose – guess what, they did the opposite.

Montreal finished 5th from the bottom in a year when seven teams were actively tanking for Bedard. It's fantasy to believe a GM can chart exactly where his team finishes in the standings.

I think there were ways to finish lower, yes. I listed some of them in my post. If they'd actually done some of that stuff instead of going crazy trying to win games in January for the KuLtUrE (which they admitted to on multiple occasions) and still finished 5th, I'd be less crabby.

In a few years, when we're where the Red Wings are now... late into a rebuild and lacking high-end talent, a bubble team in a murderer's row division... Well, I guess fans will be happy. Cuz MaKe tHe PlAyOfFs aNd AnYtHinG CaN HaPpEn.

 

[Belial]

The Michkov thing is not just about the player. It's about the philosophy and the allergy to talent in general. You specifically asked me about how they could have added talent to the team, so I replied.

He went and got Dach and Newhook in back to back "drafts".

How is that being allergic to talent?

 

[DAChampion]

I think our D will be ok, but, unless Hutson really, really does well... like hits the tippity top of his ceiling without being a defensive liability, I just don't see it being dominant. Reinbacher and Guhle I think will be good players. Nothing about them screams dominant to me. Go look at the size of Vegas' defense this year and then tell me what those two guys bring to the table in terms of being able to dominate NHL forwards.

As for Suzuki, I've always said I see him as a number 2 on a good team. Nothing about his size or toolset screams dominant #1 center to me. He has yet to prove me wrong, both on the offensive and defensive side of the puck. Lots of players have great bursts of production... But they're not PPG players until they are.



Michkov was available. You miss 100% of the shots you don't take on elite talent.



I think there were ways to finish lower, yes. I listed some of them in my post. If they'd actually done some of that stuff instead of going crazy trying to win games in January for the KuLtUrE (which they admitted to on multiple occasions) and still finished 5th, I'd be less crabby.

In a few years, when we're where the Red Wings are now... late into a rebuild and lacking high-end talent, a bubble team in a murderer's row division... Well, I guess fans will be happy. Cuz MaKe tHe PlAyOfFs aNd AnYtHinG CaN HaPpEn.

To what extent do you think you're informed as to Reinbacher's potential?

 

[Milhouse40]

I think our D will be ok, but, unless Hutson really, really does well... like hits the tippity top of his ceiling without being a defensive liability, I just don't see it being dominant. Reinbacher and Guhle I think will be good players. Nothing about them screams dominant to me. Go look at the size of Vegas' defense this year and then tell me what those two guys bring to the table in terms of being able to dominate NHL forwards.

As for Suzuki, I've always said I see him as a number 2 on a good team. Nothing about his size or toolset screams dominant #1 center to me. He has yet to prove me wrong, both on the offensive and defensive side of the puck. Lots of players have great bursts of production... But they're not PPG players until they are.

????
Logan Mailloux has the same size as Pietrangelo, should get the same weight in time.
Guhle same size as Theodore, little lighter but again, they are still growing.
Barron is bigger than Martinez
Xhekaj is bigger than all of them.
Reinbacher is 6'2'' and still growing.
Size is not a problem in our prospect pool of D.....we have options.


As for Suzuki, you always have to see the position he's in.
I expect next year to be very different as he should start the season in a much better situation that he ever been since the SC Final.....in which he did looked like a upcoming 1st line center.
Do I see a McDavid, MacKinnon? Nope, but I do see a Aho, Zibanejad level of 1st line center in him.

 

[Scriptor]

????
Logan Mailloux has the same size as Pietrangelo, should get the same weight in time.
Guhle same size as Theodore, little lighter but again, they are still growing.
Barron is bigger than Martinez
Xhekaj is bigger than all of them.
Reinbacher is 6'2'' and still growing.
Size is not a problem in our prospect pool of D.....we have options.


As for Suzuki, you always have to see the position he's in.
I expect next year to be very different as he should start the season in a much better situation that he ever been since the SC Final.....in which he did looked like a upcoming 1st line center.
Do I see a McDavid, MacKinnon? Nope, but I do see a Aho, Zibanejad level of 1st line center in him.

And you didn't even count Engstrom at 6'2" and 193 lbs -- and still growing!

 

[Twisted Sinister]

To what extent do you think you're informed as to Reinbacher's potential?

Only to the extent that I've seen him play, which was quite a bit before the draft. I don't see high-end talent in his tools. He's not massively big, he's not really physical in the punishing sense... Great skater. Shot's slightly north of respectable. Passing is good but hockey sense is Meh.

Defensively very good, but I see a number 2 ceiling on a good team if everything about him pans out. I really think they (Bobrov) galaxy-brained that pick. I believe it will come back and bite them, unless Reinbacher somehow magically becomes Drew Doughty out of nowhere.

It's not a bad prospect, but if you're passing on elite talent, I want f***ing Victor Hedman with all the tools associated with him. Not someone whose tools are only ok.

????
Logan Mailloux has the same size as Pietrangelo, should get the same weight in time.
Guhle same size as Theodore, little lighter but again, they are still growing.
Barron is bigger than Martinez
Xhekaj is bigger than all of them.
Reinbacher is 6'2'' and still growing.
Size is not a problem in our prospect pool of D.....we have options.


As for Suzuki, you always have to see the position he's in.
I expect next year to be very different as he should start the season in a much better situation that he ever been since the SC Final.....in which he did looked like a upcoming 1st line center.
Do I see a McDavid, MacKinnon? Nope, but I do see a Aho, Zibanejad level of 1st line center in him.

Alec Martinez 6'1"- Alex Pietrangelo 6'3"

Brayden McNabb 6'4"- Shea Theodore 6'2"

Nicolas Hague 6'6"- Zach Whitecloud 6'2"

That was the VGK roster in the finals I believe. I will concede that if ALL of our prospects make it, we might have a respectably large defense (minus Hutson). Not as big as Vegas, but semi-ok.

However, I'd say there's the issue of physicality. Guhle seems to be made of glass and I don't know if a guy his size (he's just north of an average-sized defenseman, believe it or not) can maintain his level of physicality at the NHL level and stay injury-free. He definitely struggled at that last year. We'll see how he progresses. If he, Arber, and Mailloux can show some bite to their game, we'll be in business, but things have to work out just right.

That said, I don't think we have a number 1 guy. I just don't see it with what I've seen from RB.

As for Suzuki, he won't be those things until he is those things. I think both his offensive and defensive acumen is severely overblown (I find he gets hemmed in inside the defensive zone a LOT). We'll see what happens with Dach and if he puts it together. I'm a little more bullish on him but I still think this team is headed for Mediocresville without adding a top end forward in the draft this year.

If they pull a Jack Eichel-style trade at any point, I'll eat crow. Otherwise, I'm seeing Detroit in our future.

 

[Twisted Sinister]

He went and got Dach and Newhook in back to back "drafts".

How is that being allergic to talent?

I'm not super high on Newhook. Even if he hits his ceiling, I don't think we need another undersized forward in the top 6. And he has yet to put things together. As of now, he's the exact type of speedy, small, mid-talented guy we've had in our top 6 for decades. How's that been working out for us?

When I say we're allergic to talent, I mean high-end talent.

 

[Gravity]

I will say this, you build a team from the core out. Having the depth pieces without having a true 1C, 1D or 1G is how you get mediocre. That's where the Habs stand right now imo. No true 1C, all-around 1D (even in the pipeline) or 1G.

Even Chicago understood this simple concept and will be better than us in 3 years.

 

[Gravity]

Montembeault is a big wildcard in all of this. We could have easily been bottom 3 last year if it weren't for him.

That jackass single handedly cost us Bedard/Carlsson/Smith/Fantilli.

 

[Twisted Sinister]

That jackass single handedly cost us Bedard/Carlsson/Smith/Fantilli.

In all fairness, I think the jackasses that cost us one of those guys were management... Letting St-Louis Gordon Bombay us to 5th place. And they still had a chance at one of the consensus top 5, and they still blew it.

 

[ReHabs]

I suspect "orthodox" approaches, that is old ex-hockey player GM traditions, explain why no Canadian team has won a cup since '93. Different teams have different problems but hiring exclusively from the old boys club and sticking to tried and true methods really don't work.

I was in Toronto for a few years when the team was actually reasonably good and they went with a lot of the typical strategies, trading top picks if they had hope of the cup, going with what people in the media were saying, lots of old guys, lots of dumb moves. Dubas may not have won but he vastly improved the team from what it was, and improved the decision making.

A number of recent cup winners have old GMs, but from what little I can see they surround them better. Most American teams don't have to seriously consider dumb takes from ex-players trying to fill time on hours of hockey discussions, either. At least Hughes doesn't seem to care about the chatter, MB listened way too often.

I don't put a lot of value in the publically available draft reports. They are for discussion, not building winning teams. No one really knows how players will do 3-5 years post draft, and many pretty simple algorithms (points corrected by league) do better than most draft lists. Who knows what teams use internally. I expect the public lists have less value out of the top 10, and rapidly decreasing value with every round after that. By the fourth or fifth round teams are looking for the dozen or less players likely to have real value so taking overagers or players they have a connection to (Point was chosen due to personal connections, for example) makes good sense. Trying to maximize incremental value when most picks have no value at all doesn't make sense. The habs have generally gotten good value out of late picks, so I won't criticize their later ones, the issue is their top 5 picks so far.

All to say that I don't think restricting your choices at pick 200 to guys Bob rated 210 or higher really makes any difference. If they know Florian and they think there is something there, fine. If they are accumulating Xhekajs as they accumulated Pitlicks it could be an attempt at keeping players happy or it could just be a silly move.

You've mis-defined or misinterpreted what I meant by 'orthodox approaches'. I never meant it as 'old boys club' or 'business as usual' -- rather I meant the Habs should draft high-upside players as much and as often as possible -- even if they bust, like Sherbak or Avstin -- the attempt to acquire a skill forward is worth the expenditure be it a late 1st round pick or a 7th round pick. Swing for the fences to get the prospects your prospect pool needs.

Florian Xhekaj could've been invited to camp... and he likely would've been cut at camp because he's clearly not skilled enough at his age to merit being drafted by an NHL team or given one of the precious few 50 contract spots available to the Habs. Ultimately it is a minor topic but if someone is to be critical of the new regime this is certainly evidence in support of their criticism.

Otherwise I agree about publicly available draft reports but absent any other insight they're the best we fans have.

On the topic of old boy's club, Gorton and Hughes have heavily leaned on their own networks so it is not clear that we've eliminated the foxhole stuff. I'd rather not comment on it at all, to be honest.

 

[rik schau]

In all fairness, I think the jackasses that cost us one of those guys were management... Letting St-Louis Gordon Bombay us to 5th place. And they still had a chance at one of the consensus top 5, and they still blew it.

Montreal has been inept so long that they can't even tank right,but they did get a solid player that will positively contribute for a long time.

 

[LaP]

There is no one best recipe to win, a good GM like any good leader needs to be adaptive to his own circumstances.
That of Hughes is that he cannot simply tank and draft a core that includes two of {Crosby, McDavid, Malkin, Kame, Toews}. Those players are not available in these drafts, the team can't finish last and in any case there's a flatter lottery now.

I'd argue there's a best recipe to win. It's having quality management

 

[Twisted Sinister]

Montreal has been inept so long that they can't even tank right,but they did get a solid player that will positively contribute for a long time.

Certainly, he will probably contribute positively. But it isn't immediately obvious to me to what extent. If he becomes a semi-decent number two and the other guy becomes a 100-point forward, is everyone calling for management's head or are they coping and making excuses for them?

 

[RationalExpectations]

That jackass single handedly cost us Bedard/Carlsson/Smith/Fantilli.

I disagree. PIT was the real responsible:playing so bad against MTL and it also cost the difference between 15OA and 31 OA !

 

[Sasha Orlov]

That jackass single handedly cost us Bedard/Carlsson/Smith/Fantilli.

We could have drafted a guy better than 3/4 of those players and just straight up chose not to

 

[Scriptor]

Certainly, he will probably contribute positively. But it isn't immediately obvious to me to what extent. If he becomes a semi-decent number two and the other guy becomes a 100-point forward, is everyone calling for management's head or are they coping and making excuses for them?

Are there any draft picks you know exactly towhead extent they will contribute? Get real.

 

[Rapala]

Hughes needs to build Rome in a day.

"A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum"

It's about the philosophy and the allergy to talent in general.

There is no allergy to talent Just stop it. There is perhaps an allergy to a player who won't put his team first.

 

[Boss Man Hughes]

I'm not super high on Newhook. Even if he hits his ceiling, I don't think we need another undersized forward in the top 6. And he has yet to put things together. As of now, he's the exact type of speedy, small, mid-talented guy we've had in our top 6 for decades. How's that been working out for us?

When I say we're allergic to talent, I mean high-end talent.

Will you stop posting the same inanities over and over. Newhook is not small. He weighs 200 lbs. As does Suzuki for example. They can be strong ebough to win puck battles if they want to be.

 

[Twisted Sinister]

Newhook is not small. He weighs 200 lbs. As does Suzuki for example. They can be strong ebough to win puck battles if they want to be.

Newhook is 5'10" and 190. That's not 200. Average NHL height is 6' and average weight is about 200. If he makes our top 6, he'll contribute to it being undersized. Caufield is one of the smallest players in the league. Suzuki is no giant. 3/6 of the top 6 minimum being undersized is not great.