HF Habs: Trade Proposal Thread #88: 2024 Off-Season Thread

[BLONG7]

Because that's what some people do. We won the games we had to and played terrific doing it. It was a great run and was exciting to watch.

It was a great run.........and great to watch. Leafs, Jets and Vegas were all favoured to beat the Habs, and no one told Price.
Fell short, but as fans who have had nothing to cheer about, it was fun. Then, the very next season a crash and burn like we have never seen ...................the good thing, was they escorted MB out of the building.

 

[DAChampion]

Remove the covid and it's 7 years of non playoffs.
Dear god our roster was bad

If you remove the good all that's left is the bad.

 

[Andy]

If you remove the good all that's left is the bad.

Sure, but the "good" occurred in some very exceptional circumstances.

The pandemic seasons were incredibly unique. If not for a play-in, the habs miss the playoffs at that point in the season. If the season was not shortened, they likely do not make up enough points to sneak into the POs.

The following season, the habs played in a Canadian division which in hindsight was not very strong. In a regular Atlantic division, it is hard to envision a scenario where the habs make it into a wild card spot.

So the "good" happened in exceptional, unlikely to repeat circumstances.

 

[Deebs]

If you remove the good all that's left is the bad.

You take the good, you take the bad, you take them both and there you have....the facts of life

 

[DAChampion]

Simply put, it was an argument most often put forth to make the Bergevin-era look like it culminated into something when in fact it was a freak event and all of us who followed that season know the Habs fell apart that season, tumbled ass-first into the playoffs and put on a memorable but otherwise unremarkable run.

In the spring of 2021 Price stood on his head and carried the team until he didn't and we lost. How much should we celebrate this great achievement?

In context: The Habs had won zero playoff rounds* (excl. one "play-in" round during Covid) in the preceding FIVE years and won zero playoff rounds in the succeeding three years (and counting).

View attachment 905990

It further reinforces that the Finals run was an aberration.

I may be the poster that expended the most words on here criticizing Bergevin, but I'll give him credit for the finals run. That was him.

It wasn't just riding Price, though that was a big part of it, the biggest part. Most of us would not have given that contract.

Bergevin added Chiarot and Edmondson. You'll recall that Chiarot was sometimes called shit-rot on here, and when Edmondson was added we had "advanced" stats people on here argue that he was the worst defenseman in the NHL -- no exaggeration. People actually said he was the worst dman in the NHL. He wasn't. Bergevin was right and the "advanced" stats people were wrong.

Bergevin added Toffoli and Anderson. They scored a lot of the goals during the quarantine. It was also capitalizing on cap space, which Bergevin had refused to waste in previous years and instead declined to spend it if nobody good was available.

Corey Perry helped. No other team in the NHL wanted him.

One can be critical of an individual in general and still recognize when they did well.

 

[Captain Mountain]

Sure, but the "good" occurred in some very exceptional circumstances.

The pandemic seasons were incredibly unique. If not for a play-in, the habs miss the playoffs at that point in the season. If the season was not shortened, they likely do not make up enough points to sneak into the POs.

The following season, the habs played in a Canadian division which in hindsight was not very strong. In a regular Atlantic division, it is hard to envision a scenario where the habs make it into a wild card spot.

So the "good" happened in exception, unlikely to repeat circumstances.

That has less to do with the Canadian division not being strong and more to do with the Atlantic division being incredibly strong. Nor does it mean Montreal wasn't hurt by exception circumstances too (like poor injury luck or being one of the best teams to miss the playoffs in modern NHL history in 2020).

Montreal was an excellent 5v5 team that didn't have the talent on the PP or a strong enough PK to be more than a team who could maybe make the playoffs and make some noise if everything went right. Kind of like the current Kraken - a team that could make some noise if things go right, but go off the rails if things go really wrong.

The revisionist history is also unnecessary considering it was always pretty clear that Montreal had a low, short ceiling under Bergevin's "retool". He bet on players over 30 with injury history and relied on an unconventional 1st line that was seriously underpaid for their performance. It was never going to be sustainable once players started getting paid for past performance instead of future performance. The organization is actually fortunate it blew up so badly in 2021-2022, otherwise they may still be meandering in the mushy middle instead of actually addressing the rot and rebuilding.

 

[ReHabs]

I may be the poster that expended the most words on here criticizing Bergevin, but I'll give him credit for the finals run. That was him.

It wasn't just riding Price, though that was a big part of it, the biggest part. Most of us would not have given that contract.

Bergevin added Chiarot and Edmondson. You'll recall that Chiarot was sometimes called shit-rot on here, and when Edmondson was added we had "advanced" stats people on here argue that he was the worst defenseman in the NHL -- no exaggeration. People actually said he was the worst dman in the NHL. He wasn't. Bergevin was right and the "advanced" stats people were wrong.

Bergevin added Toffoli and Anderson. They scored a lot of the goals during the quarantine. It was also capitalizing on cap space, which Bergevin had refused to waste in previous years and instead declined to spend it if nobody good was available.

Corey Perry helped. No other team in the NHL wanted him.

One can be critical of an individual in general and still recognize when they did well.

I'm not interested to re-litigate the Bergevin era or his decisions one-by-one.

You asked why some people discount the Finals run and I gave my thoughts, to repeat: it was an aberration and we didn't win in the end so it's not even a fluke win to celebrate. So what do you want us to celebrate?

 

[Gaylord Q Tinkledink]

Is that you Mike Therrien

ya got me

People going to be punching their monitors, snapping their laptops and throwing their phones now.

 

[Andy]

That has less to do with the Canadian division not being strong and more to do with the Atlantic division being incredibly strong. Nor does it mean Montreal wasn't hurt by exception circumstances too (like poor injury luck or being one of the best teams to miss the playoffs in modern NHL history in 2020).

Montreal was an excellent 5v5 team that didn't have the talent on the PP or a strong enough PK to be more than a team who could maybe make the playoffs and make some noise if everything went right. Kind of like the current Kraken - a team that could make some noise if things go right, but go off the rails if things go really wrong.

The revisionist history is also unnecessary considering it was always pretty clear that Montreal had a low, short ceiling under Bergevin's "retool". He bet on players over 30 with injury history and relied on an unconventional 1st line that was seriously underpaid for their performance. It was never going to be sustainable once players started getting paid for past performance instead of future performance. The organization is actually fortunate it blew up so badly in 2021-2022, otherwise they may still be meandering in the mushy middle instead of actually addressing the rot and rebuilding.

injuries are a regular part of hockey though. Once a century pandemic that results in one-time tournaments and re-orienting divisions are not a regular part of hockey.

Perhaps you can argue that the habs could in theory have made the playoffs in the second pandemic season if it was the regular Atlantic division. I don't see it, but you can always make a case for a theoretical season. However, the play-in year, the habs were unequivocally not a playoff team.

 

[ReHabs]

It was a great run.........and great to watch. Leafs, Jets and Vegas were all favoured to beat the Habs, and no one told Price.
Fell short, but as fans who have had nothing to cheer about, it was fun. Then, the very next season a crash and burn like we have never seen ...................the good thing, was they escorted MB out of the building.

I think people are speaking over each other.

On one side you have your argument, which is 100% correct: it was fun to cheer for the run.

Some die-hard Bergevin haters might've been furious that they were being "proven wrong" but I would say at least 90% of all Habs fans were super happy about the run and the excitement that came with it. I was one of them! Given the difficulties and pressures of Covid and everything the sight of Lehkonen's series winning OT goal in a bar full of QCers in New York was personally a terrific experience. I got misty eyed.

On the other side you have people who refuse to dwell on it because it was an aberration. Even the fact the Habs had so much cap space to sign Chiarot and Perry was strange because Bergevin acquired Weber and gave Price that jumbo contract soon traded away Pacioretty... and then did diddly squat with the team. They called it a "retool" and turkeys like Arpon Basu gobbled it up.

Even only in the 20-21 season: the Habs started hot, then struggled and fired their coach and then stumbled and tumbled through the season. So I don't really see much argument to claim this was a good roster worth immortalising. The trend before and after that season, putting the season in context, proves it's not.

However, the play-in year, the habs were unequivocally not a playoff team.

The ONLY people who argued otherwise about this were dyed-in-the-wool Bergevinites.

It was around this time I checked out of Habs reddit (I'm too old for reddit anyway) and went to Habs twitter where there was less groupthink and more chaos.

 

[LaP]

Some die-hard Bergevin haters might've been furious that they were being "proven wrong" but I would say at least 90% of all Habs fans were super happy about the run and the excitement that came with it. I was one of them! Given the difficulties and pressures of Covid and everything the sight of Lehkonen's series winning OT goal in a bar full of QCers in New York was personally a terrific experience. I got misty eyed.

I would not say we were proven wrong at all.

The season itself was actually quite meh and disappointing. Team barely made the playoffs taking the last spot available and would have missed it if paired with the NorthEast division (i mean we are a north east team but covid made it so we played in canada). After all the UFA signing that was a letdown to me. The season itself looked like we went all-in with a pair of 6 and then we got a 6 on the turn and another 6 on the river.

The stars aligned for the playoffs with Caufield being added to the team and Staal having a revival before retiring. At the end of the day i feel like MB haters were actually proven right as the team would crumbled the following year and then take more than 5 years to recover from it. The run itself was enjoyable for what it was i.e. a flash in the pan. But the writing was on the wall and it was hard to get excited too much about the future of the lineup.

I'm still undecided to this day as to if the cup run was worth the pain of dealing with those awful contracts that came with it. If you ask me to choose between the cup run and selling at the 2020 deadline (we were 24th in the lague at the deadline) i still tend to go with selling at the 2020 deadline because we could have goten easily three 1st round picks and 3 good prospects. Gallagher was worth a 1st and a prospect. Petry was worth a 1st and a prospect. Danault was worth a 1st and a prospect. We would be in a very good position to win a cup now.

 

[HabsWhiteKnightLOL]

If you remove the good all that's left is the bad.

I mean in the bubble we were 24th in the league. We didn't not belong in the playoffs.

Also in the covid season we ended 24-32 we were outside the playoffs in a normal year.


We weren't good at all those 2 years

 

[overlords]

ya got me

People going to be punching their monitors, snapping their laptops and throwing their phones now.

I flick my toenails in your general direction

 

[Habs Halifax]

You take the good, you take the bad, you take them both and there you have....the facts of life

Yeah, but some like to twist and ignore because it suits their narrative. Got to make it fair for those people right?

 

[Habs Halifax]

I see that the name Bergevin still creates stupid little post wars. Any fan trying to twist or downplay our cup finals are reaching because they really do dislike Bergevin.

Call it what it is. Bergevin was horrible at long term planning and the cup finals was not a fluke. Both can be true people!

NOW... What trades are we talking about today?

 

[Gaylord Q Tinkledink]

I flick my toenails in your general direction

Damn, just missed them

 

[Le Barron de HF]

I may be the poster that expended the most words on here criticizing Bergevin, but I'll give him credit for the finals run. That was him.

It wasn't just riding Price, though that was a big part of it, the biggest part. Most of us would not have given that contract.

Bergevin added Chiarot and Edmondson. You'll recall that Chiarot was sometimes called shit-rot on here, and when Edmondson was added we had "advanced" stats people on here argue that he was the worst defenseman in the NHL -- no exaggeration. People actually said he was the worst dman in the NHL. He wasn't. Bergevin was right and the "advanced" stats people were wrong.

Bergevin added Toffoli and Anderson. They scored a lot of the goals during the quarantine. It was also capitalizing on cap space, which Bergevin had refused to waste in previous years and instead declined to spend it if nobody good was available.

Corey Perry helped. No other team in the NHL wanted him.

One can be critical of an individual in general and still recognize when they did well.

That was after hoarding cap space for no good reason though. He ended up lucky there was a flat cap and he was able to land some of these pieces. Especially sign Toffoli on the cheap. I doubt we would have done great moves if the pandemic hadn't happened and hampered other teams ability to spend as much

 

[Captain Mountain]

injuries are a regular part of hockey though. Once a century pandemic that results in one-time tournaments and re-orienting divisions are not a regular part of hockey.

Perhaps you can argue that the habs could in theory have made the playoffs in the second pandemic season if it was the regular Atlantic division. I don't see it, but you can always make a case for a theoretical season. However, the play-in year, the habs were unequivocally not a playoff team.

Re-orienting divisions is a regular part of hockey, but you're missing my point.

The reality was that Montreal was a pretty good team during that time. Not a contender, not great and not necessarily a playoff lock. But a decent team with clear strengths and very clear flaws.

Like, Montreal wasn't a playoff team in 2019-2020 because their PP was awful and their PK was bad (largely due to Price's play). That doesn't change they were incredibly unlucky to miss the playoffs the previous season and that the Canadian division wasn't nearly as bad as people seem to be saying (you think the fact that apart from Montreal they probably had more good to great teams than any of the other divisions in the bubble season. The plan was never sustainable though and we're lucky it imploded so badly in 2021-2022.

 

[ReHabs]

I would not say we were proven wrong at all.

The season itself was actually quite meh and disappointing. Team barely made the playoffs taking the last spot available and would have missed it if paired with the NorthEast division (i mean we are a north east team but covid made it so we played in canada). After all the UFA signing that was a letdown to me. The season itself looked like we went all-in with a pair of 6 and then we got a 6 on the turn and another 6 on the river.

The stars aligned for the playoffs with Caufield being added to the team and Staal having a revival before retiring. At the end of the day i feel like MB haters were actually proven right as the team would crumbled the following year and then take more than 5 years to recover from it. The run itself was enjoyable for what it was i.e. a flash in the pan. But the writing was on the wall and it was hard to get excited too much about the future of the lineup.

I'm still undecided to this day as to if the cup run was worth the pain of dealing with those awful contracts that came with it. If you ask me to choose between the cup run and selling at the 2020 deadline (we were 24th in the lague at the deadline) i still tend to go with selling at the 2020 deadline because we could have goten easily three 1st round picks and 3 good prospects. Gallagher was worth a 1st and a prospect. Petry was worth a 1st and a prospect. Danault was worth a 1st and a prospect. We would be in a very good position to win a cup now.

Careful now, I’d call it a Finals run and not a Cup run. I would take a lot of punishment for a Cup, not so much for a Finals appearance.

 

[ReHabs]

The reality was that Montreal was a pretty good team during that time. Not a contender, not great and not necessarily a playoff lock.

Not even a playoff lock (8th of 16)… means it was a 12th-to-9th out of 16 team. In your own words, is that a “pretty good team”?

 

[bsl]

I'm left handed and do everything right handed lol golf batting and shooting

That’s actually normal

 

[bsl]

Slafkovsky - Suzuki - Caufield
Roy - Dach - Laine
Armia - Newhook - Gallagher
Evans - Dvorak - Anderson

Is pretty much what we're going to roll next year I think

Cc suz slaf
Laine dach newhook
Anderson Dvorak armia
Roy Evans gally
They’re not gonna bury Dvorak or anderson on lne 4. They need to be showcased with armia.
Roy can wait his turn. He’s shown very little so far

 

[1909]

Cc suz slaf
Laine dach newhook
Anderson Dvorak armia
Roy Evans gally
They’re not gonna bury Dvorak or anderson on lne 4. They need to be showcased with armia.
Roy can wait his turn. He’s shown very little so far

I’d rather see Roy having big minutes on a first line in Laval than on a 4th line in MTL. They still have Pezzetta or Barré-Boulet to fill that hole on the 4th. Gally on a 4th is useless.

Anyway, Habs will probably have injuries during the Camp as usual and a spot might open for Roy in the top-9.

 

[bsl]

He’s a perfect 3c. It wasn’t his fault he was thrown into this dumpster fire. If they can resign him for a decent term and $ I would be ok with it.

Kapenen and beck say hi.

 

[bsl]

This looks like a pretty solid well rounded lineup, however if Laine/Dach get injured again it's all a house of cards. I do hope the Habs get another top center in the meantime. When it comes to Anderson and Armia, if they can be physical, they will do fine on bottom six.

They’re not starting Anderson on line 4. He will be on line 3 and given a chance for redemption.