HF Habs: The official 2023-2024 tank thread

[WeThreeKings]

All you have to do is read the KK threads and now the Slaf and once Reinbacher is here it will likely be just as bad. This fan base will NEVER support a rebuild, they can't handle it. One bad play that leads to a goal and you see the all the assholes come out ripping the kid to shreds calling him all kinds of names all in the name of I'm a passionate fan.

"I just want the team to win a cup, that is why Reinbacher is a no good, f***ing lunatic piece of shit that I'll never support!!! f*** this 18 year old kid and f*** him for crying about signing a contract!!!"

 

[ReHabs]

Btw, as far as not tanking hard enough goes… we are among the worst goal differential in the league. We are being carried by goaltending heroics (which likely won’t continue) and CC’s OT prowess.

I think we are going to drop soon. And I would deal Montie to Edmonton if a solid return comes back.

This is the issue. If this roster's performances (much less results) cannot improve over last year's injury-ridden roster then it reveals an explicit lack of progress. Hence stuck.

I could be wrong, I haven't crunched the numbers but it really doesn't seem like any player has markedly improved their performance or production.

You can't call it rebuilding if the young players, the future core players, do not show improvement year-on-year. That's just 're' there is no building happening. The young players are there, we're hopeful for them, they have fresh faces... but if they don't actually improve their performances (much less results)... what's the point of keeping all of them together?

Going through seasons like a stumbling lush just to get a draft pick at the end is an awful waste of time. It's not a 'winning culture'. To have a winning culture you need to be as close as possible to winning, you need to be tough to play against, you need to bring the big effort but be slightly short on talent/experience. It's impossible to ask this Habs roster to have a winning culture today but it's equally impossible to be satisfied with the lack of progress year-on-year from last year. This is indisputable.

I was dead wrong about the short-rebuild, that's for certain. There was little chance Kent Hughes, a rookie GM, and Jeff Gorton would try to turn things around quickly. But the lack of progress shown THIS YEAR is a bad sign.

Suzuki seems capped. Caufield seems capped. Neither would be the 2nd best player on any winning roster. We're very far away. To rebuild you need to build on something... Kent Hughes and the roster he's presided over have not made sufficient progress, it feels. There's nothing we can do but hope. We're stuck.

 

[ReHabs]

All you have to do is read the KK threads and now the Slaf and once Reinbacher is here it will likely be just as bad. This fan base will NEVER support a rebuild, they can't handle it. One bad play that leads to a goal and you see the all the assholes come out ripping the kid to shreds calling him all kinds of names all in the name of I'm a passionate fan.

Fans have been programmed to be entitled to the services of exciting young players blossoming out of topX draft picks.

I think it's wrong to feel entitled to exciting young players but is it really wrong for a hockey fan of a hockey team to want good things -- either a winning team or exciting players? It's pretty crappy to have neither a winning team nor exciting players. Let's be honest -- it's not fun!!!

Some commentators think tanking is the cure, but it really seems like in the best-case-scenario tanking is closer to chemotherapy than any other medicine. You suffer in order to go back to your normal, happy life later. If the normal, happy life doesn't seem like it'll come from the other end of the process, then of course the process will be called into question. It's only right for it to be called into question in my opinion.

I'm mostly a tanking sceptic but I support selling and re-structuring cap-commitments. I think we had to restructure Bergevin's Build-on-Price team no matter what. But if it feels like we're not on the right path, it's only fine to talk about it on a hockey discussion board.

tl;dr I mean, what's the point of all this if we're all assholes for wanting good things for our team? Should we just not want good things? Is it even normal to expect sports fans to not want good things for their team?...

 

[montreal]

tl;dr I mean, what's the point of all this if we're all assholes for wanting good things for our team? Should we just not want good things? Is it even normal to expect sports fans to not want good things for their team?...

That's a bunch of horse shit. You can want good things for your team without calling some 18, 19, 20 year kid a bunch of names because he made a bad play.

 

[ReHabs]

That's a bunch of horse shit. You can want good things for your team without calling some 18, 19, 20 year kid a bunch of names because he made a bad play.

I don't think anybody would disagree with you about that. Can we discuss the main topic -- whether the Habs are on the right path -- without this digression? Nobody should tolerate cussing at any player, much less a teenager.

 

[Nicko999]

Curious how you reach such certainty re. who has "been better"? If pp points so far this year is the definining standard, then sure... Otherwise, not sure what metric or standards you are looking at to reach such a definitive conclusion. I don't see it

The more skilled part is obviously highly subjective & depends on your framing of "skilled"... Slaf does a number of things Cooley can't & vice versa.

Well PP points directly lead to a goal so they do have value just as much as 5 on 5 point.
Slaf has PP time as well but doesn't do anything with it so far.

 

[Lafleurs Guy]

All you have to do is read the KK threads and now the Slaf and once Reinbacher is here it will likely be just as bad. This fan base will NEVER support a rebuild, they can't handle it. One bad play that leads to a goal and you see the all the assholes come out ripping the kid to shreds calling him all kinds of names all in the name of I'm a passionate fan.

Some of it is impatience. Some of it is just disengenous. The idea that this club hasn’t improved is absolutely laughable. But people like to stir pots. In some cases it’s ‘concern trolling.’

Does that mean everything is perfect? No. There are questions around Hutson, RB, Roy… we don’t have a blue chip superstar. Some legit concerns are to be expected and that’s where the intelligent debate comes in.

Slaf for example, I get that some folks feel we made the wrong pick - okay cool. But from game number two you had posters saying he wasn’t on pace for a number one pick… That is not honest debate.

 

[Lafleurs Guy]

"I just want the team to win a cup, that is why Reinbacher is a no good, f***ing lunatic piece of shit that I'll never support!!! f*** this 18 year old kid and f*** him for crying about signing a contract!!!"

All you have to do is look at the Slaf thread. It’s a joke.

Anyways, I think we’ve quietly put together a really interesting group. It’s an extremely young team but the potential is there. Guehle I think is a legit number one and we’ve got RB, Mailloux and Hutson who aren’t even in the team yet. The blueline looks great.

Dach is a guy I think on the verge of breaking out. His injury was brutal and it probably set Slaf back a bit too. But he should- hopefully- emerge next year at least as a strong number two. Roy is exciting and should also be up. That’s a good young nucleus of young players well before their prime.

A blue chip forward would help so much. We’ll see what happens. Our D is the youngest in the league. I can’t see us not dropping in the standings.

 

[WeThreeKings]

All you have to do is look at the Slaf thread. It’s a joke.

Anyways, I think we’ve quietly put together a really interesting group. It’s an extremely young team but the potential is there. Guehle I think is a legit number one and we’ve got RB, Mailloux and Hutson who aren’t even in the team yet. The blueline looks great.

Dach is a guy I think on the verge of breaking out. His injury was brutal and it probably set Slaf back a bit too. But he should- hopefully- emerge next year at least as a strong number two. Roy is exciting and should also be up. That’s a good young nucleus of young players well before their prime.

A blue chip forward would help so much. We’ll see what happens. Our D is the youngest in the league. I can’t see us not dropping in the standings.

Least regulation wins in the league.. a record that is worse than it was this time last year, less bad teams as there was last year..

I don't see how we aren't picking right where we need to pick.

 

[Lafleurs Guy]

Least regulation wins in the league.. a record that is worse than it was this time last year, less bad teams as there was last year..

I don't see how we aren't picking right where we need to pick.

Would love to be top two.

 

[WeThreeKings]

Would love to be top two.

Requires winning the lotto, so we will be in that regardless.

I'm just hoping for top 8 at least.

I expect that Celebrini will go at 1.
Then I expect a combination of Lindstrom, Eiserman, Dickinson, Silayev and Levshunov to go between 2-6 leaving Demidov and Catton at 7-8.

 

[NORiculous]

So what would you have done?

Sent them down for producing and call up even worse AHLers? Which AHLers were under NHL contracts to have even been called up to play?

And then what do you think happens with all of the players in that room, your reputation among the league, among agents, etc. if you are sending down career AHLers, or a prospect like RHP, for having NHL success for the first time in their lives?

I know you can think of a better solution then sending them down.

 

[Lafleurs Guy]

Requires winning the lotto, so we will be in that regardless.

I'm just hoping for top 8 at least.

I expect that Celebrini will go at 1.
Then I expect a combination of Lindstrom, Eiserman, Dickinson, Silayev and Levshunov to go between 2-6 leaving Demidov and Catton at 7-8.

I can’t see us being outside the top 8. Good group of prospects there. Love the idea of another sniper in Eiserman but that means we’ve got Roy, CC and him - similar players and maybe a guy like Lindstrom would be better. But I’d be thrilled if we got say Eiserman at 6th… either way it looks like all those prospects are really good.

 

[Habitant#1]

All you have to do is read the KK threads and now the Slaf and once Reinbacher is here it will likely be just as bad. This fan base will NEVER support a rebuild, they can't handle it. One bad play that leads to a goal and you see the all the assholes come out ripping the kid to shreds calling him all kinds of names all in the name of I'm a passionate fan.

I think criticism of draft choices and level of rebuild support are separate issues.

The true sign of rebuild impatience IMO is complaints about the team's current on ice performance.

Other signs of rebuild impatience is people sweating details that simply don't matter in the long run: performance of special teams, assistant coaches, line combinations, etc. Less than half the players currently on this team will be here in 18-24 months, none of it matters.

But yes, a person who's impatient and worried about these small pictures things is also more likely to be impatient with prospects. Concerns about draft choices however, is not incompatible with being patient with the rebuild.

 

[Sorinth]

Least regulation wins in the league.. a record that is worse than it was this time last year, less bad teams as there was last year..

I don't see how we aren't picking right where we need to pick.

Are there actually less bad teams, at this point last year there were 6 teams with less then 20 points, this year we are 7. Seems like it's about the same. I know you might say but Edmonton and Minny won't stay that bad, but last year people said the same about Columbus, and even if they do turn it around, last year Ottawa and Buffalo also turned it around.

And if we scored ENG at the same rate as last season where we were the 4th worst team, we likely turn 3 of the OT games into regulation wins. So I'm not sure RW is an accurate evaluation for how good the team is doing. It would be one thing if the team was always tying the game late and forcing OTs, but it's the exact opposite.

 

[Sorinth]

Btw, as far as not tanking hard enough goes… we are among the worst goal differential in the league. We are being carried by goaltending heroics (which likely won’t continue) and CC’s OT prowess.

I think we are going to drop soon. And I would deal Montie to Edmonton if a solid return comes back.

Not that I expect it to change all that much but so much of that goal differential is our play shorthanded. Not only are we one of the most penalized teams, we have one of the worst PK%. We are giving up more goals shorthanded then even last year where we also sucked. Even our net PP% is worse then last year due to the SH goals we've given up.

Those special teams play, are really dragging the team down and hiding the fact that our 5 on 5 play has seen some major improvements. I'm wondering if MSL will at some point resort to benching players for bad penalties in order to get it under control.

We will probably continue to drop, but I'm not sure there will be a dramatic fall, it's more likely we just continue to fall back towards MSL's overall coaching record of .429

 

[Sorinth]

We are not unlucky at 6vs5 the other team just dominates and slaps us in the face us every time its 6 vs 5. Calling it unlucky is crazy when the team is pure dogmeat and turtles at the end of games where they lead

And we weren't that last year too when we had a goal differential that sucked compared to most of the league? We aren't a great team so we should be near the bottom in that category like we were the last two years, but we are nowhere close to even those levels, the numbers just aren't sustainable.

 

[Miller Time]

Well PP points directly lead to a goal so they do have value just as much as 5 on 5 point.
Slaf has PP time as well but doesn't do anything with it so far.

Indeed.
pp points are nice, and no doubt Cooley is contributing to the yotes top tier PP.... just like there is little doubt that playing next to Keller on the PP makes it easier to produce points than playing next to Gally .

And, to win hockey games you also need players who can impact the game in other areas.. outside of the PP, I don't think there is much case to be made that Cooley has been better than Slaf, and quite arguably, Slaf has been the better player at even strength.

So back to your initial point... I don't see the evidence that Cooley has been the definitively better player through 20 games this year. Better pp point producer? Sure. But there's more to the game & a player's impact on it than high pp assist tallies, and in the other facets of the game, both talented 19 year olds have their strengths & weaknesses...

Will be interesting to see how the next 1/4 season unfolds & how the year as a whole progresses for both kids.

Id bet it's more likely that Slaf's pp production closes the gap more/faster than Cooley's ability to play effective/impactful ev minutes (granted, C is a more demanding role at EV and harder for a rookie to adapt to the full scope of responsibilities... I'm sure Cooley will keep improving over time, though as we're seeing with Zegras, relying on high end playmaking and offensive skill without progressing in other areas can stagnate a talented player's utility... I get the sense that Tourigny will hold Cooley to a higher standard than Zegras got away with under Eakins ).

 

[Lafleurs Guy]

I think criticism of draft choices and level of rebuild support are separate issues.

The true sign of rebuild impatience IMO is complaints about the team's current on ice performance.

Other signs of rebuild impatience is people sweating details that simply don't matter in the long run: performance of special teams, assistant coaches, line combinations, etc. Less than half the players currently on this team will be here in 18-24 months, none of it matters.

But yes, a person who's impatient and worried about these small pictures things is also more likely to be impatient with prospects. Concerns about draft choices however, is not incompatible with being patient with the rebuild.

Yeah. For example, totally fine to have someone argue that we made the wrong pick in Slaf. But be honest about it and say so. Don’t consistently undermine him and then turn around and say ‘I never said he’d bust.’

And unfortunately the position in the drafts we’ve had have left us with tough choices to make and it’s resulted in controversy. Slaf was consensus number one but it certainly wasnt strong consensus. RB vs Michkov was even more controversial…

The reality is that some guys won’t pan out and some will. I’m hopeful on Roy, Newhook and Slaf. We’ll see how it goes.

 

[Gravity]

I love the rebuild and the losses. I just want a god damn superstar F (preferably 1C) on this team. Would love a Celebrini or Misa.

I'd like to think most people are the same way in that everyone's is ok with the process but might question the outcome (the draft picks).

 

[NORiculous]

I love the rebuild and the losses. I just want a god damn superstar F (preferably 1C) on this team. Would love a Celebrini or Misa.

I'd like to think most people are the same way in that everyone's is ok with the process but might question the outcome (the draft picks).

It doesn’t help build confidence when they keep a guy up and everyone sees the game is too fast for him (except the yes men). Their explanations were also cringe worthy… which just put oil on the small fire.

Although it isn’t as critical right now, thank god, I think what they did with Slafkovsky was a huge risk and if what they told us was true, it was also for the wrong reasons.

In normal circumstances I would guess they are just PRing us with BS but with all the transparency vibe, I don’t think that was the case.

When something like that happens, it’s pretty normal to find scary any controversial move/ideas they put forward afterwards.

So far so good though. Slafkovsky is getting better and that is what counts.

Now if they can draft some superstar C in 2024…

 

[sandviper]

Y'all can't handle a rebuild and it shows.

Man was I wrong on that one.

Got some delusional people thinking playoffs or expecting playoffs by next season…

 

[Nicko999]

Columbus showed us how it's done...

 

[Gravity]

I'd bet money that if they were trying to make the playoffs, they'd go 0-82. Bastards can't help but self-sabotage.

 

[the valiant effort]

Got some delusional people thinking playoffs or expecting playoffs by next season…

Try this season, bruvva