Recrutes

Recrutes: Hockey scouting from a professional perspective from Grant McCagg and Habs coverage from a 33 year veteran covering the NHL from Brian Wilde.

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McLean’s Pub Call Of The Wilde: On The Road Again

March 6, 2018

By Brian Wilde

The Montreal Canadiens continue to lose a lot of players from their line-up trying to stay competitive for the final six weeks of the season. Max Pacioretty with a knee injury and Victor Mete with a finger break are the two latest to be out. Both for six weeks. Both very likely to be gone for the rest of the year, so this a good opportunity for Head Coach Claude Julien to keep watching the new players to see who can cut it and who is over their heads.

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About Brian Wilde

Brian Wilde has worked in hockey since he was 20. He was the rink side host for the Edmonton Oilers at CTV and Ottawa Senators for Sportsnet. He was also lead reporter on the Montreal Canadiens for 17 years at CTV Montreal.

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Reader Interactions

  • Call me crazy, especially because I think Bergy has just been awful since 2016, but I’m actually not that worried about getting a decent return for Max. I think Bergy knows it better be good. As for the other GMs saying the ask is too high, well, isn’t that what they would say to try and pressure Bergy? And shouldn’t the ask be high? The guy scored 30 goals + for a number of seasons and has never played with a real center and can kill penalties and spent 10 years in the toughest pressure cooker in hockey. And he’s still only 29. The ask will be high and when Bergy feels he can lower it he will. I know you think I’m crazy considering all the terrible things I’ve said about Bergys job performance, and I stand by them 100%, but on this file, i have a hunch – and it’s just a hunch – that things might work out just fine for the Habs.

  • Craig button after the game was loud and passionate saying in essence… The habs are a disaster,no defence,no goal scoring,cant stop the puck,no centers and if they think they are just going to turn it all around in the next four or five months they are kidding themselves,and if they think its bergevin who can do it molson better think again. Oh i screamed with joy,love it craig !! Boom nailed it.
    Did you see fucale sitting on the chair beside the bench? After the many goals the camera was on him,he had that big eyed deer in the headlights very nervous look,head spinning,like oh shit am i going in? Too funny.smart move not putting fucale in with that situation for his first ever game.
    Serious injurys or not its so obvious whats going on,shut down any reg player with the slightest booboo to ensure tanking. Good,need loses.i cheer for the opponent,warped as a diehard fan but nessesary.
    Fire bergy
    Trade over rated ,over the hill,complacent fatcat price for a 1c

  • Imagine for a moment what we could have had as a Dcore today..subban (better then weber longterm), sergachev,markov. But no because 1 man fd this up.

  • Borgstrom, Necas, Vilardi, Thomas, Bennett . . . as the expression goes, one of these things is not like the others. Calgary is fading badly, largely because the Flames have had to rely on greenhorn goaltending and an attack that is one sniper short of two dynamic scoring lines for its sputtering playoff push.
    To get Pacioretty for two playoff runs the Flames never had to give up a precious gem like Jake Bean or a promissing young underachiever like Sam Bennett. One of Rasmus Andersson or Oliver Kylington along with perhaps a Dillon Dube and a 2019 pick of some sort might have been enough to get the deal done, if Bennett was a no-go. Calgary doesn’t have a first or even a second in this year’s draft, so that particular asset was never on the table.
    When a hockey team is so close to being right there with the rest of the true contenders, it seems a little short-sighted to sit tight with one of the deepest defence corps in the league and hang on for dear life to all of your Anderssons, Kylingtons, Jake Beans, Jussi Valimakis, and Adam Foxes, in hopes of shoehorning one or possibly two of them into the lineup at some point in the not-too-distant future. That’s not great asset management if you honestly feel you have a legitimate chance to win right away.
    Not to mention, Mark Jankowski has won the the third-line centre spot over Bennett, leaving him to play wing on the third line, so it’s a bit of gamble to think he’d suddenly turn on the jets and become an instant number one or two in Montreal.
    Borgstrom, Necas, Vilardi and Thomas each have the potential to be top scoring line centres in the league and it is doubtful any of them were ever on the table. But with what’s ahead of Bennett in the pecking order in Calgary, a trade for Pacioretty that brought back Bennett, a quality young defenceman and another reasonable piece/draft pick seems like soemthing that could have and should have taken place at the deadline.
    I’m more optimistic than you about the off-season and Pacioretty. Looking around the rest of the league, a couple of the hottest Pacioretty suitors are fading and about to miss the playoffs, which will of course get a couple of GMs thinking about what might have been. I think Bergevin’s original ask might be closer to what he gets in June than what you are suggesting here.
    Bottom line, if they had had the benefit of hindsight, I think the Flames’ braintrust would have made a Bennett deal on deadline day. But I believe that ship has sailed. And we should be able to do better than Bennett in June anyway.

    • Living in Kelowna, I’ve seen Dube a lot this season. The kid is good. He’s ready to step it up next year for his first pro season in the AHL. I don’t think he’ll hit the NHL for a season or two but he’s certainly got good potential. I’m always advocating for more Rockets to join the Habs, so make it so!

  • The more I think about it, the less I like the feeling that Pacioretty will be moved. He’s been such a good player for so long for this team, borne the burden of captaincy, taken a lot of heat during the Subban imbroglio, endured the Chara assault, and done a lot of good in the community to boot.

    I know that it’s a business. But it doesn’t mean we have to like these kinds of things. I hope that if he does get traded this summer, Bergevin cleans up and gets a massive return for it. The team receiving him gets a full year of a 30-goal man who could elevate to 40 with the right centre. They have an exclusive window to negotiate an extra year on his next contract if they really like what they see. They get a quiet, understated, leader. You are probably correct pointing out that a Duchene/Hanzal type deal likely won’t happen again…but then I remember that Garth Snow and Peter Chiarelli are still GM’s in the NHL. There’s always the potential for a fleecing to happen because someone gets a bright idea in their head.

    The game last night…I don’t have anything to say about it because I didn’t watch any of it. Got home after the first period, saw the score, decided not to bother and went to the movies. Annihilation was really good. Fitting, since that’s what happened on the ice apparently.

    16 games left of this misery. It’s a sad and unusual feeling knowing that your team is irrelevant in March and April.