Habs in 2012: Is there a gameplan? Part 1, Centers

I wonder about this almost every day. Do the Habs’ brass actually have a plan for the future?  I sincerely don’t know.  Today I’ll be talking about the Canadiens’ future plan at the Center position.  Here ‘s what we know.

The following players, barring trades (or further injuries) will all be in the starting lineup next year:

Tomas Plekanec, David Desharnais, Lars Eller

I didn’t include Scott Gomez in that list because I think there is little to no chance he is back on the team next season.  I can understand if the team decides to wait until next year to begin buying him out (in order to save money on the cap), but to go any longer than that would be basically saying to the fans, “we have no intention of winning until his contract ends.”  It’s as simple as that.  If they had any balls at all, they would just put him in the minors till his contract expires in 2014.  Glen Sather has been doing it with Wade Redden for the last two years, freeing up 6.5m a year of cap space in the process.  Geoff Molson would have to pay Scott Gomez 7.3m a year to play in the AHL, but at least his chances of making that money back in the playoffs would be greatly improved, no?

The center situation is an interesting one for me.  It appears clear that Desharnais is a quality top 6 center.  His work ethic is top shelf, he has great vision on the ice, and he’s proven night in, night out, that his small frame is not as big a concern that many would have imagined.  The amount of times that he comes out of a battle along the boards with the puck is shocking, really.  In the end, I see no reason to believe that he will do anything but continue to improve.  

I feel the same way about Lars Eller.  Here I see a player who consistently makes smart decisions with the puck.  He doesn’t have the overall skillset that a Jordan Staal has, but they play a similar style of game.  In a perfect world, Eller would be a lock at the no.3 center spot for years to come.  However, a lot of that hinges on the team having a real no.1 center, which we do not currently have.

I like Tomas Plekanec, really I do.  He’s a player who you can count on to deliver his all, every night.  Unfortunately, his all, which includes his professionalism and dedication to the team, is simply not a good enough fit for this team. I know that sounds harsh but consider this.  When the Canadiens traded Halak for Eller 2 seasons ago, their plan was what exactly?  To mold this 13^th overall pick into a winger?  I seriously doubt it. 

No, I think they were thinking that they got a guy who could eventually be a bigger, better version of Plekanec.  Today, all the signs are there: Like Plex he plays a smart two-way game, sees the ice well and has an excellent work ethic.  Just like Plekanec he’s starting off as the 3^rd line center, but unlike Plekanec, that’s WHERE HE SHOULD STAY.

What this team needs (and always seems to need) is a top line center.  What we’ve done over the last 15 years or so, is promote guys who have 2^nd/3^rd line talent, to the top spot, because there’s nobody better.  We’ve been fooling ourselves into believing that players like Plekanec, Gomez, Koivu, Ribeiro, etc., were actually No.1’s, but they were far from it. 

So my answer is simple:  focus all your energy on procuring a first line center.  I’m not saying jump the gun and trade for him this year, or even next.  I’m just saying HAVE A PLAN.  Maybe it starts at the upcoming draft.  Two centers, Mikhail Grigerenko  and Alex Galchenyuk jump out as players that have top line center potential written all over them.  If I was able to grab one of these two players I would do it, without hesitation.  After all, what better way to build a team than through the draft.  Also, it’s not like teams in the NHL are that big on trading away their best centers. It’s usually the kind of player you’d like to hang onto.  

The other great thing about the draft is that there is no bidding war: if he’s available, you just take him. When you trade for a top line center, the cost isn’t just high because he’s good, it’s exorbinately high because EVERYONE WANTS HIM.  We saw this season the Columbus Blue Jackets trade one of their best young star wingers Jaboc Voracek, their top pick which turned into Jordan Staal clone Sean Couturier, and a 3^rd round pick for center, Jeff Carter.  Carter is good, no doubt about it, but when you trade young quality players for a guy that is signed to 5.273m/11 year contract, you better hope he’s more than good. Last time, I checked he hasn’t been.

No, the smart money is doing what all the current champions have done: Drafted a winner.  My plan at center would be this:

·      Put all my eggs into a drafting a top flight center

·      Trade Plekanec when said center is ready, for a veteran, shutdown D

·      Keep Desharnais and Eller at the two and three spot

·      Stick to the plan

And that’s the most important part about all this.  If there’s a plan (and I’m not convinced there is) than let it play out.  The fans deserve that at the very least.

Tomorrow I'll be discussing the situation at wing.  It will also be a doozy...

Quick notes from last night...

5 on 5:  When you outshoot the opponents 30-16, you can't be playing that bad.  Sure we had a ridiculously long PP in the 3rd, but it's not like a bulk of shots came from that (i'll get to that in a minute).  In general, we played the right way all game long, which is to say we fore-checked well, we created opportunities in around the net, and we limited the Caps' scoring chances.  Unfortunately nothing went in, and the very few scoring chances the visitors had, they scored on.  Washington has a very deep squad with a lot of highly skilled players, and it showed last night.  The goals scored by Perreault and Johannson were ones you'd rarely see a Habs player score.  The goal scored by Ovechkin was a picture perfect slap shot with an equally perfect screen.

The game overall reminded me a bit of our playoff tilt with the Caps 2 years ago, except with the roles reversed.  There, it seemed like the Capitals game plan was shoot as often as possible and hope for the best.  The Habs game plan was hit them hard in transition and win with speed and skill.  Last night Washington scored exactly that way, taking full advantage on the counter attack on the few chances they had.  Did they win? Yes.  Did they play much better? Not really.

The PP:  What can you say anymore?  They literally have no idea what they're doing.  Mix that in with not a lot of great PP threats and you have a real problem on your hands.

Solutions?  Do some research and change it up.  I remember telling a friend in November (or maybe even October) that they should watch tape of other teams and take some notes.  Vancouver was an example of a team to check out, but maybe that was mistake because we have nothing that resembles their players on our team.  Unfortunately, after a quick look around the league for similar quality players on the blueline and upfront, I came up with the Phoenix Coyotes.  Where do the Coyotes sit in PP percentage? 29th, just ahead of us.  So scratch that.  How about the NY Islanders? They currently sit 6th in the NHL at 19.4%. That's pretty darn good.  They have Mark Streit on D who is obviously quite good, but not really anyone that much better than us on D.  Our forwards stack up pretty evenly, so then it must just come down to execution.  I'm pretty sure that if Cunneyworth watched tape of their PP, one thing would become abundantly clear:  They hit the net on a regular basis from the points.  I could probably count on two hands the amount of wrist shots PK Subban has successfully hit the net with on the PP.  To me, him and Weber are the big reason why they struggle so much.  They simply don't have the wherewithal to consistently get the puck on net--it just doesn't come naturally to them.

Before this year, the Canadiens had traded for or signed a PP shooter early on in the season or just before.  In succession, they acquired Mathieu Schneider, M.A. Bergeron, and James Wisniewski.  All three of these players greatly improved the Habs PP.  I remember it being night and day last year with the acquisition of Wisniewski, where we had gone 0 for god knows how many before picking him up.  He instantly changed the fortune of the team.

This year? Tomas Kaberle.  Since his arrival I think our team and PP has gotten worse.  People would have laughed, but I bet this team would have been better off with Brian McCabe right now.  As old and horrible as he is defensively, at least he could do the one thing none of the Habs' D seem able to do. Hit the net.

Hit the net. What a concept.

Bourque is a nice pickup

Remember how happy you were when we signed Erik Cole earlier this year? Well, trading for Rene Bourque 6 months later is not a whole lot different.  Let me explain.

Rene Bourque and Erik Cole are essentially the same type of player.  One is faster (Cole), and the other is more physical (Bourque), but in the end they amount to the same type of player and production.  They both like to drive the net with speed, and muck it up in front of the net.

They are exactly what this team needs, and it shows that Pierre Gauthier is finally getting it.

So why do most pundits say Calgary won this trade?

Well, quite simply, it's the year of picking on the Habs organization, so get used to hearing how much of a failure they are.  Every year, Canadian sports journalists (save those in Quebec) pick the Habs to miss the playoffs (or just sneak in), and this year they finally got their wish.  It's a banner year for talking heads covering hockey, in large part due to the Canadiens' horrible season.  Instead of eating their words, they've had chance after chance to gloat about how right they were about the team's failure, from the players right up to the ownership group (see Mike Milbury on CBC).

Last night's game was a good example of what happens when each line shows up to play.  You could look at the stats from the game and say that the Desharnais line did everything, but there's so much more to it than that.  One line cannot be effective if the other three are useless.  Of course that's obvious, but that's the story of the Canadiens season thus far.  Most games that I've watched have consisted of one, maybe two lines each game putting pressure on the opposing defense.  This, in my opinion, is the major reason why they lose more often than not.

You can point your finger at the defense all you want, and I guess that's the easy thing to do.  After all, they're young, small, and easily pushed around.  But the big reason to why they've looked bad this year is because they're overworked due to the offense's ineffectiveness.

Think of an ineffective offense in football as a good analogy.  If your offense is bad in football, it usually means that your defense is on the field way too much.  When your defense is always on the field, the consequences are obvious. You get tired. You get beat up.  You get ineffective.

The same happens in hockey, but in perhaps a less blatant way.  All those shifts where the forwards don't fore-check, don't pressure the defense, and basically spend no time in the other team's zone, basically mean that the defense is working overtime.  This has been the Habs' season in nutshell.

Last night was an example of the opposite.  Why don't we see it more often?  Who knows.  I will say this though:  What Randy Cunneyworth did in last night's game, where he benched Lars Eller for a whole period, showed to me that the coach means business.  He's setting the precedent for the consequences of not working every shift.  Eventually this should sink in with all the players, and there will probably be a greater chance of seeing games like we saw last night.

One can only hope.  The good news is that they we ridded ourselves of a player who clearly had no intention of getting the message.

Will Bourque be as hard-headed? Maybe.  But at least he costs 2,700,000$ less.

Michael “Untradeable?” Cammalleri… Traded

Okay, so I know I said yesterday that I thought a bunch of players on the Montreal Canadiens were immovable, and that near the top of that list was Michael Cammalleri.  I looked at his contract, his play over the last year or so, and really couldn’t see another GM trading for him.  It would take a miracle.  It would take a GM maybe more desperate than ours to make it happen. 

Well it happened.  Jay Feaster, GM of the Calgary Flames needed to shake things up nearly as badly as we did, enough so that he traded for a 6m$ player that has scored 9 goals in 38 games year.  The only good news about Cammalleri is that he’s scored near 40 goals playing for the Flames and his partner in crime, Jarome Iginla.  To me, though, the good news ends there.  It seems strange that most pundits believe it’s more a shoe-in for Cammalleri to succeed post-trade than it is for Rene Bourque. What exactly are they basing this on? Scoring totals from three years ago? Playoff performances two years ago?  Is anyone looking at the current versions of these players?

All I’m hearing is the bad things about Bourque, how he doesn’t care, he’s a headcase, etc,. Well just because Kelly Hrudey had nothing bad to say about Cammalleri, doesn’t mean his “care meter” wasn’t also severly broken.  Will he do better in Calgary? Probably.  But the more important question for Habs fans should be: was he ever going to get better here? I seriously doubt it.

You can say all you want about how badly Gauthier handled the optics of this trade, as well as the dual firings earlier in the year, but as far as this trade is concerned, I like it.

If you read my last blog, I made it pretty clear that Cammalleri was not part of the solution in Montreal.  What’s worse, his gigantic contract was going to inhibit management from potentially bringing back, or bringing in certain players.  Cammalleri is, and always has been, a player that’s needed the perfect storm to be at his best. 

Sure, you can say the same about a lot of players, but maybe no more so than this player.  His game is a lot like Brett Hull’s, a player that made a name for himself with his rocket of a shot, and being in the right place at the right time to unleash it.  The problem is that Hull scored the bulk of his goals in an era where goalies weren’t as good, nor were their defenses (or more specifically, defensive systems).  Like Cammalleri, he scored the bulk of his goals from outside the hashmarks with one-timers.

 I don’t have statistical analysis on this, but it seems to me that goalies aren’t giving up nearly as many goals from those spots.  And if Cammalleri isn’t scoring from those spots, he’s simply not scoring at all.  That is unless he decides to suddenly work harder to get to the dirtier areas (a.k.a. near the net) to score goals.  If he does, it will simply be another example of a player who gave up trying in Montreal (see Ryder, Kostitsyn, Ribeiro), and turned it around with another team.  Can’t really blame the GM for that, can you?

So out goes Cammalleri and his 6M/a year contract through the 2013/2014 season, a 2012 5^th round pick, and the rights to KHL goalie Karri Ramo.  In comes Bourque, paid 3.33M a year through 2014-15, a 2^nd rounder in 2013 and center Patrick Holland, a 7^th rounder in 2010, and currently 9^th in WHL scoring with 57 points in 40 games.  If someone told me that we traded Cammalleri for Patrick Holland and a 2^nd round pick, I probably wouldn’t be thrilled, but at least I would take solace in the fact that we shed salary, and that would be a victory in itself.  The fact that we got Bourque as well was just icing on the cake.  You can say what you want about the guy, but the facts are these: He can score goals, and score them in places where a lot of our players are scared to go. 

Is he inconsistent: yes. 

Does he do stupid things once in a while: yes. 

But is he better player for the current Montreal Canadiens than Michael Cammalleri? 

I believe so.  The Canadiens are a team that needs to get bigger, but more importantly, without clear superstar-type players, they need to shed guys that are one-dimensional.  Rene Bourque might not be the hardest worker, but he adds more than one dimension to the team, something that is already a step up from Cammalleri.  He has size, strength and goal-scoring ability.  Both players have been accused of disappearing at times, but at least Bourque can lean on the defence a bit, can be asked to just forecheck if nothing else is working, and he’ll be more effective than Cammalleri.  The worst kind of player to have on your team is a one-trick pony, and that’s exactly what Cammalleri is.

The best part about this trade though is the monetary implications.  We just lost a player that was out-scored 67-54 by his trade counterpart.  The only thing he beats Bourque on is his pay rate, which is 2.7m$ more a year.  Before this trade was completed, I had serious doubts about whether or not Andrei Kostitsyn could be re-signed for next year.  With the money saved on the Cammalleri deal, they're now well on their way to bringing him back.  Like him or not, Kostitsyn is one of the few Hab players that has improved this year.  He has obvious chemistry with Eller, and it would be a shame to ship out a player who’s finally starting to really come in to his own.  As Eller improves so too will Kostitsyn, and both their point totals will go up subsequently.  Kostitsyn will not cost a king’s ransom to keep (between 3.5-4m a year), simply because he’s not having a great year point-wise.  To add to that, I seriously doubt we’ll find a player on the free agent market who’s as good as Kostitsyn at that price.  So if it means we traded Cammalleri to keep Kostitsyn, it’s a win for us.

Mid-Season Habs Report:  Injuries and bad luck mask the truth

As I write this report, just minutes before what would usually be a much-anticipated battle with the Canadiens’ archrival the Bruins, I find myself queerly detached from tonight’s tilt.  In truth, the most interesting Montreal news of the day had to do with another sport entirely, soccer, where the Montreal Impact made their first ever draft selection, Andrew Wenger (1^st pick overall). 

           

To be honest, the best thing about the usually Habs-crazed months of March and April will be the Impact this year.  Will they be any good? Odds are not in their favor.  But at least there will be an abundance of hope and buzz, words that can’t be associated with Nos Glorieux at the moment.

If this sounds like I’m giving up on the team this year, it’s probably because I am.  It hasn’t been a good year, and my crystal ball predicts it won’t get much better.  For the first time in a few years the team hasn’t overachieved, hasn’t pulled wins out of their butt, hasn’t held the fort against other, equally average teams.  It’s been a year of realization for the team (or so we hope): they’re not nearly as good as they thought they were.

On the flip side, it’s been a great year for almost all our prospects.  Greg Pateryn (2008 2^nd) and Mac Bennett (2009 3^rd) are the top D pairing for the always dominant, Michigan Wolverines.  Morgan Ellis (2010 4^th) is one of the best two–way d-men in the Q, and after a trade to the Shawinigan Cataractes, will get his shot to show his class on the national stage at the Memorial Cup.  As will teammate Michael Bournival (2010 3^rd), who is fresh off his solid performance at the WJC.  Speaking of the WJC, Nathan Beaulieu (2011 1^st) and Brendan Gallagher (2010 5^th) also made the team, with the latter notably having a monster game in the semifinal tilt against the Russians.  Other notables having solid seasons are Danny Kristo (2008 2^nd), Steve Qualier (2008 3^rd), and Darren Dietz (2011 5^th).

If it sounds like my gushing over prospects is a way of deflecting from the actual misery of the big club, it’s probably because I am.   Can you blame me?  I mean, who wants to talk about a team that relies on Travis Moen to score goals?  Who’s best overall d-man is Josh Gorges?  Who’s best forward is Erik Cole?  In what world does that sound like a recipe for success?

The truth is, we are in the midst of one of our worst seasons in years.  And I’m not just talking about the team on the ice: I’m talking about the organization as a whole.  It all began with the ill-advised re-signing of Andrei Markov who has yet to play a game this season.  To make matters worse, The Canadiens went ahead and traded for another bad contract, Tomas Kaberle, a so-so d-man that they are now stuck with for 2 ½ years. We re-signed Josh Gorges, which is good. However, the contracts signed to Kaberle, Markov and eventually Price and Subban, will probably mean the departures of two our better players this year, Andrei Kostitsyn and Travis Moen. 

Michael Cammalleri is having a horrible season.  He somehow has nine goals; I have no idea how he scored them because he seems so disinterested in playing hockey this year, he must have scored them through osmosis.  Brian Gionta, who now looks to be lost for the year, is having a similarly disappointing year, production wise.  The effort is there, but nothing else it seems.  The same can be said for Tomas Plekanec.  Lots of effort, little results.  And that’s just the thing with this team: there’s just only so much you can do when you’re short on talent.  From the looks of it, our two most talented forwards (Eller and Kostitsyn) play together on the 3^rd line.  With Markov out, we probably have the league least talented D corps in the league.  P.K. Subban?  He’s pretty good but would probably be the 4^th best D on almost any other team.  Here, he’s treated and utilized like our no.1.

Getting the picture? We simply don’t have that good a team.  Certain players are underachieving  (Cammalleri, Gionta, Plekanec), but then again, there are those who are overachieving as well (Desharnais, Cole, Eller).  What it all amounts to is a team that is still miles away from contending for a cup. 

But it’s not necessarily as simple a problem as we need more talent to succeed.  If that were the case, we could probably be a contender as early as next year.  Unfortunately, it’s not so simple.   There’s the small issue of our untradeable players.  Let me introduce you to the following players signed for the next 2 ½ years: Michael Cammalleri (6M a year), Scott Gomez (7.3M a year), Tomas Kaberle (4.25M a year) Andrei Markov (5.75M a year) and Brian Gionta (5M a year). That’s 28.3M$.  That’s a lot of dough being tied up into players that are pretty useless at the moment. 

No other team in the league is suffering from such a problem at the moment.  Even Anaheim, who are having a rough season, are getting way more bang for their buck from their stars then we are.  What it all means is two things:  Not only are we handcuffed financially from improving our club, but we’re also stuck having to play these players for the foreseeable future.  Want to see Brendan Gallagher play right wing next year? I know I do.  But where?  Unless Gionta and Cammalieri get injured or sent to the minors, there’s simply no room for Gallagher on the team.   The same goes for almost any other burgeoning prospect in our system.  They’re all stuck waiting in queue behind a bunch of overpaid, underachieving players that are currently immovable objects.

Sadly, I have more bad news.  Unless the organization pulls a rabbit out of the hat and magically makes a couple of these horrid contracts disappear, I’ll probably be writing an identical mid-season report next year…

Habs Report: Apathy springs eternal

When the Habs were losing to the Blue Jackets in last night's game, my friend turned to me and said something that I'd been thinking, and something i expect everybody clear across Canada had been thinking as well.

It's the same old story.

And this wasn't just a statement about how the Canadiens always seem to come out flat against bottom dwellers and conversely play our best against better teams.  No this was much more than that, it was an all-encompassing declaration: we, the Habs, (and yes, Habs fans are indeed a part of the team) have been perpetually stuck in neutral since 1993.

Bold statement you say?

Not really.  When you put aside the many excuses for our failed attempts to regain our early 90's cup glory (bad drafting, bad trades, bad players, bad coaching, bad luck), it all ends up being just that, excuses, and simply put, not good enough.  After a loss the other day, Martin alluded to the fact that he's barely ever had Markov in the lineup since his coaching debut.  I'm sure some reporters at that particular press conference probably felt for the guy, but my first thought was "did Dan Bylsma ever whine about not having Crosby in the lineup"? I highly doubt it.  Habs fans across the country are beginning to get tired of the excuses.  Scratch that: they are tired, exhausted even.

Whether it was the Houle administration, where we frittered away star players in ridiculous trades and crippled our future with horrible drafting; the Savard administration, where we had no talent and were saved only by miraculous goaltending; or the Gainey/Gauthier administration, where we've had the most talent in years, but seemingly the wrong coach/system to harness it; it all comes back to the same thing: failure.

The big question then is: why has nothing much changed in almost 20 years?  Many will waffle on this particular question, humming and hawing about how there is no clear answer, that there are too many intangibles, yadda, yadda, yaddda.  I disagree.  The answer is quite simple:

It's the same old story.

Too simple you might ask? Unfortunately no, it really is as simple as that.  Since winning the cup in '93, the Montreal Canadiens have made no bold moves, no radical changes in philosophy, no substantial attempt to turn a perpetual also-ran into an annual contender. In 1995, they traded away their best player, Patrick Roy. 10 years later, they drafted their now best player, Carey Price.  Basically, they fixed a mistake.  in 2011, they acquired free agent Erik Cole. This was the first time in recent memory that the organization made an off-season acquisition that was desperately needed.  Yes, you heard me. First time. Since the mid-nineties, fans have been clamoring for a big, top 6 center or a dominating power forward.  15 years later we got one.  15 years...

And it's not like they haven't had their opportunities to turn the ship around.  Just 2 1/2 years ago, Bob Gainey had a truckload of cash lying around to spend on free agents, players that now make up the framework of our current team.  But instead of addressing those obvious needs, (big center and winger), we ended up with slightly better versions of the players we let go, just a bit smaller.  It was the beginning of what supposed to be a promising new era.  Instead it was just...

The same old story.

There is no clear solution to our problems, but I think a pretty good place to start is with the management team.  After all, it's a lot easier to change that than it is to completely change a team's personnel.  And heck, we've already done that.  We did change the team around, with basically the same management staff.  Maybe its a sign that all the marquee players we've brought in (Cammalieri, Gomez, Gionta, Spacek) have regressed since arriving.  Maybe, just maybe, they aren't the problem, just like the previous batch of stars (Kovalev, Koivu, Higgins, Ryder, Ribeiro) may not have been the problem either.

In my opinion, we've witnessed almost 2 decades worth of tinkering, and nothing else. GM's and managers have come and gone, with the same big talk about reclaiming past glories, but those statements were clearly empty promises.  In truth, nobody has really ever come in here and taken the bull by the horns.  It's sad to say, but the organization simply lacks balls, or a willingness to say "we've failed, time to try something else." Maybe the reason for that is because the team, no matter how much it fails to win trophies or impress it's fanbase in some way, is, and always will be, safely in the black.

So why would you make drastic changes if you're making millions?  Because, just like any profitable business, disaster might creep up on you if you remain complacent.  If there was one word to describe the Montreal Canadiens it would be just that: complacency.  Slowly but surely, fans are beginning to tire of this inactivity, this unwillingness to adapt with the times.  Simply put, people are getting apathetic.  Will we make the playoffs? Probably.  Does anyone really care?  Yes, but then also, to a certain extent, not really.  Because for the last god-knows-how-many-years we've seen this team be up and down during the season, battle for a playoff spot down the stretch, and then make a quick exit in the playoffs.

So now it's early December, we're struggling but hanging around, and fans are clamoring for a trade or a firing or something.

It's the same old story.