What happened?

Ok I promised no more hockey blogs since the habs are out of it. However, the Don Cherry rant on Saturday got me to thinking of the habs draft preferences during the years and what we missed out on. Cherry railed against Brian Burke on Saturday for not having one player born in Ontario on the Leafs roster. So have the Habs management done better? We got David Desharnais, Mathieu Darche, and Louis Leblanc on the team and...well Rene Bourque sounds french and Blake Geoffrion has French roots. The issue for me has always been when selecting a player or a coach or a manager, the most talented should be drafted or chosen. The issue here is not only did we not draft the most talented but the most talented in most cases was a Quebec or francophone player. Some history to make my point. As already mentioned in another blog in 1977 we drafted Mark Napier in 10th spot overall. Who was drafted 15th overall none other than Mike Bossy probably the greatest sniper of all time in the NHL. Bossy w...

As we wave an enthusiastic goodbye and fare thee well to Pierre Gauthier and the Bob Gainey managerial era, I would like to discuss another Habs legend Guy Lafleur. I'd say from 1975 to 1980 Guy Lafleur was the best hockey player in the world. Guy didn't break many records during his time at the mountaintop. My blog wants to point out why. As great as Guy was, I always felt there was something missing or more a missed opportunity. Guy Lafleur was sensational with the Quebec Remparts during his junior career. In his final junior year he had 130 goals in 62 games. The Remparts also won the Memorial Cup. This may have been the last time Guy was unleashed to his full capacity. Through the shenanigans of Sam Pollock, Guy Lafleur was drafted first overall by the Stanley Cup champions. The year before Jean Beliveau retired a 10 time Cup winner, and big Jean classy as ever had offered his number 4 to Guy. Luckily Guy turned it down. Guy was bright enough to state he...

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...

Yeeehaaa it's September 1st the official start of the hockey bitching season. I guess the Marvel folks got it right when they named one of the recent Avengers movies Civil War. This has been the theme in Habsland since the Subban trade in June 2016. Tweet grenades have been launched in the twittersphere as the warring sides have dug in for a surreal lengthy fratricide. It has also led some blow-hards to try and silence media criticism. Lest we forget that not so long ago any critique of a professional sports team was met by censure or dismissal whenever the franchise decided to exert their influence and power. Hopefully, we will not go back to those dark ages. Well, one thing you gotta credit Bergevin with, there is rarely a dull moment off the ice as he remolds the habs on a yearly basis. Dare I say Bergevin is the risk-taker in chief of NHL GM's, even allowing David Poile to win GM of the year.  After the habs early playoff exit, the whole left side of the defence has been ...

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 we had a very good regular season. It is important. The regular season is mostly played during the long winter months where a Habs victory could make us forget the crazy driving conditions and bulky clothing we have on. The playoffs are played in the spring and as we shed our winter fat we want to express our relief through the Habs we survived another hard winter. Unfortunately the Habs failed this year to inspire us. Last year we had a valid excuse. Yes we beat Tampa with their second string goalie but we had outplayed Tampa the whole series. We beat the first place Bruins fair and square. We lost to the rangers with our AHL goalie and we took them to 6 games. Yes we had a valid excuse and the Habs had shown great spirit during their playoff run. This year the Habs were unlucky to face the two teams they had had regular season problems with. We got lucky that what remained of the Senators was a depleted lot after their surge to make the playoffs. The Senators stretched u...

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...

I am at poolside at an extravagant hotel and I am pissed. Well I thought all was well in Habsland. Finally coming to their senses management got rid of overpaid deadwood Josh Gorges and Brian Gionta. They terminated George Parros, Doug Murray, and Ryan White forgettable non- NHL calibre players. Could Travis Moen and Tomas Plekanec be far behind? I thought the reason for not keeping Gorges and not affording Gionta was simple -to re-sign the Norris trophy winning franchise defenceman PK Subban. Bergy gambled a couple of years ago when he signed Subban to a 2 year bridge contract. Even though most hockey pundits understood the superstar potential of Subban and the stats bore that out, Bergy newly hired wanted time to evaluate the star and leadership qualities of his inexperienced defenceman. Bergy was applauded two years ago for holding firm a little like Reagan when he fired the air traffic controllers as one of his first moves as President. In the ensuing two years PK did ...

There was some celestial harmony when Danny Gallivan would say back to the point and Lapointe fires and scoreesssss. It seems that Guy Lapointe was always there. You see him in the grainy videos of the 71 stunning Cup win where the habs eliminated the Bruins and Hawks. He was there in the four straight cups in the late seventies. He was prominent in game 7 versus the bruins in 1979. Savard and Robinson that night had had better days. He was there in 1972 giving the Russian the choke sign in game 1 and playing a strong role in Canada's win in Russia. He was there in that famous game versus the Red Army on New Year's eve in 1975. He played with Jean Beliveau and JC Tremblay. He played with Guy Lafleur and Larry Robinson. Yes he was there and everyone expected Guy to have an error-free fast skating offensive game with a good hip check every once and awhile. If Guy Lapointe should be remembered for anything it was that he was consistently very good, game in game out almost ev...

The Habs Bruins rivalry has always been one-sided for many decades until the late 80's. It was more of a habs curse on the bruins. No matter who and what the bruins threw at the habs including Orr, Esposito, Cheevers, Middleton, Ratelle, Park, O'Reilly, Oates and Thornton the habs would eventually come out the victors. The last decade has seen a reversal of fortunes up to a point. I guess the first inkling of the rivalry was when Rocket Richard took out his frustrations after being high sticked by Bruin Hal Laycoe and retaliated with a high stick of his own and then went loco on the linesman punching him unconscious. The Rocket was suspended for the rest of the season by anglo Clarence Campbell and the quiet revolution finally took to the streets. As a footnote, the Rocket the leader in points up to then  would be overtaken by the Boomer in the last few games and would never win a scoring championship. The Bruins team of the sixties stunk until the arrival of Number 4 Bobby Orr...

Well it was almost a year ago that I wrote a blog about les enfants terrible of soccer and hockey Mario Balotelli and PK Subban  http://strummer-whathappened.blogspot.ca/2013/04/les-enfants-terrible.html  I ended that blog by saying that these two athletes had endless potential but their egos may get the better of them. So after a year where are they now? I cannot really say much has changed. They still seem to bring out the best and worst of fans, players, coaches, and pundits. Their potential is still a great unknown. Both ended last season on a high note with Balotelli joining AC Milan in January of 2013 and taking them to a champion's league berth and making the Azzurri qualify for the World Cup, and PK Subban winning the Norris as best defenceman in the NHL.                        Things started off brightly as well in their 2013-2014 campaigns with Balotelli scoring consistently, and PK ...

Well I am relatively pleased with the Habs at mid-season over-all. However, since we are discussing a team there are always positives and negatives. My impressions: Michel Therrien- I think he has done a very good job considering the talent level on the team. He still has no first line center. He still has no rugged defencemen other than Douglas Murray. However, there are questionable decisions he makes. His lack off faith in young players like Galchenyuk and the likes of Tinordi, Bournival, and Beaulieu have retarded their progress. Not to say he is all to blame, if they had put on a better performance they may have forced Therrien's hand. As well, his stubbornness has led to Bouillon being overplayed as well as others like Gionta and Bourque. The lacklustre performance by the Habs in the last few games has me concerned. Therrien is more there for motivation and the troops don't seem motivated. His assistants Gerald Galllant and JJ Daigneault are there for strategy. Not su...

What is it with people? Why can't they accept others who have different opinions? Twitter has been a revelation to me in how people react when they disagree with your opinion. Being a habs fan yes a fan unlike what some people would prefer categorizing me as, I cannot handle the reaction when I decide to criticize someone. I have been a passionate habs fan since I was a kid when the habs would win everything virtually every year. I have grown old with the habs and I have remained a fan and not abandoned ship during the lean years. Anybody remember Eric Landry? I even remember when the forum had many empty seats. There is nothing wrong in criticizing people, especially those that have become wealthy because of their celebrity or popularity. Politicians are criticized incessantly since they are in the public eye. A sizable portion of the American right loathe Obama, Clinton, and even JFK.  A majority of liberals loathe Reagan, Bush, and Nixon. In Canada, liberals detest Stephen Harpe...

Anyways these days I am musing about time travel. You would think that someone in the future could develop a go to the past contraption and be here among us now. If that is the case I want to know who you are and can you tell  me something that will make me rich and happy. It could maybe be an alien from another planet. Is it true that Starbucks and Apple and Tesla Motors will rule the world as in the dream I had last night?  The last two decades have been so progressive that change is moving at what seems the speed of light. Someone is manipulating us I am sure and I am sure it is from the future. I really enjoyed the summer up to a point. I tend to do things I enjoyed in the past so I knew what to expect. Sometimes it is better to try something new and mysterious and see what happens. I guess as I get older I try to avoid risky endeavours. Anyways enough negativity it was a great summer in Montreal not that humid and real pleasant. Montreal is still economically vi...