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...  
 

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!  

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.