Why the Canadians suck. 10 years in the making.

[Tyson]

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Drafting is one thing, not having a competent staff and plan to develop the picks is the real issue.

 

[salbutera]

If you take out Plekanec, Pach, Price and Markov (I prob missed 2 or so), the only *star that we drafted was 40 years ago..... Not too much in drafting dept..

Who? Richer?

Habs haven’t drafted a consistent star player (PPG) in the 1st round since Lafleur..

 

[BLONG7]

Who? Richer?

Habs haven’t drafted a consistent star player (PPG) in the 1st round since Lafleur..

The struggle..............is real.

 

[Leon Lucius Black]

I mean… my God. You have two superstars who play their best in the postseason and you don’t add to it? You hire the worst coach in the league and play a midget as your number one? It’s just shocking how dumb that regime was.

The one year he actually made a big move to help our offense at the deadline with Vanek we made the ECF and we would've likely made the finals had Price stayed healthy.

The next year Price put up one of the best goaltending seasons of all time and we needed offensive help badly.. most GMs would've went all in and added to their forwards. Bergevin's solution was to add Brian Flynn and Torrey Mitchell lol.

 

[Lafleurs Guy]

The one year he actually made a big move to help our offense at the deadline with Vanek we made the ECF and we would've likely made the finals had Price stayed healthy.

Yep. And even there MT played him on the third line.

The next year Price put up one of the best goaltending seasons of all time and we needed offensive help badly.. most GMs would've went all in and added to their forwards. Bergevin's solution was to add Brian Flynn and Torrey Mitchell lol.

Awful.

And then in 2017 we blew up the team in front of Price and people wondered why his numbers collapsed.

Just a terrible GM.

 

[Habs]

---

Drafting is one thing, not having a competent staff and plan to develop the picks is the real issue.

Knowing when to trade franchise players is also key , they could have gotten a haul for Price

 

[Lafleurs Guy]

Knowing when to trade franchise players is also key , they could have gotten a haul for Price

Or we could’ve actually built around him. Either path would be better.

Instead we dismantled the team, threw him into the deep and and said ‘swim’.

And he STILL kicked ass in the playoffs. Just not enough to win a cup.

 

[Tyson]

Or we could’ve actually built around him. Either path would be better.

Instead we dismantled the team, threw him into the deep and and said ‘swim’.

And he STILL kicked ass in the playoffs. Just not enough to win a cup.

Well said

 

[Cournoyer12]

Got to Finals one year though. Plus semi finals twice. In 10 years, not that bad. Would have got to Finals twice if not for Kreider

I will always HATE Kreider !!!!!!!!

 

[Cournoyer12]

Chill people. Chill! We're in the middle of a much needed rebuild that will have many ups and downs. A week ago everyone was flying sky high.

Yeah, another roller coaster season , I expect a fairly long losing streak now! But at least we’re in 7th position for the draft now….. and dropping like a stone!

 

[Cournoyer12]

That’s more a result of us having low picks throughout the 90s and 2000s. Carey Price was our first top five in 25 years (the result of us winning a one time lottery) and he went onto a HOF career.

Again - bad management. No vision as to how to build a team. New management understands this and we’re seeing a deliberate rebuild based on getting higher picks. We’re also seeing much better development.

Our 6 D looks like it could be - Hutson,Guehle, RB, Mailloux, Struble, Wifi and then you’ve got guys like Barron, Engstrom, Mattheson, Harris - ridiculous depth. Up front we’ve got CC who I think will be a legit star and Slaf who also could be. Roy, Newhook, Suzuki, Dach… a better top six than we’ve had in eons. Plus whatever else we get in this year’s draft.

That’s actually a big physical team to play against. Add in a Lindstrom or an Eiserman… this club should be pretty good in a few years.

That’s more a result of us having low picks throughout the 90s and 2000s. Carey Price was our first top five in 25 years (the result of us winning a one time lottery) and he went onto a HOF career.

Again - bad management. No vision as to how to build a team. New management understands this and we’re seeing a deliberate rebuild based on getting higher picks. We’re also seeing much better development.

Our 6 D looks like it could be - Hutson,Guehle, RB, Mailloux, Struble, Wifi and then you’ve got guys like Barron, Engstrom, Mattheson, Harris - ridiculous depth. Up front we’ve got CC who I think will be a legit star and Slaf who also could be. Roy, Newhook, Suzuki, Dach… a better top six than we’ve had in eons. Plus whatever else we get in this year’s draft.

That’s actually a big physical team to play against. Add in a Lindstrom or an Eiserman… this club should be pretty good in a few years.

Just need to keep Dach and Newhook out of the PX

 

[JianYang]

I don't wanna hear it , Half this board thought Gainey/Bergevin teams were decent products , RDS and Antichambre brainwashed the majority of fans , half the fanbase can't even accept a rebuild and cry and cry and cry when we lose to the sens or san jose in November right now.

Management was always the problem and not rebuilding because of Price was also a problem. But nobody wanted to listen to us doom and gloomers for years. Saying *its so much easier to be negative and say I told you so* Yeah its easy when you have absolute nincompoop dinosaurs who can't speak proper french or english all across the organisation. Alot of us wanted to rebuild like 5 years ago so the fefans can suck it and suffer like us negative nancys did when DD was our first line center for 5 years straight and the media/fans kept spewing we had a good team hahahaha.

Fact is we have been a bottom 1 offensive product for 20 years , those are just simply facts , Arizona , Nshville , Minnesota have all put better offensive products on the ice in that span. I give those three examples because they are often cited as boring non offensive teams , theyve all had better forwards and more ppg players than us.


The organization deserves zero benefit of the doubt until they show they can build a team that the rest of the league won't laugh at when looking at it on paper like they have for the past 20 years.


Sorry but this Hughes era is beautiful to me I hope we tank for 3-4 more years. Better than competing for 8th with 0% chance to ever win anything like weve done for the past 2 decades. And I know some posters would prefer making the playoffs every year and lose in the first or second round and never win anything but at least be competitive , I think that's a joke , its about cups.

I don't think there was a great argument to tear things down until that year where they let Markov and radulov walk.... I believe that was the 2017 off-season.

Prior to that, they had pretty much one key peice missing down the middle to elevate them from being good to great. Bergevin never really seemed to swing for the fences in order to bring that peice in. It was a time to mortgage the future.... leave first round picks on the table, or leverage some young guys that had good value at the time like galchenyuk and Gallagher.

Bergevin just kinda let things play out without making that bold move, and i think he owed it to that group to stick his neck on the line and see what happens, good or bad.

I don't think he ever traded a first rounder if memory serves, unless sergachev counts but that's not really what I'm talking about.

 

[WeThreeKings]

Someone should photoshop the Gallagher hit on Pelech.

Make Pelech read "Carey Price's Prime"
and Gallagher's elbow read "Marc Bergevin's tenure"

 

[habbubba]

Can't go forward until the elephant in the room is addressed, we all know what it is, but no one is saying it.

 

[eurodin]

I am really worried about our D core. I don't see the pipeline and our Top 4 right now is hideous.

 

[montreal]

There's no question, drafting and development failed for some time now. If you look back at the 2007 draft, Timmins first 3 picks all ended up putting up over 200 pts in the NHL. Since that draft over the next 14 years Timmins had only 4 picks hit at least 200 pts in the NHL. (Gallagher, Galchenyuk, Leks, Sergachev) though Caufield will easily reach that and KK too plus whoever else might.

 

[Habs13]

A lot of it is due to years of stupid mindsets and things that are against HF rules for us to discuss. Narrowing the team's ability to hire the best people for certain positions, and thus prospects failed to properly develop.

If we're talking the last ten years, two names can be used as the answer fairly easily; Marc Bergevin and Geoff Molson, for allowing Bergevin to do all that he did.

 

[montreal]

I am really worried about our D core. I don't see the pipeline and our Top 4 right now is hideous.

It should take another 2-3 years I would think before we start to really see what the blueline is as right now after Guhle I don't know just what they have other then Harris, Struble, Xhekaj, Barron show some good and some not so good so at this point it's way too early to say what any of them will be.

Then you could be looking at adding Hutson, Engstrom and Reinbacher at some point in say the next 6-10 weeks. So it's going to take a few years to see what these 3 can bring as clearly they are seen as so of our best hopes along with Mailloux.

 

[RC51]

OK. if you dig deep into just why the habs have not been good for what 20 years. You could say bad GM or bad drafting or bad trades or bad contracts. all true. but the rel reason is the crazy idea that montreal is the most honest nhl team. Always doing what good for the NHL not the team. Dont you remember that for years and years you must try to make the playoffs EVERY YEAR no matter what. Habs will NEVER TANK to get top draft picks. We get what we get and HOPE. example, oilers tank get top picks, Pens tank get top picks, Tampa Tank get top picks, even the leafs got top picks Washington tank get OV need I go on.
BUT NHL told every team not to tank it's not good overall for the NHL tickets. So for years MTL do what they were asked by the NHL NEVER TANK, well othe teams told the NHL to go to helll we do whats good for my team not the NHL. Habs FINALLY got the message, told hab fans we tank for 3-4 years to rebuild well. Habs FANS understood and still buy tickets.
Even this year just TANK because all the young guys still need 2 years in the nhl. Just remember this almost all the habs will hit their prime at the same time, I can sure see the habs in 2-3 years not just having 1-2 good lines but all 4, I can see a team with 7-8 20 -25 goal players and a rock solid dman full group of 6-7. Of couse I know that fans from other teams will this and fire off that habs are bad habs are always bad habs will always be bad and every hab player is not worth a 7th rounder, sure yea yea yea haters just got the hate.

 

[WhoAreYou99]

2005 5 Carey Price (management deciding to draft a goalie at this position) nothing to do with the player
2006 20 David Fischer
2007 Win
2008 56 Danny Kristo ????
...
2012 Win
2016 Win
2018 Win
...
2018 Im pretty sure he'll bounce back
2019 win
2020 win
2021 win
2022 1 Salf This is a project, i can give them a pass
2022 26 Mesar 200% a win
2023 5 David Reinbacher, im not sold

It wasn't that bad

The problem was management, they sucked

"Im pretty sure he'll bounce back"

People have been saying the same thing about KK for years. He's not a player with the potential to be a Top6 player- never has been, and never will be. That pick was a mistake from the getgo

 

[salbutera]

2005 5 Carey Price (management deciding to draft a goalie at this position) nothing to do with the player
2006 20 David Fischer
2007 Win
2008 56 Danny Kristo ????
...
2012 Win
2016 Win
2018 Win
...
2018 Im pretty sure he'll bounce back
2019 win
2020 win
2021 win
2022 1 Salf This is a project, i can give them a pass
2022 26 Mesar 200% a win
2023 5 David Reinbacher, im not sold

It wasn't that bad

The problem was management, they sucked

 

[BehindTheTimes]

No.

We suck because Price stopped this team from doing a true rebuild for more than a decade. What should have happen a long time ago finally happens.

Price was elite for 3-4 seasons. This just isn’t true. We have sucked because of poor management and because we are way too conservative and risk adverse.

Look at those picks the OP posted, mostly pure dogshit. Picks with limited ceilings and very little offensive upside outside of Scherbak. I’d rather swing and miss on a guy like him than Tinordi, McCarron, etc where if everything goes right you have a 3rd liner and a 5/6 dman. Was obvious most of these picks had very limited upside.

Chucky and JK had some upside, but management f***ed with their development. Incompetence f***ed us, not Carey.

 

[Surfer72]

10 years of visible cracks in the very foundation....

'Average drafting, average asset management, terrible player development, lack of qualified or advanced trained personnel, no league envied sports medicine practices and/or supporting staff, 100% lack of modern and visionary plan in regards to any tool available to make a franchise better' bundled haphazardly together with expensive beer and hotdogs, comments of if you want loyalty get a dog and reactionary tactics.....all placed on the back of a generational goalie.

 

[MoneyManny]

2009: No head scout would have made it out alive the Bell Centre if they passed on Leblanc. I'm also convinced development played a huge role in the pick failure. Obviously, Kreider, Johansson or Palmieri would have been great.

2010: I wanted Brock Nelson and was convinced we traded up for him when the trade happened.

2011: Beaulieu was a good pick if you look at what was picked after. You have to go for #26 Danault for a bona fide better player and we got him anyway for cheap. Also likely would have been better in a era where his off-ice would actually been better monitored. Those years were insane.

2012: Galchenyuk, a lot of it is on development and off-ice stuff. No real homerun close either.

2013: McCarron is a big miss with Theodore and Hartman. Although a lot of the 25-35 was crap.

2014: Scherbak a huge miss again. Kempe and Barbashev would both be great. I was full on board on the pick though. Never developed in the pros. I personally like to blame Sly, but we're not in a sim so who knows.

2015: Feel bad blaming Juulsen for taking puck to the faces. Aho would have been great though.

2016: Sergachev was a great pick traded too soon for not enough.

2017: There was no way we were picking Oettinger with Price/Montoya/Lindgren/Fucale/McNiven/Hawkey. Apart from that, it's more of the same until 14 pick later with Robertson. Maybe Tolvanen or Frost, but not convinced they would have done well in MTL.

2018: Tkachuk would have been a better pick than KK, although I didn't like him and still don't like his knucklehead. There was also Hughes, but that would have been a "put both balls on the chopping block" kind of move at 3.

I think one part that has hurt a lot in those years is the constant need to trade for depth players that should have came internally, either from later picks or UDFA. We are just starting to get an influx of players from devlopment to fill roles that we normally would have to pay for salary and/or assets.

Just going to say, KK was just as much of a reach at 3 than Quinn Hughes with draft day knowledge. Your assessment is quite rational though and i appreciated it, gives a better perspective on things. With over 30 teams in the league, stars have to align for you to build a team that can truly contend.

We tend to see drafting as some kind of chess game rewarding smart scouts and decision makers, when it mostly is just luck. Does Tampa win a cup without Kucherov, Point, and a 1st OA and 2nd OA picks? They drafted a total noname with their first round pick before lucking out on Kucherov later. If any insight was involved, there's no way they give any other team the chance to draft him before them, no matter what the popular concensus is.

Even players with all world talent become useless really quickly if they lose their hunger or get involved in situations nobody can foresee such as alcohol etc...

Unless your scouting team includes Miss Cleo or Nostradamus, you can hardly tell what an 18 year old player is going to be like.

 

[Frankenheimer]

I blame regulation of free markets and lack of hockey culture down south. Year after year we subsidize shitty markets by self-imposing a limit to spending that allow non-hockey towns to survive. If these towns could support a losing franchise, and gradually increase revenue and interest through youth programs, as they do in European soccer leagues, then we wouldn't be in this predicament. I have no idea why the major hockey markets accepted this raw deal.