Recrutes: Hockey scouting from a professional perspective from Grant McCagg and Habs coverage from a 33 year veteran covering the NHL from Brian Wilde.
January 13, 2018
By Brian Wilde
The Montreal Canadiens will have their season decided perhaps by the Boston Bruins. Three games in eight days for the two with hockey’s hottest team having the upper hand on a big night for head coach Claude Julien facing the team that fired him.
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Nice post, especially concerning Chara. We don’t have to remain what we once were. I hear that The Moral Arc is a good read btw although I haven’t read it. Seriously. By Pinker, I believe.
In my goats section we’re Byron-puck watching allowing Marchand to blow by him; and Oil Petry made a reappearance-I stopped counting after 1/2 doz dunderhead plays…hard to figure out why this Oiler version shows up randomly. Exciting game to watch, need to look to the future. Hope Bergevin starts making moves accordingly.
Just a not – It is hard to have a discussion and a community when every comment is moderated –
Bravo! Play by Play by @BrianWilde@Recrutes.ca
The fans had some class in not booing chara everytime he touched the puck after the incident. You can see chara was shaken by the unintentional incident.
Metes mom,maybe sis? Was being shown on tv during the game.after the 2on 1 during o.t with mete breaking up the ice,they showed mommy mete rising to her feet then ahhhhhh reaction as her son passed the puck to get broken up.great stuff. I never really got that idea of go to the world jrs youll surge in your developement, but now i see why.the kid played great in the world jrs,on the big time stage for the whole world to see and canada wins the kid comes home as a hero with a medal and his confidence is super sized,it showed out there tonight.
It was an entertaining game,im pissed they got a point because they need to remain in the bottom five.sad but realisticlly true and necessary. The day to day casual fans are happy theyre competative,so is geoff,the turnstiles should keep turning at the bell center,the 15$ beers flowing, and the 7$ hotdogs selling. Until….another team starts sell mode,or trade mode,then to not lose out team foxhole starts auctioning off the habs driftwood spare parts to the highest bidder,then itll become clear to all that its official,management knows its over and clears out and retools. Patch scored,chucky scored,plek playing hard,thier value is up,sell sell sell.
Chara tried to injure Pacioretty (was frustrated late in 2nd period because Habs were up 4-0 and owning Bruins at the time). He didn’t try to injure Danault tonight. Obviously there’s a different reaction from him. We’re comparing apples to oranges. It has nothing to do with wisdom or a softened heart.
This loss sounds like a best case scenario for the Habs. They don’t gain ground in the standings (and risk management entertaining any silly notions about playoff races) and everyone seems to feel good about their performance. Hopefully Pacioretty, Plekanec and the rest of the likely trade bait showed well enough to elicit some generous offers. Prayers for Danault.
I felt bad for Jerabek after the whiff, because he has been looking pretty good over the past three games, particularly when moving the puck quickly and efficiently out of his own end.
I know a lot of us were intrigued last spring when the Habs signed a first-team KHL all-star defenceman that we knew little or nothing about, but we were hoping that, once he got used to the smaller North American ice surface, some of the skills that made him a KHL all-star would translate into NHL success.
Still early days yet, but if we don’t re-sign him (he’s a UFA at season’s end), I’m pretty sure someone else will, because I can see Jerabek as a full-time starting NHL defenceman next season.
Hopefully it’s with us.
Most of the time I think you are overly optimistic
Agree with your comments about 1st line
On Mete I hope you are right
When you say Plec will fetch a lot what’s a lot
Can Habs expect much more than a 2nd round pick
I don’t think Lekonen will ever score on a consistent basis
I think Carr will be more of a scorer
4 of the current D are 3rd pairing
Finally do you know if teams have 2 buyouts every year
#Alzner. It’s the lest the owner can do considering how he spent way under the cap this year
Enjoy your work
Completely agree with 100% of this. I have been wanting to see that first line of Chucky, Drouin, and Hudon for a while. The first two have shown chemistry recently while the latter two have shown success on other teams as Grant noted in his latest rant. It has so much explosive potential so I hope the line sticks.
That play by Mete in OT made my jaw drop. I’ve never seen anything like that and it was by far my favorite moment of the season (granted that doesn’t take much). I’m so excited for his future on this team!
I also agree on Plekanec. He is bound to go by the trade deadline and though his offensive days are long gone, I’m sure gonna miss him and his shutdown play. Much respect and thanks to him on a great career with the Habs.
Interesting (or not) that every game the goats tend to be our defensemen. Any word on the progress of Weber?
I meant to say something about Chara too. I hated him as much as any habs fan after what happened with Patch, but he earned back a little respect this time around. What happened to Danault was a complete freak accident that he couldn’t have prevented and he showed great concern over his health. It’s not a complete makeup over the previous incident, but I’m glad he seems to have grown as a man and learned from his past mistakes
I think Danault to hospital is a lot more than precautionary. He could have hearing loss, fractured skull (Geoffreon anyone?) or at the very least, a concussion.
I don’t think we will be seeing him anytime soon.
I wonder how that affects trading Pleks, being already slim at centre position.