The state of the Habs Rebuild - The Next step

[Tyson]

Even mediocrity is better than what we've had since 15-16. But yes.

Agreed. It's getting harder and harder to be Habs fan. I haven't one game yet this year after impatiently waiting all summer for the season to start. I just can't watch this trainwreck.

 

[Mrb1p]

Agreed. It's getting harder and harder to be Habs fan. I haven't one game yet this year after impatiently waiting all summer for the season to start. I just can't watch this trainwreck.

I've watched and been excited for maybe 2 minutes of the season. Terrible team.

No talent and it's decisions like the 2023 draft and the non-decision to tank that bring us to this point.

 

[Habby4Life]

This season is cooked, knew it before it started, the lineup and coaching just isnt good enough. Hope we can get Hagens, Martone, or McQueen.

Move before or at TDL:
Armia
Dvo
Savard
Primeau

In offseason buyout:
Gally and Anderson

Re-sign:
Evans - he will be cheap, works hard, adds depth and is good on PK

Use some of the so called "deep prospect pool" and draft picks to acquire some top 6 depth and get a veteran RD that isnt 400 yrs old. Sign a real backup. Spend some money and rebuild the bottom size to have size, and physicallity.

Oh and last but not least, if they are insistent on keeping MSL, hire some veteran assistants who can teach these guys how to play without the puck. However, I prefer, punt Marty and hire a real coach.

Its time to start playing meaningful games past mid to late october, lol.

 

[JoelWarlord]

Just think were all underestimating the time its going to take for all of this to come together and be a good team, we only have 3 proven forwards and 2 proven D on the future, theres a lot of balls up in the air that need to be solidified before I feel better about this team

I definitely get that. My medium-term optimism comes from the fact that the most significant long-term roster holes (save for 1RD if we set Reinbacher aside and avoid opening that can of worms) are lower in the lineup. I don't think Caufield/Suzuki/Slafkovsky is a dynamite first line, but I think Suzuki and Slafkovsky are enough that you can build around that duo with the knowledge that Demidov is on the way. We also have a lot of trade ammo to go after a guy like Rasmus Andersson to improve the right side. IMO Laine ends up on the first line by the end of the year, and I can see a world where Dach gets his timing back and a Caufield-Dach-Demidov 2nd line looks good for us as soon as next year. Similarly on D, I think Guhle and Hutson are going to bring enough ceiling as they develop that we can be fairly comfortable about filling in the rest of the group.

I just think there's a lot of low-hanging fruit left in terms of raising the floor, and management is currently deliberately postponing those options because we still have a few too many legacy contracts, and we're rightly still giving opportunities to young players. At some point the Barron/Xhekaj/Mailloux cohort will either need to learn to defend at the NHL level or we'll move on, and I'm not exactly concerned about being able to find replacement bottom pair D. Similarly either Newhook/Roy figure out how to be good 2nd line complementary scoring wingers or we move one or both of them to the third line and sign a UFA.

Were 28th in the league since 2015-2016 in the win column. Were tied with Ottawa. Were 7 wins ahead of the Sabres.

The Price induced run gave a lot of rope to Molson. Guess what though ? That run ended 40 months ago. Since then we've seen very marginal progress and almost none in the last 24 months.

I agree that we weren't good in the last stages of the Weber/Price era despite the covid runs and we've been bad during the current rebuild, but if we didn't actually sell anything from the past core and turned Kotkaniemi/Sergachev into Dvorak and thin air that doesn't really help the current roster. Suzuki/Caufield and Dach from Romanov are nice pieces but that's not nearly enough, and Slafkovsky is still just 20 years old as the first major piece added during the current rebuild. We can't retroactively get trade returns for 2020 Weber, Danault, Tatar, Gallagher, and Price, and those missing returns and the missing core players from the 2010-18 drafts are what's holding us back right now. If we trade Suzuki and Caufield for picks and prospects I'd get the Sabres 2.0 comparisons but I don't think it makes much sense now.

Being frustrated that we haven't been good since a certain year doesn't magically convert Hutson/Guhle/Slaf from young players to their primes or get Demidov/Laine in the lineup. We have no inherited veteran core since we lost the entire last one in 2021 and the new "veteran core" was Hoffman, Savard, and Dvorak, the young players need to grow into their roles as the team's new core and that takes time.

The Hawks were good in the same time frame we were, they're coming out of it right now.

Chicago is 2-2-1 with wins over a sleepwalking Edmonton team and San Jose. Of course they're better than last year but I think they're basically just equivalent to where we were in 23-24. Chicago also went from 68 to 59 to 52 points over the last 3 seasons, wouldn't that suggest that rebuilds don't have to be some smooth linear clockwork progression and that progression can be non-linear?

It's a failure on Molson, Gorton and Hughes if we're bad for another one. Patience is just a bullshit term thrown around because we get attached to incompetent people.

I think it's a pretty logical perspective on a roster with a single 25 year old core player and the rest of the core being 23 or younger with our best defencemen being 20 and 22, and our best prospect still in Russia for the year.

 

[WeThreeKings]

Year 3 of a 5/8 proposition.

Yes, they should have said they wanted to improve their point totals in a meaningful way from last season rather than 'in the mix'; but they were never realistically targeting a playoff berth this year.

 

[Mrb1p]

I definitely get that. My medium-term optimism comes from the fact that the most significant long-term roster holes (save for 1RD if we set Reinbacher aside and avoid opening that can of worms) are lower in the lineup. I don't think Caufield/Suzuki/Slafkovsky is a dynamite first line, but I think Suzuki and Slafkovsky are enough that you can build around that duo with the knowledge that Demidov is on the way. We also have a lot of trade ammo to go after a guy like Rasmus Andersson to improve the right side. IMO Laine ends up on the first line by the end of the year, and I can see a world where Dach gets his timing back and a Caufield-Dach-Demidov 2nd line looks good for us as soon as next year. Similarly on D, I think Guhle and Hutson are going to bring enough ceiling as they develop that we can be fairly comfortable about filling in the rest of the group.

I just think there's a lot of low-hanging fruit left in terms of raising the floor, and management is currently deliberately postponing those options because we still have a few too many legacy contracts, and we're rightly still giving opportunities to young players. At some point the Barron/Xhekaj/Mailloux cohort will either need to learn to defend at the NHL level or we'll move on, and I'm not exactly concerned about being able to find replacement bottom pair D. Similarly either Newhook/Roy figure out how to be good 2nd line complementary scoring wingers or we move one or both of them to the third line and sign a UFA.

I agree that we weren't good in the last stages of the Weber/Price era despite the covid runs and we've been bad during the current rebuild, but if we didn't actually sell anything from the past core and turned Kotkaniemi/Sergachev into Dvorak and thin air that doesn't really help the current roster. Suzuki/Caufield and Dach from Romanov are nice pieces but that's not nearly enough, and Slafkovsky is still just 20 years old as the first major piece added during the current rebuild. We can't retroactively get trade returns for 2020 Weber, Danault, Tatar, Gallagher, and Price, and those missing returns and the missing core players from the 2010-18 drafts are what's holding us back right now. If we trade Suzuki and Caufield for picks and prospects I'd get the Sabres 2.0 comparisons but I don't think it makes much sense now.

Being frustrated that we haven't been good since a certain year doesn't magically convert Hutson/Guhle/Slaf from young players to their primes or get Demidov/Laine in the lineup. We have no inherited veteran core since we lost the entire last one in 2021 and the new "veteran core" was Hoffman, Savard, and Dvorak, the young players need to grow into their roles as the team's new core and that takes time.

Chicago is 2-2-1 with wins over a sleepwalking Edmonton team and San Jose. Of course they're better than last year but I think they're basically just equivalent to where we were in 23-24. Chicago also went from 68 to 59 to 52 points over the last 3 seasons, wouldn't that suggest that rebuilds don't have to be some smooth linear clockwork progression and that progression can be non-linear?

I think it's a pretty logical perspective on a roster with a single 25 year old core player and the rest of the core being 23 or younger with our best defencemen being 20 and 22, and our best prospect still in Russia for the year.

I'm not asking for a magic trick, I'm asking for progression towards actually "being in the mix". The season is over once again and we're 5 games in. That's the same story as the last 4 seasons.

Maybe we Buffaloed and drafted a core of losers and we need to restart the rebuild.
Maybe we drafted a good core but the management isn't getting the core up to speed.

It can't be "we need to pick 5th overall for X number of years before we're good".

 

[Leon Lucius Black]

“I think that as the season progresses and it gets after the trade deadline, we’re still in there, playing meaningful games, competing for a spot,” Gorton said to define being “in the mix.”

Gorton's goal was for the the team to gain experience in meaningful games, not exactly to be fighting for a playoff spot late in the year. It was a fair expectation after acquiring Laine and a good challenge to the young guys on the team to show improvements from the previous seasons.

This team likely doesn't have the firepower to complete with other teams fighting for a spot in March/April, but it would be somewhat disappointing if no improvements were shown and they are already nowhere near a spot after 3/4 of the season.

 

[Walksss]

Oh man the overreaction is always entertaining. The sky is not falling, the season is not over, things will be alright guys.

A lot of players are underperforming to their talent levels, the top line does not look anything like last year but they've shown they're capable of dominating for long stretches in the NHL so I'll give them some time.

Adversity builds character. We're gonna see how this team responds, it will tell us the character of the important guys in this rebuild.

Either they have it or they don't.

 

[Tyson]

I've watched and been excited for maybe 2 minutes of the season. Terrible team.

No talent and it's decisions like the 2023 draft and the non-decision to tank that bring us to this point.

My frustration is with coaches and what they are or aren't doing.