What happened?

What in tarnation. Has a franchise had a more bizarre few months than the habs? It has been so weird making it to the Stanley Cup final seems like a distant secondary memory. It started even before the end of last season when Jonathan Drouin decided to take a leave of absence during a playoff race. The team made the playoffs and went to the stanley cup final not knowing what was ailing one of their star players.  Once the season ended things took a more twisted turn as the main pillars of the stanley cup run began to crumble or disappear.  I am not sure if I am chronologically listing the twists and turns correctly but here is what happened. Rumours began that Shea Weber was chronically injured and would probably retire.  These rumours have been proven to be true since Shea Weber never showed up for training camp and apparently is still at home in BC. The key word is apparently because all we have had are vague statements from Bergevin as to Weber’s status and zero commun...

Do I really need a vacation after the sports euphoria I just incurred being an azzurri and hab fan. Some of it I barely believe even now it was all so surreal. The Azzurri are Emperors of Europe and the Habs are Kings of the North. I was feeling positive about both teams as early as January (see some of my tweets back then) but my faith started to crumble a bit especially with the habs. The habs barely made the playoffs. Some of it was due to Covid and their tortuous schedule when some  of the games had been cancelled due to Armia testing positive. Some of it was also due to their collapse during the year which led to Julien’s ouster.   Bergevin and Molson were finally able to sign free agents when American owners decided not to spend after losing money in empty arenas. The cap space Bergevin had left unused for several years helped as well.  The new habs players brought enthusiasm and a winning culture. Corey Perry was a revelation as he symbolically stood in front of th...

The habs are once again in disarray . Is it time for our collective primal scream...Yes they were in disarray last year when the pandemic hit. There were few bright spots, players having good years could be counted on one hand. Tatar, Gallagher, a revitalized Weber, and the improving Suzuki were the only positives. On the negative side  Carey Price was a shell of his former self. Kotkaniemi was in the AHL, Drouin was recovering from an injury and unable to keep up, and Max Domi decided he was going to play like his Coyote days. Well the NHL resumed the season with an improvised playoffs, the habs played like gangbusters for one series and then gradually receded back to reality against the flyers.  Once again the habs came out like gangbusters this year with several new players. The new players produced and there was eternal hope. However, things started to fall apart at the 10 game mark and now the habs are in eternal freefall. They have changed coaches the conservative Julien...

Well only those wearing rose coloured glasses believe the habs have a chance of making the playoffs. So what happened? I think most people can see the two 8 game losing streaks created most of the mess that eliminated the habs from the playoff race. Another reason could be linked to the anemic performance against eastern team wannabes New Jersey and Detroit. First, if we review those six games against the wings and the devils some things become apparent. Goaltending is an issue. One can argue if the habs had a decent back-up goaltender, Price should have probably not played any of those games. However, he did play three of the six games.  He lost all of them. His save percentage was a poor .887 average for those games.  Kinkaid played one game against his old team and had a save percentage of .907 but he lost that game. Charles Lindgren played two games and even though he won one of the games in a shootout his save percentage for those two games was .850. Surprisin...

Well the decade is closing on the resetting er rebuilding habs. The habs did not go to a Stanley cup final during the last decade, but did make it technically to two conference finals. Technically because one was in the 2009-2010 year. We can say that the Habs Gms left us frustrated, confused, or exhilarated at times but there were very few dull moments. So here is a year-by-year recap of the decade. 2009-2010 I mention this year because the habs made it to a conference final even though the season spanned two decades. This was the first season of what I refer to as the Gainey experiment. Before the season started, Bob Gainey unloaded Saku Koivu, who he once referred to as a champion in waiting, and Alexei Kovalev who had actually won a cup with the Rangers and had quantums of talent. Koivu had been the hab’s captain for almost as long as Jean Beliveau. He had a courageous bout beating cancer. However, his tenure led to no cups and no playoff success. The reality wa...

We are almost at the halfway point in the season and you know what that means... Time to review my beginning of the season predictions and gloat. Do I know my hockey or what: 1) Nathan MacKinnon will win the scoring championship if he stays healthy. In the top ten I expect to see Tavares, Stamkos, Mcdavid, Marner, Barzal, and Drouin. Is this the year somebody reaches 130 points again? Pretty sure by the end of the season Nate the great will win it all. Stammer got off to a slow start but he might be in the top ten soon. As for Barzal and Drouin they are prone to inconsistent play but they have had their moments. 2) I am not confident about the Norris. The wild card is Karlsson and how he fits in with San Jose and Brent Burns. One of them might win it. Subban and Hedman have a shot at it depending how their teams do. And then there is Rasmus Dahlin... I was right not to be confident and may be off on this one due to injuries. Subban and Hedman have been long term injured so they may not...

Soon it will be October,  autumn has mysteriously crept upon us and of course this means the start of a brand new NHL Season. Here are my fourth annual absurd and bizarre but fundamentally insincere predictions for the 2018-2019 nhl season: 1) Nathan MacKinnon will win the scoring championship if he stays healthy. In the top ten I expect to see Tavares, Stamkos, Mcdavid, Marner, Barzal, and Drouin. Is this the year somebody reaches 130 points again? 2) I am not confident about the Norris. The wild card is Karlsson and how he fits in with San Jose and Brent Burns. One of them might win it. Subban and Hedman have a shot at it depending how their teams do. And then there is Rasmus Dahlin... 3) The Maurice Richard trophy will go either to Patrick Laine or John Tavares. Tavares is an underrated goal scorer and Marner may set him up on a constant basis. Laine is a natural and sooner or later gets on fire. Don’t be surprised if Pacioretty is in the top ten if not in the running....

What a fine mess the habs are in. This playoff series versus the Rangers exposed the Habs. They had one good game the whole series. In fact at home they played poorly all three games and just pulled out a win in game 2 when scoring in the last few seconds. Does anyone really expect the habs to be competitive in the next few years? There was the excuse last year that Carey Price was injured. The supposed distraction in the dressing room that was PK Subban had been traded for all Canadian defenseman Shea Weber. Well at least we did have a decent  regular season finishing first even though the annual dog day swoon led to Therrien's firing. The first round of the playoffs exposed the habs' weaknesses. And god there are many. First off the myth that is Carey Price. He is an above average goaltender but please he is not the greatest goalie of all time as some Montreal pundits were extolling. He has not been the difference maker in most playoff years. He has not led an average...

Well it's all over now. The Habs have done the unthinkable to many and the inevitable to others. PK Subban has been traded for Shea Weber. I think we have to understand this trade from what makes sports tick and that is money. It is also a story of greed and jealousy. Habs management most notably Marc Bergevin and their head coach Michel Therrien have never been comfortable with PK Subban. There has always been an incompatibility between them and PK's flamboyance and self promotion. Michel Therrien is a lunch pail coach, he prefers grit to flash, high work rate to moments of genius, conservatism to improvisation. Even there this was not the main problem with PK. The real issue was money. It started when Bergevin made the terrible decision to sign PK to a bridge contract. Anybody who had half a brain in evaluating talent should have realized that this was the time to sign him long term. It would not have cost them 9 million, even 7 million. It would have maybe cost them ...

We all need something to get us through these winter blues. This winter has been brutal as far as I am concerned cold every damn day since the beginning of the year. Hockey helps get us through this frigid torture. Even better is the hockey trade deadline. An artificially created deadline date set up by the NHL it has become its own social media carnival. Everybody has the inside knowledge about what's about to happen. I assume their sister is a secretary to an NHL general manager and she eavesdrops on every conversation, or your brother-in-law is a hockey agent. Whatever most hockey rumours never come through.  So my blog here is not to initiate rumours but to outline what the Habs need to get them to the promised land. What we have here with the Habs is a first place team that could have been way ahead if they put any effort defeating cellar dwellers.  The Habs have the most confident goalie in the NHL in Carey Price. The same Carey Price that lost his nerve a fe...