The Out of Town Thread CVIII - Free Agency Edition

[FlyingKostitsyn]

Problem with Leblanc is that he was so damn average at everything. Nearly all aspects of his game were good enough, but he had no outstanding attribute to make him useful. Being weak and hurt all the team didn't help him either.

 

[SB164]

In what way was Leblanc better than Kreider, who was drafted right after him?

 

[DenverHabsFan]

In what way was Leblanc better than Kreider, who was drafted right after him?

His French is better.

 

[Whitesnake]

In what way was Leblanc better than Kreider, who was drafted right after him?

His French is better.

Yeah, just like Kostitsyn had a better french than Getzlaf, Carter and Co, and like Chipchura had a better french than Mike Green, or Fischer's french was better than Giroux or when Tinordi's french was better than Kuznetsov or Coyle....

 

[Whitesnake]

http://www.tvasports.ca/2015/07/17/leblanc-avec-les-islanders


Leblanc just sign with the NYI on a two-way deal.

Type of team we should have traded to in the first place.....we would have probably got a 5th round out of it.

 

[Rapala]

Yeah, just like Kostitsyn had a better french than Getzlaf, Carter and Co, and like Chipchura had a better french than Mike Green, or Fischer's french was better than Giroux or when Tinordi's french was better than Kuznetsov or Coyle....

WS depressing me with his infallible logic.
I've been off line for a stretch.
Is our team fixed yet?

 

[dok101]

Type of team we should have traded to in the first place.....we would have probably got a 5th round out of it.

We need some help down in Bridgeport. I doubt we would have given up a 5th rounder for Leblanc to simply send him down to Bridgeport. Anyway, unless we have significant injuries, I doubt this fella will get called up.

 

[DenverHabsFan]

Yeah, just like Kostitsyn had a better french than Getzlaf, Carter and Co, and like Chipchura had a better french than Mike Green, or Fischer's french was better than Giroux or when Tinordi's french was better than Kuznetsov or Coyle....

So you're saying Timmins picks Leblanc no matter where that draft was held?

 

[OnTheRun]

http://www.tsn.ca/which-nhl-team-will-travel-the-most-in-2015-16-1.332122

Interesting piece about travel distance, back-to-backs, rested and tired games for the upcoming season.

 

[OnTheRun]

So you're saying Timmins picks Leblanc no matter where that draft was held?

The Habs/Timmins didn't go off the board to pick Leblanc, he was expected to be a mid/late first round pick and that's where we got him.

Would have been different if the draft wasn't in Montreal? We'll never know. But Timmins didn't hesitate to pass on guy like Esposito or Perron in the past, so at the very least they liked Leblanc enough to draft him.

 

[DenverHabsFan]

Well that was the only thing I suggested might have been a factor in Leblanc's case, not the other picks WS pointed out. I've read the reports that he was on their list but so was Forsberg when they picked Galchenyuk so you have to assume that some of those picks are last minute decisions that happen at the draft table.

Anyway, Timmins never showed a french bias otherwise. He's found plenty of non-french busting forwards in the 1st round.

 

[bsl]

Oh I get it...Jim Nill's made some sexy moves, and more important, some recent moves.

So his approval rating around here is high

Nevermind his teams have regressed every year under his tenure, meanwhile Bergevin's teams have done the opposite.

Ridiculous...

You couldn't pay me enough to trade the Habs roster for the Stars one...Seguin & Benn included.

That team is flawed

No. That team is not flawed at all. They are building a great offense, working on the d, and are a good goalie away from contending.

Top six offense, speed, and youth is what matters in the NHL now. And MB has done nothing about these types of players. Nothing. Kassian and DSP? Kassian maybe. But DSP is slow as molasses, and will contribute no offense. Useless in today's NHL, which was clear in the PO.

You can always find solid D, and hopefully one very good offensive D. Finding fast and talented forwards that kill you in all circumstances, under pressure, in the PO, is much harder. Habs are absolutely awful at this. MB has this summer to address this problem.

Stars could win the cup with Price in net next year. I really believe this. Nill has outperformed MB hugely.

but a top-4 of Klinberg, Goligoski, Demers, Oduya, while not sexy, is more steady/balanced than the top-4's of many teams.

Comparing Nill to Holmgren is flat out silly... "flashy" moves get made by successful and failed GM's alike. All of the recent cup winners had GM's who made "flashy" moves.

What Nill seems to be doing is being aggressive in adding talent to his roster, without sacrificing much talent/depth in return. His roster is significantly better than when he took over AND well positioned for the future.

We are right to be envious, because our leadership group started out at the same time, with a much better roster/prospect situation, and hasn't made nearly the positive roster progression that he's been able to do, despite giving up more assets & spending more $$.

Correct. Nill has grasped that offense wins cups now. Tampa in the finals is evidence enough I think. MB is just starting to get it. We will see. Habs have neglected offense for far too long, and the collection of forward draft failures is growing. I am becoming disillusioned with Timmins, and Scherbak will make my final decision.

Scherbak is huge. If he fails, Habs are ****ed.

Hockey is always about offense and speed. That is the game. Why do you think we play on skates? The D men are there just to try to counter it.

 

[Lshap]

No. That team is not flawed at all. They are building a great offense, working on the d, and are a good goalie away from contending.

Top six offense, speed, and youth is what matters in the NHL now. And MB has done nothing about these types of players. Nothing. Kassian and DSP? Kassian maybe. But DSP is slow as molasses, and will contribute no offense. Useless in today's NHL, which was clear in the PO.

You can always find solid D, and hopefully one very good offensive D. Finding fast and talented forwards that kill you in all circumstances, under pressure, in the PO, is much harder. Habs are absolutely awful at this. MB has this summer to address this problem.

Stars could win the cup with Price in net next year. I really believe this. Nill has outperformed MB hugely.



Correct. Nill has grasped that offense wins cups now. Tampa in the finals is evidence enough I think. MB is just starting to get it. We will see. Habs have neglected offense for far too long, and the collection of forward draft failures is growing. I am becoming disillusioned with Timmins, and Scherbak will make my final decision.

Scherbak is huge. If he fails, Habs are ****ed.

Hockey is always about offense and speed. That is the game. Why do you think we play on skates? The D men are there just to try to counter it.

I give Nill credit for building the front end, as I give Bergevin credit for finishing the build on our back end. But being seduced by forwards and totally dismissing dmen is simply not how the game works. Teams get nowhere without a solid defence. Tampa didn't get to the SCF simply by scoring a ton of goals, they got through tight series thanks to an awesome defense led by Hedman. And they lost to a team with weaker offence and stronger defense. LA and Boston were built from the defence out, especially Boston. Without their D none of these teams come close to their Cups. Look back at Detroit and New Jersey. It's a strong defensive system, supplemented by decent offense.

Why not dismiss the goalie as well? After, he's only there to counter goals, just like the defence.

Yes, Nill is 'working on the D'. And Bergevin is 'working on the O'. It isn't easy fixing either end, but we'll see which approach has worked out better in 10 months.

 

[Whitesnake]

So you're saying Timmins picks Leblanc no matter where that draft was held?

Why wouldn't he? He made mistakes before...why can't he make mistakes about a francophone? You saw the list...he had Leblanc at #9...what if #8 is available? He still picks him? I guess the draft in 2006 should have been held in Montréal....we woudl have picked Giroux. But then thank god it wasn't held in Montréal in 2007...he would have picked Perron etc....Don't know what was driven behind the Leblanc pick....I know that most and tons of lists DID have Leblanc around our pick. And not as mock drafts...as lists. People love to say it as it was a known fact, as if we picked him out of the 5th round or something....And even if it was true, what's not true is that people also want to believe that Kreider would have been our pick....while Kreider was far away in the acceptable list...not even first on that list.

 

[WeThreeKings]

Why wouldn't he? He made mistakes before...why can't he make mistakes about a francophone? You saw the list...he had Leblanc at #9...what if #8 is available? He still picks him? I guess the draft in 2006 should have been held in Montréal....we woudl have picked Giroux. But then thank god it wasn't held in Montréal in 2007...he would have picked Perron etc....Don't know what was driven behind the Leblanc pick....I know that most and tons of lists DID have Leblanc around our pick. And not as mock drafts...as lists. People love to say it as it was a known fact, as if we picked him out of the 5th round or something....And even if it was true, what's not true is that people also want to believe that Kreider would have been our pick....while Kreider was far away in the acceptable list...not even first on that list.

2009 doesn't happen if it weren't for 2006,2007,2008.

That's the whole thing, it was the centennial year, we didn't get Lecavalier (thank god) and the whole team was getting flak for Fischer, McDonagh, Pacioretty and Kristo.

Don't you remember? "Les Montreal Americans"
When McDonagh,Pacioretty and Subban were drafted the headline on RDS was "Bienevenue a Montreal, Olivier Fortier!!"
If Leblanc was on the board, a local boy, with the draft in Montreal, centennial year, going the NCAA route, they would've been murdered on the spot if they passed on him. I was hoping/praying he wouldn't be there, that some team would be dumb enough to take him ahead of us. Alas, they weren't and the team was handcuffed enough due to the pressures and the heat from previous years that they took the obvious bust.

They compounded the problem by wasting a 2nd round pick to trade up for Tinordi the following year. But that's another thread.

 

[hockeyfan2k11]

I give Nill credit for building the front end, as I give Bergevin credit for finishing the build on our back end. But being seduced by forwards and totally dismissing dmen is simply not how the game works. Teams get nowhere without a solid defence. Tampa didn't get to the SCF simply by scoring a ton of goals, they got through tight series thanks to an awesome defense led by Hedman. And they lost to a team with weaker offence and stronger defense. LA and Boston were built from the defence out, especially Boston. Without their D none of these teams come close to their Cups. Look back at Detroit and New Jersey. It's a strong defensive system, supplemented by decent offense.

Why not dismiss the goalie as well? After, he's only there to counter goals, just like the defence.

Yes, Nill is 'working on the D'. And Bergevin is 'working on the O'. It isn't easy fixing either end, but we'll see which approach has worked out better in 10 months.

Bergy had Subban, Markov, Beaulieu, Tinordi, Emelin, Gorges... Bergie brought in Petry. Great.

Again, the cupboard was fully stocked for Bergy. He gets too much credit for doing the minimum and too much credit for not being a complete mess. Is this what things have come to?

Anyways, He brought in Petry (who I hope will live up to his contract) and bought out a few underprefroming players and shored up the 4th line. The degree of difficulty on that is a 0.

Bergie is working on the O and whiffing. HIs lack of execution is pathetic. He has whiffed on Briere and PAP. What has he done to the D exactly? He inherited PK, Emelin, Markov, Beaulieu, Tinordi, Gorges. It's not easy to fix this D? And IMO it never needed fixing. Just tweaking. And that's what he did with Petry. 4 summers of work. Not to mention the myriad of middling DMen he has brought during his tenure. Bouillion had no business playing in the league. Douglas Murray? WTF? Look at how much money is tied up in the D? Again, this is not something I'd sing Bergie's praises for.

For me, Bergie gets way to much praise for what he's done. And people are looking at the record which is completely fine. But when you analyze the entire body of work, I have no idea why he has as much support as he does yet Nill gets destroyed.

Nill did something that Bergie said was impossible to do. He did it twice. Meanwhile Bergie's hoping and praying his unproven prospects step up. Talk about lazy.

Bringing up Boston, LA, Detroit is kind of ridiculous as those teams were built. Bergie's Habs team's core is the same exact as when he came in. And since we can't count the 1st summer he came in, then we can't count Galchenyuk or Gallagher. So, what has he done to deserve all this praise? Don't look at the record. Are you happy with the development of our youth? Are you pleased with the coaching staff in the minors and NHL? Are you happy with the terrible team stats? Are you happy that Bergie has struggled to replace the top 6 forward he let walk for nothing?

Bergie couldn't build a team like those other teams did. The guy is petrified of making an impact move. Completely petrified.

 

[Whitesnake]

2009 doesn't happen if it weren't for 2006,2007,2008.

That's the whole thing, it was the centennial year, we didn't get Lecavalier (thank god) and the whole team was getting flak for Fischer, McDonagh, Pacioretty and Kristo.

Don't you remember? "Les Montreal Americans"
When McDonagh,Pacioretty and Subban were drafted the headline on RDS was "Bienevenue a Montreal, Olivier Fortier!!"
If Leblanc was on the board, a local boy, with the draft in Montreal, centennial year, going the NCAA route, they would've been murdered on the spot if they passed on him. I was hoping/praying he wouldn't be there, that some team would be dumb enough to take him ahead of us. Alas, they weren't and the team was handcuffed enough due to the pressures and the heat from previous years that they took the obvious bust.

They compounded the problem by wasting a 2nd round pick to trade up for Tinordi the following year. But that's another thread.

They KEEP being murdered day after day for having so few quebecers on the team. Every single day of every single year. I really don't see Timmins as a guy who is afraid of all this stuff. And don't see whoever GM that cares enough for the francophone "quota" for them to be worried about that too. But I just don't think there's any certainty to say that we drafted Leblanc even if we didn't like him.

 

[WeThreeKings]

They KEEP being murdered day after day for having so few quebecers on the team. Every single day of every single year. I really don't see Timmins as a guy who is afraid of all this stuff. And don't see whoever GM that cares enough for the francophone "quota" for them to be worried about that too. But I just don't think there's any certainty to say that we drafted Leblanc even if we didn't like him.

It's their own fault for all of this. It should've been nipped in the ass a long time ago.

No more language requirements for any position to deal with actual hockey operations. If a journalist/media member slanders the team for not enough quebecois/francophones on the team. Immediate revocation of their press-pass.

Wanna talk **** now? I bet they'll be quiet as mice as soon as the first time someone's credentials were revoked.

 

[CupInSIX]

I'm not big on conspiracy theories but the first round of the 2009 draft seemed a bit of a put on for the hometown crowd, from the local boy selection to the list of names left out in the open for a nosey camera man to zoom in on.

They said it was Timmins' call but I doubt it. I think if he is picking for another team he takes Kreider. If Kreider isn't available he takes Leblanc. That's my take on it.

 

[Whitesnake]

It's their own fault for all of this. It should've been nipped in the ass a long time ago.

No more language requirements for any position to deal with actual hockey operations. If a journalist/media member slanders the team for not enough quebecois/francophones on the team. Immediate revocation of their press-pass.

Wanna talk **** now? I bet they'll be quiet as mice as soon as the first time someone's credentials were revoked.

Geez...don't believe in that freedom of press thing do you.... Actually, I don't believe that at all and we are clearly at the opposite in that subject. Only think I'll agree with you is your very first phrase...."It's the own fault for all of this". But totally not for the reason you invoked. On the contrary. I will always blieve that you still have to respect the franchise for what it was and what it should be. We have a distinction and actually, it's not a bad one, as this team and the Nordiques are one of the reason why there are and were really great coaches that saw the light in this league. As everybody goes with their positive discrimination, going mostly with who they know than what they know....francos don't have a whole lot of openings even as brillant or educated they could be. We still have a role to play in this. It CANNOT be detrimental to the success of the team and frankly, seeing that there are few and few Quebecers that play for this team...nobody can say that they are responsible for the lack of success there is. But the inability of the old management and their lack of interest of the Q product made people want more and more. Not having regular scouts for the Q was a disgrace to that franchise. Yep....product wasn,t as interesting...yet, you don't need a lot of products....everybody can scout that....what you need is to find the hidden gems....and that league had a few and when you knew that half of the NHL teams weren' t interested in it...maybe you could have made it your own Sweden (to a certain extent). So the lack of interest in our diversity made people avid from the next future superstar. Mind you, to be sure that the location of the draft is never a problem anymore.....might as well not have any of the drafts here ever again. Yet, I'm still not convinced it was all about that either. They would not have picked somebody they didn't liked. You didn't like him. You can't tell me that you think that Timmins didn' tlike him the way you did, and STILL pick him. I don't believe you.

 

[Whitesnake]

I'm not big on conspiracy theories but the first round of the 2009 draft seemed a bit of a put on for the hometown crowd, from the local boy selection to the list of names left out in the open for a nosey camera man to zoom in on.

They said it was Timmins' call but I doubt it. I think if he is picking for another team he takes Kreider. If Kreider isn't available he takes Leblanc. That's my take on it.

So that list was fake...Leblanc was never #9...and Kreider put in the acceptable list, in the middle of it, was put there just to not show how really interested they were...

 

[HabsChik*]

Why wouldn't he? He made mistakes before...why can't he make mistakes about a francophone? You saw the list...he had Leblanc at #9...what if #8 is available? He still picks him? I guess the draft in 2006 should have been held in Montréal....we woudl have picked Giroux. But then thank god it wasn't held in Montréal in 2007...he would have picked Perron etc....Don't know what was driven behind the Leblanc pick....I know that most and tons of lists DID have Leblanc around our pick. And not as mock drafts...as lists. People love to say it as it was a known fact, as if we picked him out of the 5th round or something....And even if it was true, what's not true is that people also want to believe that Kreider would have been our pick....while Kreider was far away in the acceptable list...not even first on that list.

Giroux is NOT from Quebec lol

 

[Rapala]

No but he is a francophone.
Mitchell is from Quebec and is a Quebecois like many of us,
but He doesn't get any extra love because of it. (Giroux would)
Could you imagine the love Toews would get being a francophone if he played here...
It's more about mother tongue than birthplace.
The fans want players who speak their language.
But they are very tolerant of unilingual superstars.

 

[Whitesnake]

Giroux is NOT from Quebec lol

Who cares. He was treated like a Québec kid with all the outrage for not picking him. He speaks french, and played in the Q, you surely can do the math yourself.

 

[Whitesnake]

We need to see the Preds about Craig Smith.