The state of the Habs Rebuild - The Next step

[Monsieur Miz]

im trolling? Boucher coached like what 500 games in the NHL, Hartley is coaching since 40 years? And you, what have you done my man? Jesus some people are delusional

Come on, man. That's not an argument. Bergevin has been in the league for 4 decades and he's a f***ing idiot. This business is the farthest you can have from a meritocracy.

Also, Boucher and Hartley didn't even coach the guy. They never talked to him. They probably watched him play as much as you and me. What do they know?

 

[Mrb1p]

We have a good young roster. I think forwards wise it’s okay as is.

The blueline is so green though, especially on the right side. And Matheson is in the last year of his deal… might as well just make a trade now.

Only Flames may be interested, I guess. I really don't want Andersson though. He's gonna be super expensive on his next contract. He was only paid 4.5, I expect he demands 8ish, thats a lot for what he provides.

I really, really wonder if there's a way we can pry out Parayko, he'd be a near perfect fit for us and the timeline is perfect too.

 

[Trenbohabs]

On this point we’ve already drafted another Michkov type player in Demidov.

We are far better positioned with Demidov who is 6'1 and will probably weight 200 pounds with tremendous fighting sense, defense awareness and Datsyuk hands that already speaks english than Michkov at 5'10

 

[Mrb1p]

Not much out there through UFA. Ekblad is the only impact RD UFA this summer but I can't imagine Florida won't figure out how to extend him. The next best RD options are Fabbro and Savard with not much else behind them. There's Provorov, Lindgren, Gavrikov, Chychrun, and Theodore on LD and some of those guys have played RD before but not sure that's the best fit for us (and Theodore's the best of the bunch but likely gets an extension from Vegas).

Not that I'm opposed to the concept of trading Matheson and adding a UFA/veteran D in general but I don't think we'll find a top pair RD that way. Savard is probably a top 3 RD on the UFA market for this summer.

Yes the market for RD's is absolutely dreadful.

We are far better positioned with Demidov who is 6'1 and will probably weight 200 pounds with tremendous fighting sense, defense awareness and Datsyuk hands that already speaks english than Michkov at 5'10

It's a false dilemma, we could've had both.

 

[Habs]

im trolling? Boucher coached like what 500 games in the NHL, Hartley is coaching since 40 years? And you, what have you done my man? Jesus some people are delusional

So did Mike Babcock ?

 

[Trenbohabs]

Come on, man. That's not an argument. Bergevin has been in the league for 4 decades and he's a f***ing idiot. This business is the farthest you can have from a meritocracy.

Also, Boucher and Hartley didn't even coach the guy. They never talked to him. They probably watched him play as much as you and me. What do they know?

They both have contacts all over the world and seen more footage of him than any of us combined. They're neurosurgeons of hockey, they evaluate every small detail and Boucher watched alot of his games he said.

Someone telling me that a coach/former coach of any pro lvl has no knowledge is the equivalent of someone telling me he knows better than a doctor. Come on

Yes the market for RD's is absolutely dreadful.


It's a false dilemma, we could've had both.

you dont win a cup without a guy like Reinbacher unless your left handed D man is Hedman and your top 6 is absolutely terrifying like the Panthers had last year

Kings Doughty
Pittsburgh Letang
Chicago Seabrook and Keith
Caps Carlson
Blues Pietrangelo
Vegas Pietrangelo
The list goes on and on and on

 

[Sorinth]

Someone telling me that a coach/former coach of any pro lvl has no knowledge is the equivalent of someone telling me he knows better than a doctor. Come on

Look I like Reinbacher but let's not pretend that NHL coaches are at all comparable to doctors in terms of knowledge and competency. Doctors have to actually meet qualifications, coaches even the good ones are hired based on friendships and who they know. If former NHL coach Michel Therrien says something about a prospect I'll assume the complete opposite is actually true.

 

[Redux91]

Reinbacher was drafted to be a #1RD and he will be our #1RD. What we need is a #3 or 4 RD to complete our top 4.

*might* be a RD1, and I'm not giving up 9n him at all
But even *with* Reinbacher , still need to look for a top4 RD, who *may* or *may not* become either a RD1 or a RD2, *also* depending on just what Reinbacher shows us 5 months from now

 

[Habs]

We are far better positioned with Demidov who is 6'1 and will probably weight 200 pounds with tremendous fighting sense, defense awareness and Datsyuk hands that already speaks english than Michkov at 5'10

Like any of us thought Demidov would be available at 5 this year lol. But lets pretend that's the reason we skipped on Michkov

 

[Mrb1p]

They both have contacts all over the world and seen more footage of him than any of us combined. They're neurosurgeons of hockey, they evaluate every small detail and Boucher watched alot of his games he said.

Someone telling me that a coach/former coach of any pro lvl has no knowledge is the equivalent of someone telling me he knows better than a doctor. Come on


you dont win a cup without a guy like Reinbacher unless your left handed D man is Hedman and your top 6 is absolutely terrifying like the Panthers had last year

Kings Doughty
Pittsburgh Letang
Chicago Seabrook and Keith
Caps Carlson
Blues Pietrangelo
Vegas Pietrangelo
The list goes on and on and on

Reinbacher isn't any of those guys right now and may never be.

All these teams also had amazing players. Your using another fallacy to prove a point. Teams win with good players, not with a certain archetype.

 

[Lafleurs Guy]

Like any of us thought Demidov would be available at 5 this year lol. But lets pretend that's the reason we skipped on Michkov

That’s not what was argued.

What WTK said was that the team may have felt it was more likely to draft a player with Michkov’s profile in later drafts. And that is in fact what happened in the very next draft.

 

[Tabarouette]

And yet you’ll shit in him anyway.

that'll be pretty hard to achieve, INSIDE him?!

idk man I think it's a little bonkers that Habs is getting attacked to expect our #5 overall to be a difference maker and not just a good 2nd pair dman. Michkov makes it worst yes 100%, but remove him from the equation and this guy better be f***ing great otherwise our scouting team did a poor job

but I refuse to remove the context away from that pick because it's really important and ignoring it only helps the copium side of the argument justify it in case it goes south

 

[Lafleurs Guy]

that'll be pretty hard to achieve, INSIDE him?!

idk man I think it's a little bonkers that Habs is getting attacked to expect our #5 overall to be a difference maker and not just a good 2nd pair dman. Michkov makes it worst yes 100%, but remove him from the equation and this guy better be f***ing great otherwise our scouting team did a poor job

but I refuse to remove the context away from that pick because it's really important and ignoring it only helps the copium side of the argument justify it in case it goes south

Again,

He might wind up being a bad pick. I don’t know any more than you do.

But let’s at least wait to see what he can do.

 

[Lafleurs Guy]

Reinbacher was drafted to be a #1RD and he will be our #1RD. What we need is a #3 or 4 RD to complete our top 4.

If he is a number one he won’t be the day he steps on the ice for his first game. Very few players can do that.

In the meantime, it’s not a bad idea to have a vet to help bring him along. That would be the same for Mailloux/Barron as well.

 

[Habs]

That’s not what was argued.

What WTK said was that the team may have felt it was more likely to draft a player with Michkov’s profile in later drafts. And that is in fact what happened in the very next draft.

You don't think that's a way to manage a team's future do you? 'Hoping' a certain player will be around in a future date? You take what you can and run

 

[Grate n Colorful Oz]

In the meantime, they have succesfully integrated into the team prospects like Guhle, Slafkovsky and dare I say Hutson?

I don't know about you, but I don't remember anything similar since I've started following this team in 2003.

You can include Caufield.

In the span of four years, between 03 and 07, we integrated Komisarek, Higgins, Ryder, Plekanec and AKostitsyn. In the three following years, we integrated Halak, Pacioretty, Subban and Price.

So it's not like it never happened before, it just stopped happening when Bergevin got his anti-midas touch on the team.

 

[Lafleurs Guy]

You don't think that's a way to manage a team's future do you? 'Hoping' a certain player will be around in a future date? You take what you can and run

It’s the same with every player. Same with Michkov, same with Demidov. You draft what you think can help you the most in the long run and position scarcity factors into that decision.

Scoring wingers are more readily available than stud RDs. I’m sure that factored into the decision. And they were right in the sense that the following draft another scoring winger was available for them. There wasn’t an equivalent right side blueliner. So from that standpoint, they made the right choice.

All that being said, these are prospects and we don’t know how it will ultimately work out. Maybe Michkov is a superstar and RB and Demidov bust. We can’t know that now. And maybe it works out the other way…

Bottom line is that the Canadiens needed a stud RD and a stud scoring winger. They came away from those drafts with players they felt could fill both needs. Now we have to wait and see how it works out.

 

[Trabdy2]

You don't think that's a way to manage a team's future do you? 'Hoping' a certain player will be around in a future date? You take what you can and run

They weren't planning around "hope".

They were planning around taking a player with a profile that is very challenging to find in the draft: RHD with good size and mobility that can play both sides of the game well. Our other two RHD prospects who were formerly picked in the first round (Mailloux and Barron) have shown us first hand how challenging it can be to defend in the NHL, and how hard that player can be to find. They don't grow on trees.

They were planning around taking an offensively gifted player the next year, because they knew there would be offensively gifted players around where they were going to be drafting in 2024. That player happened to be Demidov, the way the cards fell.

 

[Grate n Colorful Oz]

Guhle - Andersson
Hutson -

We surely have the ammunition and cap space to pull this off.

The notion of Lane Hutson playing on the second pairing will soon become something odd.

He tilts the ice waaay too much to be left on a second pairing. The more games he plays, the more this will become apparent.

Neither Guhle nor Andersson tilts the ice quite like Hutson does.

 

[Archijerej]

Reinbacher was drafted to be a #1RD and he will be our #1RD. What we need is a #3 or 4 RD to complete our top 4.

I don't think it works that way. He turns 20 this month and is out for the year with a busted knee. Lets say he develops into a top shutdown defenseman 5 years from now. It is hardly a good strategy to postpone your competitive window until that happens.

 

[HabzSauce]

But the calculus changes if Michkov wants to be here and tells the Habs he can get over to North America in 1 year, opposed to the 3 year contract he had.

At that point if they make the Reinbacher pick and it's clear Michkov was the better pick, then the heat is warranted.

But if a guy is telling one team one thing and other's something else.. that tells me that player didn't want to be here, so we don't know what happens if we draft him and he threatens to extend in Russia unless he gets traded to Philly or something like that.. look at the bath Philly had to take trading Gauthier when he wanted out.

There's enough around the Michkov situation to understand it wasn't just player vs. player when making a high pick there. It's too high value of a pick to leave anything up to chance, and I think the fact the Habs used the 'culture' word around Reinbacher, they might have known a bit from Bobrov's connections in SKA that there was a desire on Michkov's part to go to a certain franchise or place.. and taking someone who doesn't want to be on your team would be a part of that culture equation. They clearly don't want people who don't want to be here and I wouldn't either, regardless of how talented that player is.

It's just not as simple as BPA in this circumstance and we have enough coming out of the whole process now that confirms it had many layers to it.

In bold is what I question. Nobody knows what he told MTL. I can't for life of me imagine he hard balled the Habs. He said he wanted a hockey market, with good management and a chance to win. MTL slaps philly in all those categories. And MTL has been very kind to Russians - they all seem to love it here.

So I doubt he was playing mind games but that's just my opinion. You may be right in saying Michkov was f*cking with the Habs. And if that's the case I'd pass on him too.

But Bobrov is interesting. He has ties there obviously and prior to the draft if anyone had a pulse on michkov the player and also michkov the person, it would be him. You have to think there must have been more reasons deterring the Habs away than just his game (position, size, ability, character). But for some reason I doubt that. I think they just preferred having more control with Reinbacher and also fact he was RD.

Who knows maybe Habs DID want to draft him but Molson vetoed it

 

[dinodebino]

Les pisseux de vinaigre sont de retour.

 

[AHShadow]

You don't think that's a way to manage a team's future do you? 'Hoping' a certain player will be around in a future date? You take what you can and run

I think the Habs knew they wanted both a two-way big RD and a potential superstar winger and thought that at 5OA it's harder to draft the two-way big RD vs the potential superstar winger so they went with Reinbacher.

And they were right in the sense that the best 2-way RD in 2024 went 2nd overall where as Demidov fell to us.

Not defending the pick (I also would've preferred Michkov and Demidov), but I understand the logic behind it.

 

[The Last Red]

Michkov apparently wanted to go to Philly because of its relative proximity to Brooklyn's huge Russian community. I doubt he was too interested in the Habs. They still should have drafted him.

 

[Kobe Armstrong]

He's going to be a calder candidate. He may even win it.

I'm ignoring the threads where the highest concentration of crying is going to be, because it's not a good use of anyone's time or energy.

Michkov picked his team, we took the BPA among NHL teams and scouting staff if you take Michkov out of the equation.

Like are we forgetting the Sharks took Will Smith at 4 over Michkov, too? That's because they got the same misinformation from Michkov's camp as the Habs and Arizona did.

If the Habs couldn't convince Michkov to come to Montreal, that's a big failure on them, regardless of how his career turns out