Go Habs Go - Fan Forum 09/10

[Booche]

The kids are alright!

[peipunk]

Fuck! We won another one. Peaking too early.

[c-towns]

So you can check goalies now?

[Guest Low Roller]

Go Dogs Go! It was fun watching that fourth line out-everything the Penguins.

[dave-O]

Let me be the first to ask it - Pierre McGuire, next Habs GM?

[Booche]

I am hoping for Tony Marinara Sauce.

[badams]

Price will be traded by the deadline

[Northern Wish]

Gainey is gone....

[Guest Low Roller]

[Guest Low Roller]

Here is his full trade history while GM of the Habs... Best trades? Worst trades?

DATE

MONTREAL TRADED

TEAM

MONTREAL ACQUIRED

2009

December 1

Kyle Chipchura ©

Anaheim

4th Round pick (2011)

December 1

Jay Leach (D)

San Jose

Waivers

November 23

Guilaume Latendresse (F)

Minnesota

Benoit Pouliot (F)

November 6

Waivers

New Jersey

Jay Leach (D)

July 6

Free Agent

NY Rangers

Paul Mara (D)

July 1

Free Agent

New Jersey

Brian Gionta (F)

July 1

Free Agent

Calgary

Mike Cammalleri (F)

July 1

Free Agent

Pittsburgh

Hal Gill (D)

July 1

Free Agent

Buffalo

Jaroslav Spacek (D)

June 30

Chris Higgins (F)

Ryan McDonagh (D)

Pavel Valentenko (D)

Doug Janik (D)

NY Rangers

Scott Gomez ©

Tom Pyatt (F)

Mike Busto (D)

June 27

2010, 6th Rnd Pick

Pittsburgh

2009, 7th Rnd Pick (Petteri Simila - G)

February 27

waivers

Philadelphia

Glen Metropolit ©

February 26

Steve Begin (F)

Dallas

Doug Janik (D)

February 16

2009, 2nd Rnd Draft Pick (Jeremy Morin F)

2010, 3rd Rnd Draft pick

Atlanta

Mathieu Schneider (D)

Conditional draft pick

January 5

2010, 7th Rnd Draft Pick

Pittsburgh

T.J Kemp (D)

2008

Sept 12

2010, 2nd Rnd Draft Pick

Chicago

Robert Lang (F)

July 11

Corey Locke (F)

Minnesota

Shawn Belle (D)

July 3

Mikhail Grabovski (F)

Toronto

Greg Pateryn (D)

2010, 2nd Rnd Draft Pick

June 20

2008, 1st Rnd Draft Pick, (Greg Nemisz C)

2009, 2nd Rnd Draft Pick

Calgary

Alex Tanguay (F)

2008, 5th Rnd Draft Pick (Maxim Trunev F)

February 26

Cristobal Huet (G)

Washington

2009, 2nd Round Draft Pick (traded to Atlanta)

February 8

Francois Lemieux (F)

Detroit

Brett Engelhardt (RW)

2007

November 13

Garth Murray

Florida

Waivers

July 4

Free-Agent

Los Angeles

Tom Kostopoulos (F)

July 2

Free-Agent

Vancouver

Bryan Smolinski (F)

July 2

Free-Agent

Calgary

Roman Hamrlik (D)

June 23

Michael Leighton (G)

Carolina

2007, 7th Rnd Pick (Scott Kishel, D)

June 15

Sergei Samsonov (F)

Chicago

Jassen Cullimore (D)

Tony Salmelainen (LW)

May 31

2007, 7th Rnd Draft Pick (David Skokan, C) NY Rangers

Ryan Russell (F)

Feb 27

waivers

Philadelphia

Michael Leighton (G)

Feb 25

Craig Rivet (D)

2008, 5th Rnd Draft Pick (Julien Demers D)

San Jose

Josh Gorges (D)

2007, 1st Rnd Draft Pick (Max Pacioretty, LW)

2006

Dec 15

Patrick Traverse (D)

Dallas

Mathieu Biron (D)

Sept 30

Mike Ribeiro (F)

2008, 6th-Rnd draft pick (Matthew Tassone C)

Dallas

Janne Niinimaa (D)

2007, 5th-Rnd draft pick (Andrew Conboy, LW)

Sept 28

Waivers

San Jose

Patrick Traverse (D)

July 12

Free Agent

Edmonton

Sergei Samsonov (F)

July 12

2007, 4th-round draft pick (Vladimir Ruzicka, C)

Phoenix

Mike Johnson (F)

July 12

Richard Zednik (F)

Washington

2007, 3rd round draft pick

June 24

2006, 1st Rnd Draft Pick, No. 16 (Ty Wishart)

San Jose

2006, 1st Rnd Draft Pick No. 20 (David Fischer)

2006, 2nd Rnd Draft Pick No. 53 (Mathieu Carle)

June 24

2006, 3rd Rnd Draft Pick, No. 79 (Jonathan Matsumoto)

4th Rnd Draft Pick, No. 109 (Jakub Kovar)

Philadelphia

2006, 3rd Draft Pick, No. 66 (Ryan White)

March 9

2006, 6th Rnd Draft Pick (Chris Auger)

Chicago

Todd Simpson (D)

March 8

Jose Theodore (G)

Colorado

David Aebischer (G)

2005

September 30

Marcel Hossa (F)

NY Rangers

Garth Murray (F)

July 30

2005 2nd Round Pick (Marc-Andre Cliche)

2005 3rd Round Pick (Brodie Dupont)

NY Rangers

2nd Round 2005 Entry Pick (Guillaume Latendresse)

2004

June 27

Stephane Quintal (D)

LA Kings

Future Considerations

June 26

Mathieu Garon (G)

2004, 3rd Rnd Draft Pick (Paul Baier)

LA Kings

Radek Bonk ©

Cristobal Huet (G)

March 9

Sylvain Blouin (LW)

Vancouver

Rene Vydareny (D)

March 4

2004, 4th Rnd Draft Pick (Julien Sprunger)

Minnesota

Jim Dowd (F)

March 2

Jozef Balej

2004, 2nd Rnd Draft pick (Bruce Graham)

NY Rangers

Alexei Kovalev (F)

2003

Oct 3

Waivers

Buffalo

Steve Begin (F)

July 4

Free-Agent

Florida

Pierre Dagenais (F)

[AD]

Just to blow your mind, another way to judge a GM is by the trades he doesn't make. Can you list those please?

[Guest Low Roller]

Easy.

Lecavalier.

Best GM ever.

[Guest Low Roller]

Trotter and White down, Pyatt up.

[Booche]

Once again, Les Brahs limit the candidates for a position within the organization due to the bilingual necessities they enforce. Just hire a fucking translator.

Anyways.............

The five-year plan ultimate didn't work any better for Bob Gainey than it did for Soviet wheat.

You see, this was how it was going to work in the city that still believes in hockey fairy tales. Gainey, with one Stanley Cup as a general manager in Dallas, would remake the once-proud Montreal Canadiens one year at a time with draft picks and judicious trades and signings. With the hockey gods' permission, in five seasons -- culminating in the team's centennial of 2008-09 -- the Canadiens would reaffirm their birthright by winning the Cup and throwing those fabulous made-in-Montreal parades.

And then everyone was going to live happily ever after (or at least until the power play went 0-for-16 the following season). The end.

Well, five seasons turned into six with almost nothing to show for it. There was a surprisingly strong run in 2007-08 when the Canadiens were the best team in the Eastern Conference during the regular season -- and seemingly poised to mount the next step the following year, right on schedule -- but they faltered in the 2008 playoffs and barely qualified in 2009. Considering how Boston brushed them aside last April like a man picking lint off his blue suit, you almost wonder why the Canadiens even bothered.

With the team now on the far side of the mountain after the failure of his first five-year plan, Gainey had no choice but to begin a new one. It included a stunning summer during which he did not re-sign any of his 10 unrestricted free agents and looked elsewhere to stockpile skilled but pint-sized forwards who are better suited to battling Gulliver than the elite teams in the conference. Montreal's financial flexibility vanished in the blink of an eye with the signings of Brian Gionta (five years for $25 million, as Gainey essentially outbid himself), Mike Cammalleri (five years, $31 million), and his taking the rest of Scott Gomez's absurd contract (another five years, $33.5 million) off the hands of the grateful New York Rangers.

Like the gift that keeps on giving, those astonishing contracts can now bedevil Gainey's interim successor, assistant Pierre Gauthier, who managed Ottawa and Anaheim in the pre-salary cap era.

The profligacy that took the Canadiens to the cap for 2009-10 (and the financial box for the next five years) ultimately might not have sat well with the new Montreal ownership fronted by Geoff Molson of the brewery family. Gainey already had saddled them with coach Jacques Martin, a safe but hardly inspired choice. The Molson group, which had not yet formally taken control of the Canadiens -- a franchise that had been part of its family business between 1957 and 1971, and again between 1978 and 2001 -- was essentially guaranteed a bubble playoff team for as far as the eye could reasonably see.

Still, the resignation on Monday was Gainey's choice. He said he didn't want to remain in the job after his contract expired following the season. After a difficult period of reflection, and with the trade deadline looming on March 3, he decided "to pass the torch" now. When asked what he will do with his time -- beyond his role as a special advisor to Gauthier -- Gainey said he wasn't quite sure. Maybe, he said with his inscrutable smile, he'd learn to play the piano.

Gainey's costly summer was just the landmark moment of a tenure that began in 2003. There were underlying and revelatory themes, constants that marked a tenure in which the franchise brand recovered -- book it: a sold-out 21,273 fans per game -- but the hockey team often seemed to be skating into a 20-mile-per-hour headwind.

Here are four:

Mediocre scouting.

While Montreal's amateur scouting has been constantly scrutinized because of the inability to hit a first-round home run -- the jury is still out on 22-year-old goalie Cary Price, drafted fifth overall in 2005 -- its pro scouting under Gainey was far more problematic. The Canadiens routinely erred in their evaluations of NHL players. Indeed in the past decade there might not have been a more lopsided player-for-player deal than Mike Ribeiro for Janne Niinimaa when Gainey settled for an end-of-the-line sixth defenseman in exchange for a player poised to become a No. 1 center in Dallas. (Although Ribeiro was viewed as a stray cat in Montreal, Gainey conceded last year that the trade truly was horrible.)

Sure, there were good ones. Moving Craig Rivet to San Jose at the deadline for Josh Gorges and a first -ounder (Max Pacioretty) was a deft stroke. Acquiring Alex Kovalev for Jozef Balej and a second-rounder -- then getting Kovalev to sign in Montreal -- was sublime. But too often the Canadiens' scouts failed to find the pieces on other teams that would fit nicely in Montreal. Alex Tanguay cost a first- and second-rounder. He lasted exactly one season before walking via free agency.

Inability to sign marquee free agents.

Maybe this is not quite as damning as it sounds. Gainey lost Paul Kariya to Nashville and Brendan Shanahan to the Rangers, but given the impact the venerable wingers had on their new teams, Montreal is lucky that Gainey didn't get to spend the money. Still, their snubs (and Mats Sundin's dithering after the 2008 draft when the Canadiens acquired his rights from Toronto in an effort to sign him) contributed to the league-wide impression that Montreal is not a destination of choice.

When Gainey did manage to bag a free-agent player in 2009, he generally paid first-line money to second-line players. This will go down as his biggest failure in Montreal: the GM never could manage to find the blend of size and skill that top teams have on their top lines. After the strong 2008 playoffs in which Boston mussed the Canadiens' hair in a difficult first round, Gainey overpaid for the essentially useless Georges Laraque ($4.5 for three years, about a million over market price), an enforcer the Canadiens dismissed last month.

A spasmodic willingness to be proactive.

Sometimes Gainey moved smartly -- securing the rights to Sundin -- and sometimes quickly. He left the young Price without a safety net in the 2008 playoffs by trading soon-to-be-UFA Cristobal Huet, which might have cost the Canadiens a playoff round. But too often, Gainey just didn't move.

Because of a philosophical opposition to negotiating contracts during the season, Montreal let defensemen such as Mark Streit and Sheldon Souray walk to free agency for nothing. Now, Tomas Plekanec, their de facto No. 1 center and leading scorer, finds himself in similar circumstances. Unless Gauthier is convinced that he can re-sign Plekanec at a mutually acceptable number, he would be better served trading him before that March 3 deadline than banking on a player with no playoff portfolio to carry the team for a round or two.

Lack of vision and patience with coaches.

In 2003 Gainey inherited Claude Julien, exactly the kind of coach who could grow with the franchise. In a perfect world, the Jack Adams Award-winner last season in Boston could have been the Canadiens' coach for a decade, able to dance through the emotional tangle of the job while running a good bench. But although Julien took Montreal to the second round in 2004, Gainey fired him midway through the next season, 2005-06, and took over behind the bench to groom Guy Carbonneau for the job. Carbonneau, whose hiring Gainey once called his best decision, was an edgy choice.

Carbonneau's personality was never going to allow him to have a long shelf life, but it was shocking when Gainey fired him less than a season after the team's first-place finish. After Gainey 2.0 was a failure behind the bench, he opted to hire a coach, Martin, who had not been able to get Florida into the playoffs. Martin did, however, speak French -- one of the tacit requirements of the job.

Gainey is an easy man to like and a tough one to know, even for someone who has been acquainted with him since 1979. He keeps his counsel. When his daughter Laura perished after being swept overboard on a ship in the North Atlanta in December 2006, the guessing was that Gainey would soon walk away from the job. That was always the thing with him. If you guessed, you were probably going to be wrong.

When the Canadiens celebrated the 100th anniversary of their first game last Dec. 4, the franchise, classy as always, flew in many of their alumni to join the celebration. One of Gainey's teammates from the 1980s was kibitzing with the general manager when Gainey said, "Maybe the game has passed us both by." The line seemed funny then. It is less droll today.

The next GM of the Canadiens should be Jim Nill, currently the most qualified candidate who does not currently hold the job in the NHL. He is Detroit's assistant GM, a man with an encyclopedic knowledge of the business, a strong work ethic and absolutely no ties to the organization. If the Molson Group doesn't reach out to the Red Wings for permission to talk to him -- and owner Mike Ilitch previously has denied Pittsburgh, Los Angeles and Boston requests to interview Nill, who is signed through 2010-11 -- it will be making a grave mistake. The Canadiens have a wondrous history, but they now have the chance to start fresh and operate a heritage franchise like an actual hockey business. Placing patrimony aside, Montreal should think outside the box - and the organization.

In the sixth year of a five-year plan, it is time.

[Booche]

Easy.

Lecavalier.

Best GM ever.

I guess you didnt hear the recent news that there was a trade in place just before the NHL Draft last summer. Pleks+Price+1st rounder for Vinny. Since there was a conflict of interest (or whatever it was) going on, all trades involving the Lightning had to go through Gary Bettman before being accepted.

He denied the trade.

Best. Commish. Ever.

[dave-O]

So is Gauthier the GM or the interim GM? I've seen it reported both ways.

[Booche]

GM

[Guest Low Roller]

Here is something to send shivers down Habs fans' backs:

Gauthier was head of talent scouting when Gainey made his ill-fated acquisitions of Samsonov and Niinnnniiiimaa.

[Booche]

Gauthier was also GM of the Sens from 1995 to 1998, the years in which they began their rise. We can continue to paint this canvass any way we see fit but the only thing that is going to tell is time. One thing remains though, the language restrictions. Until that is solved, Les Brahs will never be hiring the best man for the job.

[Guest Low Roller]

[color:purple]If you want to build a Stanley Cup champion, why hire a former Sens GM?

[Guest Low Roller]

Bergeron is out 6-8 weeks with a knee injury according to RDS.

[rubberdinghy]

Um...seems the habs are trying to model themselves after the Senators. Have you forgotten your coach too?

[Booche]

Who dat Dinghy?

We'll be sighing in our seats

Bulldog children at our feet

And the CHicken that we worshiped is now gone

And our boys who spurred us on

Are playing Ovie, it's all wrong

Fourteen straight, only a shotgun could stop the run

I'll tip my hat to our forwards Lilliputian

Give four weeks to the Pierre revolution

Smile and grin at the change all around

Pierre pick up the phone and play

Not like yesterday

And we'll get on our knees and pray

Pleks will get signed again

The change it had to come

Fire Gainey knew it all along

Bob's been liberated from collapse that's all

But the team looks just the same

Habs' history ain't changed

New Cup banners, may not flown evermore

Need Bulldogs to make big contributions

We'll never know Bob's goalie solution

Smile and grin at the Leafs ranked fifteen

Pick up our sticks and play

Just like yesterday

And we'll get on our knees and pray

Habs don't get schooled again

No, no!

Jacques moved Jaro and his accent aside

If Price happens to be still half alive

He'll still be the Saviour and we'll smile at the sky

But we know that the statistics never lie

Do ya?

[guitar, synth, drums, etc...]

PIEEEEEEEEEEEERRRRRRRREE!

No GM on this team

Looks any different to me

As the Bob's been replaced, bye bye bye

And our wingers on the left

Are like our wingers on the right

They're just Bulldogs that were called up overnight

CBC is twenty-nine's institution

Danse à dix is the new prostitution

Smile and grin at the babes all around

Pick up my oven mitt and play

Like Kristin yesterday

Then I'll get on my knees and pray

I don't get fooled again

Don't get fooled again

No, no!

[longer guitar, synth, drums, etc...]

PIEEEEEEEEEEEERRRRRRRREE!

Meet the new boss

Same as the old boss

[Booche]

Hope Josh is ok.

He took a rocket.

[Guest Low Roller]

WHO IS THIS TEAM!??