It all Gauthier fault!

I was toying with the idea of bringing this blog back for a while now and recent events have forced my hands. The main reason I stop was that ranting about the Habs on twitter is way more interesting than on a blog that nobody reading anyway. Here my new year good wish in advance

Goodbye Jacques I know you don't deserve half the shit that was said about you but the other half you deserve fully and that was more than enough to fire your ass ten times over anyway.

Don't get too comfortable Randy. Considering the shitstorm that your promotion just raised you would think Martin was the reincarnation of Toe Blake. Lesson learned when you're next in line to coach the Montreal Canadiens get a fucking Rosetta Stone or this handy book BEFORE you get promoted!

And Pierre do us all a favour and fall on your sword before Geoff call the security guard to evict you from the building. You caused most of the mess that the Habs are in right now the shitstorm of last week was all on you. And for fuck sake when you fire a coach have a real replacement ready that not from the system somebody who will think outside the box because he was not in the box!

To the crazy French media, nobody except a few bigot give a rat ass that Cunneyworth does not speak French. I know that you badly need audio content in French but that no excuse for going batshit crazy on this. The truth is most of that shitstorm came from print media and that because the print guys are too damn lazy to want to do translation instead of stuffing their faces but when the last time you heard an Habs coach saying anything worth quoting anyway?

You want to criticize Gauthier choice I got plenty of real shit you can use first he's the same damn style of coach that Jacques Martin is. Second he was part of the organisation, he's part of the problem not the solution. Third he's an interim choice and lame duck already why leave for tomorrow or next summer a choice you should have made two week before you even fired Jacques Martin...  
 

Enough with the bullshit!

Seriously do you really believe the Habs injury list is that long. If so I got some everglade swamp land I like to sell you real cheap!!! The thinking by Montreal management is simple they rather stink up the join in the pre-season with AHL players who are mostly not ready for primetime than risk losing a major piece! The problem is fans are paying good money to watch this sorry spectacle. At least be honest about it and maybe if you got to charge something for tickets to these crappy game make them a charity events. Don't be surprise if come October 6 almost everybody healthy "comme par magie". 


This bring another subject. To be this cautious Jacques Martin and Pierre Gauthier must be under some serious pressure to deliver NOW not in 2013 not in 2014 right fucking NOW. Nothing bad with that unless off course it lead to some rather idiotic panic move.


Geoff Molson must be itching to clean house already. He and his family just bought the damn thing for like the fifth or sixth time in franchise history. (I lost count) Make up your fucking mind about that you want to own it or not? If Gauthier not careful the next Irving Grundman or Réjean Houle will end up GM! lolll By the way that would be an unmitigated disaster better a professional GM than one of these idiot shove in during a panic move. Even if he's a loner who creepily call everyone of his players "Mister" at least he know his job! He's not a former bowling alley manager or your former marketing VP but Pierre Gauthier is a Pro NHL Gm! 

Good news: It official the Habs are eliminated!

Don't bother playing this season it already over at least if you believe all the experts!


The good news all the same "experts" who are predicting the Habs out have crappy accuracy in making Habs prediction in the past three years so it as likely that Montreal will finish third or win the President Trophy. Off course since the "experts" predicted the Habs will finish around 9th they are as likely to end up with a lottery pick. That's why you play the game to find out! 


And I don't know how they can say last year was all about Price when the year before almost the same players with Halak reached the conference final. I don't like Martin defense first system but you got to admit that it make the guy behind the pipe look good. You could say the same thing about the Bruins and Thomas in fact some of the experts even did! The Bruins who by the way won the cup came one bad bounce close to an early exit against guess who the Habs!

Let me list all the things that went bad for the Habs last year. Markov out again all year Georges out for most of it Cammalleri out for a month, Gomez worse season in his career, Pacioretty "Accident"... Still the team won a six seed. So let see in order for the habs to have about the same bad luck they need to lose two big piece for all the season and two more for months, Gomez should play as bad or worse and Martin should keep playing him! And they will not use that $3,979,490 cap space left because I don't know Molson cheaping out! Yeah all of this need to happen for the Habs to end up with a worse or as bad luck than last year.

I love how the experts point to Cole as the only addition of the Summer then totally forget to mention a guy like Yemelin. That the Habs ace up their sleeves, the team management did not spent six years trying to get this guy to come from the KHL for no reason. I feel like am repeating myself but what the fuck the game is played on the ice!    

Redemption time!

So the Habs have seeded 6 and are meeting the Bruins again in the first round. They won the first game but I come back to this later. This is Redemption time for many Habs players.

Redemption list.

1: Carey Price (Status almost halfway there.) Great season with a team that came very close to fall apart many times. But to totally make peoples forget Halak he need that ring.

2: Scott Gomez (Status badly needed) Crap season need great playoff run badly before Gauthier find an European team to park his ass.

3: Jacques Martin (Status desperate) 600+ wins 20+ years in the NHL but no cup. Martin is not getting younger and with the crop of new coach's earning their stripes in the NHL right now is likely his last coaching job. Nobody want and need that ring more than Martin.

4: Mike Cammalleri (Status high expectation.) After an amazing Rocket Richard like playoff run last year Mike had a somewhat deflated season. He need to go Super Sayan again if the habs have any hope of going deep.

5: Tomas Plekanec (Status reputation on the line.) Slower season than last year plus many critic have been saying fairly or not that Plekanec did a disappearing act in last year playoff.

6: Hal Gill (Status UFA this Summer and not getting any younger.) On a team that could re-sign Hamrlik, Gorges, Markov not to mention Wisniewski and Sopel... USS Hal Gill need to remind the Habs and the rest of the league why he's still worth the big bucks at 36.

7: Hamrlik, Wisniewski and Sopel (Status UFA this Summer) See Hal Gill

9: The rest (Status highly motivated) The Montreal Canadiens are a team in transition with an aging blue line and many prime assets in the minors this team will change a lot in the near future so for many it now or never. The Habs could easily take a major step back and fall under the 8th line next season for the fans and management it would be a less bitter pill to swallow if they were to add a banner! 1 down 15 to go we can always dream!  

Gauthier deserve better than some of the shit he's taking!

This is an answer to Dissecting Pierre Gauthier By JD

Anaheim was an expansion team in 93 I never heard of an expansion team who made the playoff in year one. In 96 a year after he left the team that he build reached the Conference Semifinal. The Senators were pretty much in the same boat when Gauthier joined them and after 2 years of not making the playoff they did and reached the playoff for the rest of the decade.

We are not talking about a coach here. General Managers rarely if ever affect the direction of a team overnight. Gauthier had a bad second run in Anaheim but guest what the year that he left the team that he build reached the Stanley cup final. The Ducks that Gauthier build had success after he left reaching the conference two season later and winning the cup three season later. So one can conclude that Gauthier is leaving teams in better shape than when he get them. That the curse of an NHL GM they get the job when a team is in deep shit and are expected to fix them overnight and they also get fired before they can enjoy the fruit of their labor.

While I consider that the Habs scouting was pretty damn crappy at best in the past two decade Gauthier can't be blamed for anything prior to 2003 and even after the puck stop with the GM and the GM was Gainey. One should also note that the first big move that Gauthier made as GM of the Montreal Canadiens was fire the whole scouting staff. That may indicate that Gauthier was of my opinion that scouting was a problem for the Habs and he acted to fix that problem. I don't particularly like the man but I believe that we should judge him after a few years at the helm. He may not be Sam Pollock but he's no Réjean Houle either.

How the hell can I blog about the Habs?

The Royal Navy has a toast that goes something like this. "Here to a Bloody War or a Sickly Season!" Two sure way to get promoted, the Habs boat may well soon be sailing in bad weather but for now it the eye of the storm. So what to talk about? Can't bitch about Subban scratching everybody else did it and they still won the last three games anyway! Am not going to throw shit/trade rumors at the wall to see what stick like somebody that should remain nameless does either! By the way the Habs are doing a better job at keeping secrets than the CIA so unless Wikileaks come up with an Habs data dump anybody who pretend to have insider info on them is likely full of shit including more than a few so call mainstream sports "journalists". I don't have sources or access and because I don't have to protect either I also not gonna bullshit anybody or care if I hurt some peoples feeling! 

But here lie the problem the team is going well we would have so much more fun if the shit was hitting the fan! The Habs fanatic in me is enjoying every moment of this surprisingly great season. The blogger in me wish for the second coming of the Cherios/Corlon* duo to screw half the puck whores in Montreal and create another big fucking mess!

*Names have been changed to protect the not so innocent!

Despite or Because?

Two months of NHL Hockey and our Habs are making fools of most experts who predicted that they will have an atrocious season. Disclaimer I was in that camp and I still got an hard time believing what they have done so far. The one question that remain is simple are the Habs succeeding despite or because of Jacques Martin leadership? Let look at where the Habs have excelled. The big surprise is in net Price is so far one of the best in the league. Price clearly matured on that bench last year but is it because or despite Martin or is it just something that was bound to happen. And how much is the tight defense making Price look a lot better than last year anyway? And the defense is Pearns responsibility not Martin.

Is Martin system really that hard to implement with a team that is loaded on veteran. The strategy is quite simple score the first goal, capitalize on the opposition opening the game to catch up and trap like crazy in the third period if you lead by two! The habs are so set on that track that when they don't score the first goal they never win. Mind you that true of about 3/4 of the NHL teams this year! Add to that that Martin spend the last two months trying in vain to get Gomez going at the detriment of any line stability. To the point that fans are making jokes about it on twitter the best was coined by @johnmbennett Cammalleri suffering from the "I play on a line with Scott Gomez" disease.
He as yet to bench or scratch Gomez yet Subban screw up a couple of times after having played 20 minutes a game for most of the season and he's getting the boot! Give me a fucking break. By the way the "They have to play Weber!" argument is stupid Gorges is playing hurt for a while now and could use a few games to recuperate!

The power play is getting better but that Muller responsibility so the question remain are Jacques Martin Habs winning because or despite of him? Because teams have been known to win despite of the bungling of a coach in the past after a while if the guy in charge is an idiots the players just ignore him!

One last thing before I log out Bill Guerin is retiring after 18 season in the NHL. While I did not see him fit with the Habs it still sad that nobody in the League did not feel the need to take a chance on a guy who got 45 points just last year.     

Ranking the worse Habs current TV network!

I been considering doing that list for a while. This is a list of the current major three Habs Canadian TV network ranked on my highly suggestive, totally partial and soon to be patented Suckinest Index. The Suckinest Index or simply S.I method is quite straight forward I list all the stuff peoples have been bitching about for every network give them a -1 point for each and the network with the lowest score "win".

I said current because I leave the all time worse Habs TV network for another blog post. Now if you got more complains about a network that I have not listed please comments and they will be added in an update later this week so the "winner" may actually change. To be fair I will also list positive points and they will count against the S.I.

TSN S.I -1
Pros +1 Actually own the rights with RDS to the old HNIC anthem. +1 Good game sound. 1+ Decent HD picture.
Cons -1 Pierre "Douchebag" McGuire. -1 Owned by Bell who own a piece of the Habs so not likely to do better to keep the rights.  -1 created a TSN-Habs channel for regional games but gave Bell the apparent if not real exclusivity. -1 To get TSN HD you got to pay extra even if you already have TSN in your package.

CBC S.I -3
Pros +1 Great game sound +1 Cheapest alternative you got basic cable chance are you got CBC Mtl!
Cons -1 Bob Cole and Don Cherry need to be retired! -1 Too cheap to have an HD truck in Mtl most of the time! -1 Anybody else but the Habs bias! -1 Lost the rights to the HNIC anthem because they were too cheap to keep it! -1 With our tax dollars we all actually pay for CBC to produce HNIC and yet almost all the HD games come from fucking Toronto!

RDS S.I -5
Pros +1 Actually own the rights with TSN to the old HNIC anthem! +1 Got all 82 games!
Cons -1 Got all 82 games and did not bother investing at all to put a quality product on TV! -1 crappy game sounds! -1 Crappy HD feed that look like an up conversion! -1 Game commentators and annalists who talk about everything but the fucking game in front of them! -1 Not even an HD camera for the intermission! -1 Too many low quality hasbeen commentators! -1 L'Antichambre! -1 Owned by Bell who own a piece of the Habs so they never going to lose the exclusive French rights to anybody else who could do better! -1 Pandering way too much!

In conclusion the clear winner for a lack of a better term is RDS they are clearly the worse current Habs TV network. Ironically they are the mirror image of TSN who almost scored a neutral S.I but TSN got competition while RDS is the only French sports broadcaster in Canada and got all the Games. Let just hope Pierre Karl Pelado change that someday a little competition would wake them up fast. Meanwhile CBC is stuck in the past and could well lose all NHL rights to Bell/CTV who are getting more and more cozy with the NHL.  

From fluke run to solid challenger part 2 the power rankings are out!

Most of the power rankings list are out and it does not look like the Habs great week got them much love except from Brian Metzer on Versus.com

ESPN Pierre LeBrun 7 this week 14 last week

7 (14) Canadiens 11-5-1It's a pleasure to hand the Habs their season-high placing in the Power Rankings as I visit the NHL's favorite road stop this week. The Canadiens are on fire, but were humbled by the loss (once again) of top blueliner Andrei Markov.

Brian Metzer Versus.com This week 5 last week 8

5. Montreal Canadiens (8)

Underrated Plekanec becoming a star.

Scott Morrison CBCsports.ca This week 6 last week no idea 

6. MONTREAL CANADIENS

Record: 11-5-1 (23 pts)

Last 10 games: 7-3-0

Loss of Markov will hurt, but they're getting used to it. 

National post NHL Ranking First list of the season This week 6

6. Montreal Canadiens (11-5-1)

Carey Price currently unfamiliar with the word "pressure."

Brophy's NHL Power Rankings Sporstnet.ca This week 6 last week 7 

(11-5-1) With eight points in his past four games Tomas Plekanec is earning the big contract he was rewarded with last summer.

Scott Cullen TSN 8 this week 11 last week

This Week 6 Last Week 11 Montreal Canadiens11-5-1

If Andrei Markov is indeed out for an extended period with another knee injury, the Canadiens will need Alexandre Picard (plus-7 in nine games this year) to fill a regular role, especially now that Ryan O'Byrne is gone to Colorado. 

Key Injuries: D Andrei Markov (knee).


CAPPERSTICKS Blog This week 8 first ranking of the season
8. Montreal Canadiens (11-5-1): Ca-rey! Ca-rey! Underneath the deafening chants of Mr. Price’s name in Montreal, you can barely hear “Halak” anymore.

From fluke run to solid challenger where do the Habs sit?

When will the Habs be taken seriously? Hey like everybody else I did it after the last playoff I was pretty negative on their future chances of going deep again. In fact I was really piss off that the Habs just gone cold with only 7 wins to go for a cup because I also felt it was a one time ting! Some of the labels used was "Lightning in a bottle" "fluke run" more respectfully "Cinderella run" or it all Halak and Cammy. While Halak was a big factor and his trade spelled doom for most observers including myself the Canadiens pretty much picked up where they left off after the Pens round.

We can't talk fluke run or easy calendar anymore! Not when the team sit on top their division with barely a few points behind Washington in the conference. Not after crushing the Canes 7-2 limiting the Bruins to one goal in a 3-1 win and a 2-0 shutout against the Canucks in the same week! The Power Play also came back to life with 6 goals in three game this week! This is a team that did great with almost no power play production what would they do now that they do get some?

Now that nobody can't use the calendar to put down the Habs what would be the next excuse? What would be the next thing that keep them from being ranked way higher than 10 on most power rankings.
My money on Markov injury!
Update: This is a two part post Tomorrow I report on how well the Habs did in most power rankings!

I ain't got nothing to bitch about!

Am gonna let you in on a little secret of life blogging is a lot about bitching. In fact to blog usually you need to have something to bitch about to get you started. In that respect the Habs are getting frustratingly better. They put away both the Canucks and Bruins the power play produced 3 out of 5 goals in the past two games. Gionta got two and Gomez finally got one! So what the fuck is left to blog/bitch about?

Can't bitch about the O'Byrne trade. With a defense playing the way they did so far who would you sit to play the guy? Hell even Spacek is doing better now I would not play him on the power play like Martin did last night but so far so good. The trade did leave the Habs 1.5 million of cap space so speculation are rampant on the twitterverse on what Gauthier is cooking. But if the power play is getting to a more normal standard Pierre can afford to take a wait and see attitude.

See what I just did I found a way to blog/bitch about the Habs leaving me with nothing to blog/bitch about! It good enough for one day let just hope we get something more to chew on soon! loll Seriously I say let the good time roll and we find something else to bitch about soon enough!

The Habs have found their style and it Jacques Martin Trap 2.0!

After Jacques Lemaire Devils won the cup in 1995 almost everybody in the league tried to imitate them for a while this lead to what many observers would call the trap era. In fact the league used the lockout to dramatically change their rules to speed up the sports and end the trap era! Today Eric Engels on The Engels Angle says The Canadiens Have a Very Clear Identity. And I happen to agree with him the Habs do have a identity. But it not a new or innovative system it just the good old trap making a comeback Jacques Martin style. Not a big surprise considering that Martin is a coach from that era or should I say THE LAST coach from that era.

For the trap to work you got to have every players committed to the system. You also must capitalize on your opponent mistakes, you got to score on the power play and you got to have a really great and really consistent Goaler. If you don't if for some reason one part of that house of card is not right the whole thing come crashing down on top of you. That why of their five defeats in regular time so far the Habs loss two by shutout that also why during the last playoff they lost three by shutout to the Flyers. When you don't have much offensive chance to capitalize on you can't afford to have players sit on the back of the bus waiting for their slump to end!

But what if they succeed, what if they do win a cup this way? Great for us Habs fans but are you ready for a return to the trap era?    
  

TSN-Habs regional feed still MIA on all but one provider!

The Habs have always been a big draw on TV in Canada. Recently TSN announced that they had a new deal to present 24 extra Habs games in this season to viewers in Quebec, Atlantic Canada and parts of Eastern Ontario, including Ottawa, Belleville, Kingston and Pembroke, on a TSN alternate feed. Actually let be precise TSN made this announcement on October 21, so when they did this press release three weeks ago I expected that my provider Shaw Direct would jump on it. I mean they did not hesitate to bend over backwards for Rogers new channel Sportsnet One just two months ago but nothing happen!

It not only my provider Videotron did not pick it up either in fact nobody but Bell who were on board even before the press release was made did. And Videotron got a hell of a lot more to lose than Shaw Direct if they don't carry it! So why nobody but Bell carry the new feed by now? It not a technical reason the Habs are premium content to carry and usually providers will find a way even if they have to dump some trash to make space! I keep coming back to Bell being in on that deal before it was even made public. Bell who now own CTV, TSN and RDS, Bell who also own 15% of the Habs by the way! Was TSN told to not accept any offers or to make outrageous demands that could never be met?
One can only speculate because so far nobody talking!

Riddle me this habs fans! My car is on the fritz!

My car got some serious mechanical problem.
The engine is a mix bag of working parts and parts that are leaking oil it can't hold highway speed for more than 40 minutes. Plus the next day after a ride forget it my car not starting unless it boosted. The front breaks are brand new but the back are old and about to give on me plus I can't find new replacement parts, my credit card is max out and nobody would trade with me for my old parts at the meet swap.
The power steering is loose and there 7 millions persons who think they can drive my car better than me!
Who am I?

It been nice knowing you Max!

Max Pacioretty I salute you with this classic but I fear you just screwed yourself out of a call up this season!

Jekyll and Hyde again!

Another week of Jekyll and Hyde play from the Habs. Three games two wins against the Senators and one loss to the Devils! How is a 2-1 week a bad thing? It not except 4 out of 7 goals came from the Plekanec line and while it great that the team got at least one line that produce when they don't score nobody else does and we lose by shutout against the Devils. A team that can't even afford to have a real roster to face us by the way! 


By all account the Habs had a cakewalk of a month with many teams they faced being in worse shape than they are. Hell the two wins this week was against a team that had the second worse start of the season. While it a good thing to help with Price confidence and Markov never ending bad luck in the short term it not going to last. The easy points wasted now are going to bite the Habs in the ass by the end of the season!


Players of the week:  Subban, AK, Plekanec and Price.
Ghost of the week: Gomez and the Power Play for a third week in a row!
Sign of hope: Markov is close to being day to day and Pouliot finally put one in!


So while the disaster season that I predicted is thankfully not materializing yet their still enough sore spot to worry about.

What if the Habs had more home games!

It ridiculous the prices of tickets in Montreal but yet they sell out every home games! And the Habs are not alone the top five NHL market can sell their tickets at outrageous price and still sell out everyone of their games! This beg the question, why every team get to play 41 home game? This is a league that got about 5 teams selling out every game at scandalous price and five team that cannot fill half their arena if they gave away the tickets for free! 


An easy fix is to have those big market play 51 home games and split the extra earning with the visiting team 40/40/20. 40% goes to the big market home team 40% goes to the small market visiting team 20% goes to the league.


40% off a sell out crowd in Montreal is worth a lot more than 100% off an half empty arena that the average ticket price for the few peoples who actually turn up was 30 bucks! You know what you get for $30 at the Bell Center? The price of parking on game night plus half your first beer!
If you're a top earner and are keeping this league afloat should your fan base be rewarded with more home game? And if you're a small market hemorrhaging money 31 home games to sell is a lot easier than 41 plus the added rarity mean that you're likely be able to ask more for tickets on average.
The Islanders with their No Habs No campaign is not really targeting Islanders fans by the way it directed at attracting even more Habs fans so let take the next logical step in the new CBA!        

You lose some and you win some! And sometime fate is just a fucking Bitch!

So the Habs are now 2-1-1. Five points out of eight considering the anemic power play the fact that no team really dominated the Habs and that Price is not yet the utter epic failure that I predicted it not so bad a start. If the Habs can win tonight against the Senators we can consider this to even be a good start. By all account they could do worse! The Sens, Pens, Devils and Sabres are all having a worse start than the Habs and while it not a surprise when it come to the Devils considering their recent roster shenanigan it is for the rest of that group. 


The big surprise come from the Leafs who are now 4-0 and while I will not call them "The Laugh" for a while I fear that Toronto fans are in for a rude awakening when their team face teams who are in better shape than the Habs, Sens, Pens and Rangers. My money is on reality coming to bite them in the ass next Saturday October 23! Truth be told it way too early for anybody to make any conclusion on this season start after all right now the Islander are in eight place and the Bruins played only just 2 games. 


On a positive note Gorges got the power play monkey off the Habs back yesterday! 
I feel George Carlin will curse me from his grave for using the wrong expression but what the fuck it worth being haunted for a while. Hell being visited by the ghost of Carlin is something I would consider an honor anyway! loll  

Mind fuck!

Last night game was well not great but good enough at least if you're an Habs fans! On the other hand if you're a Pens fan you got to wonder if the Habs are not mind fucking the Pittsburgh Penguins! The Pens were frustrated and off their game for most of the first period. The only thing that kept them in the game is the Habs incapacity at capitalizing on the power play and one sided officiating. M.A.B gone and Markov absence is hurting the team power play a lot something to fix this must be done. Because of Markov bad luck the Habs cannot depend solely on him coming back and staying healthy.

In both Markov and Hammer absence Subban was pretty much the number one defenseman and number one target, thank god he look like the real stuff. On another positive note Carey Price had a solid game and actually kept the team in the game for most of it. One might have issues with the second Pens goal but it is to be expected and Price did not collapse after that. So except for the second period the Habs had a good game. If they start playing 60 minutes soon they might just have a good season at least good enough to avert the disaster that I predicted!      

Is it time for Hamrlik to go the Swiss way?

Mathieu Carle will in all likelihood be put on waiver this morning and it likely that somebody will snatch him up. It would be good news for Carle who might get a better chance to make the NHL somewhere else and it bad news for the Habs who will lose another asset that they failed to develop in house! It a failure to make space for the kids to develop that will hurt the team the most in the long run. The roster is pretty much fixed in stone and it was before the camp even started!

This beg the question what the hell is Hamrlik still doing with the Habs? Even if we don't have Markov for a couple of months so what Hamrlik is also hurt! So it time to save cap space by sending his ass to some swiss team like the Blackhawk just did with Huet! Now Mathieu Carle may not be a prime asset but he's not the only kid that Montreal could have promoted this year! It time to make bolder move by making some space for the kids if you are willing to gamble this much on Price you might as well be all in!