Recrutes: Hockey scouting from a professional perspective from Grant McCagg and Habs coverage from a 33 year veteran covering the NHL from Brian Wilde.
December 23, 2017
By Brian Wilde
After a poor start to their seven game road trip, the Habs entered their tilt in Edmonton with a chance to be an impressive 3 and 1. The Oilers are playing their best hockey of the season. Let’s see how they managed the test…
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Very kind Richard. Thank you. Have a good one.
I think this season is lost. Every day they wait to trade PatCHes his value drops a little more. Do it for picks please. Pleks should go at the trade deadline.
I have all the faith in the world drouin will excel at center.the kids so talented,did you see that rainbow pass he caught out of mid air on his stick,wow.
Price struggled in part do to the defence being so poor this ssn.
Reality is people,this ssns over for the habs.boston is not going to go tits up while the habs win 70% of thier games,just not going to happen folks,if you believe it will go buy a lottomax too because you are dreaming.
The thing to do now is obvious.TANK.p.c wise.that means dress,ice the least competitive team possible that,ll have the least chance of winning.shut down weber as long as possible. Trade patch,trade plek,trade alzner (good luck finding a sucker with alzner) . Play neimi more,lose as much as possible.finish in the bottom 5 get into the draft lottery. At ssns end FIRE bergevin who fd up this team with his disrespectfull style of resigning markov.hire a president to run the hockey operations,get a 1st line C,hopefully tavares.
Playing to squeek into the playoffs just to get blown out in 4 straight then draft mid pack doesnt work,its been proven for decades.
Merry xmas to brian wilde and Grant..thankyou gentlemen for all your hard work informing us on the habs. Cheers. Pelko_mike (off twitter) .
With respect to the Habs offence being “middle of the pack” this year, a couple of things. This year, they are actually 24th, below the middle. And while their 2.7 goals per game is almost identical to last year, there is a difference. This year, the Habs are averaging 3.7 goals per game against the weaker, non-playoff teams, and last year, they averaged 2.9 goals against the weaker teams. They are scoring about 2.0 goals per game against better teams, this season, but about 2.3 last year. They are scoring less against good teams, but more against weaker ones.
Oof. Ugly effort. 85 pts tops for this team, not good enough for playoffs, not bad enough to get a great draft pick.
Thanks for all your hard work Brian, all the best to you and yours this holiday season!
Bad night, plus both Boston & Toronto winning. Playoffs starting to look like a mirage. Does missing the playoffs means MB will not be back next year or does he have a bullet prove contract like Lefebre seem to have in Laval? Let’s see what MB did since coaching change :
In: Julien, Benn, Jerabek, Drouin, Schlemko, Froese, Morrow, Alzner, Hemsky, Gelinas, Deslauriers, Niemi, Cracknell & Sabres 3rd pick.
Out: Therrien, DD, Pateryn, Andrighetto, Sergachev, Beaulieu, Emelin, Flynn, Radulov, Markov, Farnham, Redman, Reway, Mitchell, Picks 4,5 & 6.
In & Out: Davidson, Martinson, Ott, King, Nesterov, Taormina, Holland, Streit.
Missing anyone?
Happy holidays to you & your family. Keep up the good work!
I said this a couple weeks back and I will do the mea culpa again: I totally underestimated how valuable Markov is to this team. Even with that 38-year old body and 74-year old knees, he’s got such a brilliant mind for the game and that more than compensates for anything that psychically restricts him.
Hoping that we deal away C. Space after the holiday break to bring a fresh face or two into the lineup.
Have a great holidays, Brian. It’s been a blast following the team with you this season…even if the games themselves often don’t give us the preferred outcome.