Plekanec is signed and Halak is gone. So I’m making a not-so-bold prediction: Pierre Gauthier is done for the off-season.
Eric and I will argue over the long-term implications of the Pleks / Halak moves during our podcast – if I can ever find Eric – but for now…
…let’s give a warm welcome to the new Habs. They are just like the old Habs.
Don’t expect any big changes because:
a) Gauthier doesn’t have cap space to sign a major UFA to his lineup.
b) No major trade on the horizon either, because no team is going to take on Hamrlik and/ or the Kostitsyn brothers without some weird combination of picks, prospects, Markov, Gorges or Subban.
c) Gauthier could trade a couple of spots up or down in the draft…but again, the options are really limited in either direction so even if he does, it won’t be a major move.
But the biggest reason?
d) I think Pierre Gauthier, at heart, is a calculated, but cautious, General Manager. He sees what he wants and goes for it, but only if he is sure of all the parameters. And I think Gauthier, both as a function of the cap-strapped situation he finds himself in but also because of his personal management style, wants to stay in his sandbox. He does not want to make too many changes. More on that later.
Right now, I think we all know how the rest of Gauthier’s playbook reads, in order of importance:
1. Sign Carey Price.
2. Sign a good back-up goalie for Carey Price (Marty Biron, Johan Hedberg, Antero Niittymaki and for the wild card: Chris Mason!!!??!!).
3. Tend to the well-rehearsed list of UFA / RFA’s already on the team (Dominic Moore, Max Laps, Pouliot, etc).
In other words, don’t expect Alex Frolov or Colby Armstrong to come on over. As much as they could help the team, there isn’t any money for them. The Habs may not be able to keep Dominic Moore either. Also say goodbye to Glen Metropolit, Marc Andre Bergeron and Paul Mara. But we all saw that coming, didn’t we?
Not to beat a dead Slovak goalie, but the Halak (or Price) trade was the one chip Gauthier had to really upend his lineup in a major way. A chance to clear space, get rid of expensive pieces and maybe, maybe, find a larger bigger / cheaper body to replace Tomas Plekanec – with enough room to chase a big UFA winger or two (hence Frolov or Armstrong).
But Gauthier didn’t go down that path. He stayed inside his sandbox.
Take Exhibit A: The Halak trade. It seems reckless on the surface (and I am still convinced that Gauthier should have waited before pulling the trigger), but in reality, Gauthier sees this as minimal risk because he already knew who he was getting. Lars Eller (in exchange for Halak), and earlier in the season Aaron Palushaj (for Matt D’Agostini), were both selected by the Blues in the 2007 draft, right after the Habs picked Ryan Mcdonagh and PK Subban, respectively, that same year. Gauthier already knew those players very well, because the Habs were in a position to draft them (and in hindsight, I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Benoit Pouliot – drafted right before the Habs picked you-know-who in 2005 – was the player the Habs reached out to when they were looking to dump Guillaume Latendresse).
Cautious. Calculated. He stayed in his sandbox, within his frame of knowledge. He is clearly comfortable here and sees no reason to leave.
Now I’m not saying that the next time the Habs make a deal with the Rangers, for example, prospects like Chris Kreider (picked after Louis Leblanc) or Bob Sanguinetti (after David Fisher in 2006) will be in play, but it wouldn’t surprise me. And I’m not just talking about this specific pattern either. It’s more general than that: A pattern that points to how Gauthier conducts business: He deals with what he knows.
And there were too many possible intangibles and permutations with all the possible Halak trades – and, yes, too many possible financial consequences of signing Halak and trading Price. Gauthier didn’t want any of that clutter. He chose to keep it simple. Block by block. One move at a time.
Back to off-season 2010: Maybe Gauthier pots a Kozlov here, a Halpern there, if they agree to $ 1 million or less. Maybe Gauthier goes crazy and tries to finagle a Chris Higgins back in the fold (actually, might not be a bad idea and would fit the Gauthier sandbox)!!??!!!.
But aside from a couple of TBD’s at back-up goalie and on the third line, we know what the 2010-2011 starting lineup will be for the Montreal Canadiens.
But in a week where Philly traded for Dan Hamhuis, Boston acquired Nathan Horton AND ALSO Hall / Seguin, where Tampa, Washington, Florida, Ottawa and Carolina are going to draft big or make big changes, the big question is:
Are the Habs any better than last year?
Frankly, I have no idea. But I suspect, as of now, maybe not.
We got rushed back from our summer vacay for this?????
Jaroslav Halak traded for…Lars Eller and Ian Schultz!!!!!????!!!!!!!
I HATE THIS AWFUL DEAL. I HATE IT. I HATE IT. I HATE IT. I HATE IT.
Why do I hate it? Glad you asked:
1 – Gauthier could have gotten more if he had let Halak walk as an RFA!!!
* That’s right! Gauthier NEGOTIATED AGAINST HIMSELF. Seriously. Brian Burke had to give up two first rounders and a second round pick for the RIGHT to sign Phil Kessel. Had Boston just let Kessel go, they would have been awarded a 1st, 2nd, and 3rd pick.
* Gauthier didn’t even get that in this deal. He got a former 1st rounder and a former 3rd rounder. That’s it! Seriously???
*UPDATE: Yes, I know Halak was arbitration eligible, and thus, he has more leverage. But as a negotiating point, Halak is still an RFA. The Habs could have pushed him to take a low contract if they really wanted to.
2 – Why didn’t Gauthier wait until the draft to pressure other teams into giving more?
* There is no way you can convince me that this is the best deal Gauthier could get. No way. No how.
* You know what else this tells me? Because there were so many other goalies available this season, Gauthier was scared of losing out on a good trade. He was scared all the other teams would move faster than him. But Gauthier had the best two horses in the business. That was his only leverage. And it was excellent leverage. He should have had faith in his leverage. Instead, he blinked. And after giving up a second rounder for Dominic Moore weeks before the trade deadline, all the other GM’s now know that Gauthier is weak. The next trade will be even tougher for Gauthier to make.
3 – Why didn’t Gauthier consider trading Price for a greater bounty?
* I don’t know who the better goalie is between Halak and Price, but I do know that Gauthier could have gotten more for Price. The Flyers, Oilers, Lightning, and yes, the Blues, were all interested. Tsn.ca says the Sharks were too. All of them would have surely given up more for Price, closer to the draft.
* I know, I know, money had a part to play in this. Halak would cost more. MUCH MORE. OK, I understand that. BUT STILL – was there a deal to be had for Jeff Carter for Carey Price and others? I am betting that there was. What about a trade for Patrick Sharp? The Hawks needed to dump salary. Now, he will end up on the Leafs! Hell, what about Oshie? Backes? NATHAN FUCKING HORTON? Any of those guys are better than what Gauthier got!
If any of these available centers come in, Gauthier doesn’t have to sign Plekanec.
* which brings me to…
4 – Gauthier is about to get raped by Thomas Plekanec.
* Pleks and his camp now know, for a fact, that Gauthier has no choice but to sign Pleks. Because Gauthier was unable to land a Jeff Carter in the trade that the entire league knew was coming, Gauthier’s best and ONLY option is to sign Pleks. And now Pleks doesn’t have to rush. Every day that he waits to sign, he can add another 100K to his annual salary. At least. How does $5.5 million sound to you?
5 – Gauthier will also have to over-pay for Marty Biron.
* Gauthier knows he needs a strong, reliable back-up to help Carey’s development: emotional, professional, and on the ice. It’s a thankless job in front of a porous defense that won’t have Andrei Markov back until November.
6 – Why prospects? OK, why THESE prospects?
* Lars Eller and Ian Schultz!!!! Seriously, had anyone ever heard of these guys until today? Listen, I totally get why Gauthier would not want to trade a young goalie like Halak for an aging veteran. I understand why he would want to focus on youth. I understand why he would want to send Halak to the Western Conference too. But these “prospects” haven’t even played a season in the NHL!!! They weren’t on ANYONE’S radar. Except for maybe the robo-scouts / video cameras the Habs are going to use instead of real live human scouts.
* These guys are going to start the season in Hamilton. But Hamilton HAS NO COACH. How can Gauthier be sure that these prospects are going to develop, when the Guru is gone to Tampa, Muller is in flux, and player development is a known weak point of the Habs organization?
* Also – how does Gauthier trade for prospects when almost every single heralded young forward on the Habs struggled under Jacques Martin? The Kostitsyns, Lapierre, Pacioretty, Latendresse / Pouliot, D’Agostini, they ALL struggled last year. At some point, you might want to hedge your bets.
I guess Hamilton will have a hell of a team this year, though.
* UPDATE: It seems Gauthier is really high on Lars Eller . He projects him as a “Number 2 center” and thinks Eller may even start the season with the big league Habs. The operative word here is THINKS. Eller is not money in the back. And the Habs don’t really handle young talent properly. And Halak was in the Conn Smythe discussion before the 3rd round loss to the Flyers. You tell me who you would rather have on your team?
* UPDATE 2: I fully and freely admit that if Eller becomes a great player, maybe this deal won’t look so bad. Maybe a few years down the road. Right now? It sucks.
This is just plain fun. Somehow, some way, this team has taken Montreal by complete surprise and absolutely captured the imagination of the entire hockey world. It seems no matter what they face, they find the way to bounce back from it. Heart epitomized. But now with both Markov and Spacek out, facing the Staal-less Pittsburgh Penguins, they’re up against an arguably bigger challenge than even the Washington Capitals. Can they really keep it going?
So the Habs have held the lead in the series 3 times as long as the Capitals. The goaltending has gone from suspect to otherworldly. The team as a group clearly never quits. The coaching has suddenly gotten more creative and has officially turned into a big edge in the series. Special teams has been incredible throughout. So who do YOU think is gonna win game 7? You might be surprised to hear what we have to say…
For our first official Playoff Podcast, we turn up the intensity a few notches and are pretty much at each other’s throats for most of the show. You gotta hear it to believe it. Somehow amidst the fire, we manage to delve into how the Habs lost control of the series so suddenly, who starts in nets for game 4, and who starts on D: O’Byrne, Bergeron, or … Subban?
For those who didn’t catch it, that was coach’s assessment of last night’s 4-2 loss to the Senators.
Um….what was coach talking about exactly? True, the Habs went 0 for 6 on the PP. True, there were plenty of giveaways in the neutral zone, and the defense corps were atrocious, starting with Markov. So there were plenty of reasons why the Habs lost the game. But reason number one? Carey Price was terrible. There’s no other way to think about it.
Hey, it happens. This is not a knock against Carey, not completely, anyway. It’s a knock against the coach for his utterly transparent attempt to protect the (once-again) shaky confidence of his young franchise netminder. If coach wanted to be truthful, he would have said that the goals let in by Carey were a result of some very ordinary shots – at best. He would have said that sometimes, when the rest of the team falters, it is up to the goalie to win the game – the last line of defense. He would have said that while it is understandable for a goalie to let in a soft goal or two, it is unacceptable to look like you just don’t care.
As a former netminder himself, and the former coach of some terrific Senators teams who never quite made it because they never had the capable backstopper to lead the way, coach knows that teams live and die on goaltending.
But he didn’t say any of that. Of course, he probably shouldn’t say any of that to the press. He probably should have kept quiet on the subject or said something like “everybody played a bad game”. Instead, he just draws more attention to the glaring weakness in nets by insulting everyone’s intelligence – including his own team’s – by saying the goaltending was “excellent”. That’s the kind of comment that can make Price’s teammates resent him. The kid already has to battle the pressure, develop as a goalie, and confront the perception that he was awarded the starting job before he earned it. Now Price looks like teacher’s pet.
Coach’s efforts to protect Price, no – praise him - at the expense of the team when it was so clearly not warranted – well……
…this will just fan the flames even more on the debate. It’s the kind of comment that can cause you to lose your team.
Our inaugural, end-of-year-2009 podcast will be posted on Friday. Eric and I have a lot of goodies planned.
Until then, some notes:
The margin of error for the current Habs is, and always will be, razor thin. Injuries, penalties, slumps, goaltending, special teams…all these factors have to break the Canadiens way for them to pull out the win. Why? They simply do not have enough top-line talent across all positions, so they can not afford any off nights.
It is going to be hard for the Habs to get less penalties as the season goes on, for three reasons:
1 – The Habs play an aggressive style on the backcheck, and a lot of their d-men are a little slow. That translates into a lot of hooking and cross-checking penalties. No one wants to be the one to cough up the puck to the enemy.
2 – Now the Habs have a reputation – so it is difficult for the refs to look the other way. For a variety of reasons, refs are sometimes hesitant to call a penalty if its close (if it’s late in the game, if its against the home team, if they don’t want to unduly influence the outcome, etc). But the Habs’ bad reputation will only reinforce the refs’ thinking when they see the Habs misbehaving: “there they go again”. It’s very tough to change a reputation in mid-season.
3 – Fatigue: As Eric Engels notes, there may be a fatigue factor setting in. Again, the compressed schedule, injuries, penalty kill and coach’s penchant for playing 3 lines instead of 4, could all add up to fatigue. Which means mental mistakes and stupid penalties. Interesting to note that coach has not been running practices on off days lately.
The Department of ‘Please don’t trade Halak, AK-46, or D’Agostini’: I don’t think Bob is going to be able to get equal value for AK-46 right now. Same with Halak. These players are worth much more to the Habs than they are to another team.They know their roles, they know the system, and on the Habs, they know the pressure is on them to play their best every game. And they are CHEAP, YOUNG, and SIGNED, so they have no leverage against the Habs. Not to mention, their good play puts pressure on other young players to play their best (see Carey Price and Max Pacioretty for examples). So why is there any urgency to trade these guys?
Eric Engels of Hockey buzz and Marc Antoine Godin of La Presse have posed the question: The Habs have $45 million dollars committed to 14 players for next year. The Cap next year is about $56.4 So the Habs have $11.4 million dollars to sign 12 RFA and UFA’s set for next year. So if you were Bob, what would you do?
Here’s where the trick is impossible. Godin states that Gainey’s mandate is both to keep players signed for next year and make the playoffs this year. I don’t know if that’s possible. But I sure as hell wouldn’t allow Pleks to walk away. Godin brings up another good point: that to re-sign all of these players would be tough, and would just result in the Habs staying at the same level they are now. No improvements ’cause the cash ain’t there. Also probably true (read my post from yesterday).
Here’s the breakdown:
RFA’s: Carey Price, Tom Pyatt, Mathieu Carle, Jaroslav Halak, Guillaume Latendresse, Maxim Lapierre, Matt D’Agostini and Kyle Chipchura.
UFA’s: Tomas Plekanec, Glen Metropolit, Paul Mara, Marc-André Bergeron.
Here’s what I would do:
Plekanec: Godin says it’ll cost $4.25 million. OK. Sign him already.
Price: Godin says 3.25. I say no way. $2.75…but true, Gainey may have to go higher cause Brian Burke will want to sign him away.
We would have to say goodbye to: M.A. Bergeron and Paul Mara. I see no need to worry about guys like Chipchura, Tom Pyatt, or even Mathieu Carle. Let’em go. Lapierre and Latendresse get a tiny raise, so their combined hit is $2million.
Now we are at $54million, leaving $2.4 million for: Halak (RFA), Metro (UFA) and D’Agostini (RFA).Which means that Halak may get traded at the deadline for young cheap players with upside / picks, leaving enough money to sign Metro and D’Agostini. If I had to choose between the two, I would sign D’Agostini. He is younger, cheaper, and has more upside. This would also leave some extra pennies for the likes of Carle and Pyatt to fill out the roster, as well as pay for any Hamiltonians making the big team.
Who I would trade:
*AK-46 may get tossed at the deadline to open up some cap space ($3million). If there are no takers, then I would keep AK and hope he gets better – and trade him away as soon as he does – again, for young cheap players with upside, or draft picks.
* Don’t forget the $5million cap hit that Hamrlik’s contract poses. Yeah, he’s been very good. But he costs a lot too – he might be worthwhile trade bait for a young scorer and younger defenceman at the deadline.To my mind, Hamrlik is the first to go. The Habs simply can’t afford to keep him anymore. Hey – that’s the new world order now.
* Halak: If either Hamrlik or AK-46 get traded, I would love to keep Halak. I believe he could bring back the biggest return, or be the most value to the Habs if he stays on the team.
As you can see, I am not concerned with making the playoffs anymore. I would rather the Habs re-stock the farm and get a top-10 draft pick. I would try to rebuild on the fly – so I would keep the big guys like Gionta, Cammi, Gomez, Pleks and Markov – winners and positive role models for young players to grow up with and learn from. I would keep Georges, and Price, I would TRY to keep Halak, but would know that would be tough, and I would keep Pacioretty, D’Agostini, Lapierre, and Latendresse, along with O’Byrne, Spacek and Gill. After that – it’s callups, young players, draft picks – the young’uns I get back from my trading away Halak / Hamrlik / AK-46.
So there’s a theory, but man, I so do NOT WANT to be Bob Gainey right now – ’cause he really has no room for a single mistake anymore. Gainey’s job isn’t as tough as this guy’s, but still…
We are now 20 games into the 2009-10 NHL season….and the Habs record is 9-11 (boy that sounds ominous).
Is it time to panic, as the record suggests?
All the big signings, the equally big-name departures (how good would R. Lang and A. Tanguay and F. Bouillon look in Habs uniforms right now?) and bottom-up organizational restructuring has not produced the results most fans expected at this point into the season. The reasons/excuses are plenty: new coach, new system, injuries….etc.
But the league is littered with teams going through big changes and injuries (see New Jersey, Colorado, San Jose, Philly and L.A. as teams going through either or both). So what’s going on with the Habs? Is it a question of adjustment and patience, or is it simply that the Habs don’t have the horses?
Only the next 40 games hold the answer – so we’ll just have to watch and see. I actually think the Habs will get better this season – barring injuries, they can hardly get worse. What really worries me is this: looking past this season, the prospects are ever diminishing. The young ones aren’t performing, the draft picks aren’t developing and until Price convincingly earns the No. 1 over Halak and/or the Kostitsyns start scoring, the Habs have no one who can bring a good return in a trade. The Habs overall salary is at the cap limit, so free agency may not work out either. Even worse, if Pleks doesn’t get signed to a deal soon, he may be as good as gone (how much you wanna bet he makes the All-Star team and will still be unsigned for next year)!
Yikes. Right now, the Habs are looking like a version of the NY Rangers….a big-market team that spends to the cap every season in order to appease its fan base, with some admittedly good players…but the team is never able to fully break out of its mediocrity because the organization isn’t firing on all cylinders and is unable to excel in all facets of the business: Scouting, drafting, developing, trades, early signings, smart contracts, and patience, etc.
One thing’s for sure, and I know Jacques Martin agrees, is that the Habs need to play with more gusto and make their presence felt. Like Paul Newman said: “Let ‘em know you’re there”.
Tune in later as Eric and I discuss the above goodies and lots, lots more.
