The state of the Habs Rebuild - The Next step

[Rapala]

I maintain my 82 points.

So you should if things worked out last season as planned I'm convinced we would be there or very very close to that already.
I suggested it would be a normal projection coming off the bottom and this year would be the crossover into positive territory.
I think most fans understand what it will take to reach that neutral zone and we should be good to go.
We still have a couple of immovable objects that aren't a great fit for what really ails us.
I also think many fans understand until we address the general softness on this roster we won't go beyond.

 

[Rapala]

Even without Laine we are still a better team then we were last year so we should still expect a increase in points and move up the standings. Laine was a luxury if he worked out but he was never required as part of the rebuilding process for us to be better. Even without Laine we have better secondary scoring then we did last year, the D is likely to be better, and our goalies look better too.

People seem to forget long before Laine was even an option there were some very positive projections for this team.
It still hinges on Kirby Dach staying healthy but even then we have far better call up depth than last season.
It all adds up. The only thing I worry about is if the team gets discouraged.
It's a tough mental task knowing you probably aren't going to end up where you thought you'd be at the end of February.
We know this team will have to outwork it's opponents every night and that it still won't be enough.

 

[Rapala]

Fwd group is too soft. Opponents have no problem running our core players because there's hardly any retaliation risk.

THIS PISSED ME OFF SO f***ING MUCH.
Suzuki comes off the All Star break puts the team on his back and this was always going to be the end result.
We all know it we all saw it down the stretch last year and against the Marlies the other night.
A lot of questionable stick work and harassment directed at Suzuki and Slaf. It got Slaf off his game to the point he decided to drop them.
This was the reason my off season moves would have been geared to addressing this shit before trying to land the vaunted top six addition.
Unless the addition was designed to address this. f***ing bullshit contracts and soft nothing players are killing me.
We didn't even get one hard nosed SOB roster ready player which is the biggest failure to date IMO.
Thank you for bringing this up again.