Friday, March 12, 2010

Looking Good...So Far

I wrote a blog about a month titled" "Injuries aren't an excuse, they are a reality." As this team begins to get healthier, it's starting to look like that it was the case.

First let me start off with some interesting stats that just cannot be ignored.

With Markov in the line up, Montreal this year has 20 wins, 9 losses and 3 losses past regulation. Moreover, Montreal this year has played only 8 games with a lineup that has been 95-100% healthy and have won 7 of 8 games. The sample size of the latter statistics is rather small, so it should be taken with a grain of salt as the win-loss ratio will certainly balance out. But the sample size of the statistics with Markov in the lineup is just too big to ignore.

You can slice it all you want, when you consistently lose key players for long periods of time, no team will do well. This is precisely why Boston and Detroit(two of the best teams last year) are having so much difficulty this year as both have yet to play a fair amount of games with a healthy line up. Not coincidently, Detroit since the Olynpic break have had all their players return from injuries and are winning more consistently.

Let's be honest, the Canadiens do not have a Stanley Cup contending team, but what does that really mean? San Jose has had arguably one of the best teams on paper for the last 3-4 years and have not gone any further than the Canadiens. Other teams are in same boat such as New Jersey and most recently the Canucks. There's one thing that people need to realize about the playoffs is that it's anybody's game. Every year we see one team that surprises everyone like the Hurricaines last year and Edmonton a few years ago.

Am I saying that the Canadiens will win the cup? No. But what I do want to say is that the Canadiens have a great core moving forward in the future, one which people do not give them a lot of credit for.

Montreal is solid in goal. Price and Halak are one of the best 1-2 tandems in the league(note that I say one of the best and not the best). Whether we keep one or both next year, we are still in a great position because we have Cedric Desjardins in Hamilton who is starting to look he will be able to be a solid goaltender in the nhl as well.

Montreal's top 6 is solid as well. Pouliot-Gomez-Gionta and Cammalleri-Plekanec-Andrei can carry this team offensively. We have played only 1 game this year with all six in the line up and that was against Florida on New Years Eve and surprisingly the Canadiens scored 5 goals.

We have a very good core on defense as well. Markov, Gorges, O'byrne and soon to be an nhl player P.K Subban gives Montreal stability on the back end for years (If we can extend Markov).

The most important thing moving forward is to move one big salary and by this I mean either Hamrlik or Spacek. All it takes is one salary and Montreal is in a pretty good position next year to tweak important areas of their team like the Bottom-6. It needs to get bigger and grittier. There are some good players that will be on the Unrestricted free agency market next year(atleast for now) that could help fill the need for grit and size like Manny Maholtra and Colby Armstrong.

All in all I don't want to start talking about next year too much as we have yet to have finished this season. As it stands, Montreal is in a very good position in the Standings with two very important games coming up against Boston and the Rangers. Montreal needs to win at least the one against the Rangers because the Rangers hold 9th place and a Canadiens win will be a huge blow to the Rangers. Hopefully, after these two games Montreal can start looking ahead in the Standings as they are only 4 points out of 5th place.
We're in the final stretch of the season and it looks like it's going to be an exicting one, Go habs Go!.

Monday, March 8, 2010

Pouliot-Latendresse Trade: A Few Months Later

There's nothing too detailed or analytical about this post, I just wanted to show you some ver interesting stats of both players with their new teams.

In 24 games with Canadiens, Benoit Pouliot has put up the following stats:

13 goals 5 assists and 18 points.

He's scoring 0.541 goals per game and 0.75 points per game.

In 39 games with the Wild, Latendresse has put up the following stats:

21 goals 9 assists and 30 points.

he's scoring 0.538 goals per game and 0.769 points per game.
It's amazing that two players who were considered busts on their orginal teams are producing at almost the exact same pace after the trade. I guess it's pretty clear that both players desperately needed a change of scenary to get their careers going. So far, it has been a very good trade for both teams, what the future holds no one knows, but both teams are profiting from the trade.

Thursday, March 4, 2010

The mechanics part 1

Trade deadline is the perfect time to look into team building mechanics and the many obvious myths associated with certain methods. I often read seasoned sports journalists who seem to cater to the unrelenting crowd of alarmists that make-up a good part of the Habs fan base. While the former get lost in their entitlement to their opinions forgoing an intelligent analysis, only reinforcing the latter's need to, well, worry. It's all nice and giddy when you want to sell something, as catering to target crowds is the cornerstone of any good marketing scheme, but I on the other hand am not interested in ratings here.

I look at the Habs presently, and all I can do is be very enthusiastic about seeing this team go forward in the next few years. The reasons for this are simple, but aren't inherently obvious for some. My expectations are the same as any Habs fan and I don't even need to say what it is. Since we are not and will never be in a market where we can tank a season on purpose, and such a window of oppurtunity, if it ever existed, was forfeited over a decade ago, then the obvious path is that of long-term team building. This is what the Habs have chosen to do instead of tanking, over a decade ago.

Long-term team building requires patience and flexibility. It all starts with the draft and player development, obviously, but the mechanic goes much further than this. Players have to be cycled/renewed for replacements by youth, or sometimes for need. This is what we've seen from the Habs in the last 5-6 seasons. The building blocks have been added, replacing underperforming or underacheiving players, while filling holes for short periods at positions which they hadn't developed a player yet, and now that we have a constant stream of good players making their way into the team, more and more positions are getting filled internally. The secret of success doesn't lie in drafting a phenom like Crosby or Ovechkin, and mostly only teams who can afford to tank can do that. The secret lies in keeping a focus on the objectives, and keep progressing towards renewing the old with the new and better.

What is truly missing to the Habs? So many answers could be given, always depending on what one thinks is the right formula to win. Personally, I don't think it's as straight forward as many think it is. I look at the Habs, and I let go of my preferences, and rather try to see what is being done, what is their plan. With each year that goes by, I see less and less holes to fill on the team, and the team also seems to be getting younger. It's a process, and so far its going well. People will pretend the opposite, because they only care for their expectations, for results, which have to be immediate, they forget to stop for a second and appreciate what is being done.

When we reach trade deadline, it's the same old story every year. Angry fans who didn't get their candy. A minority of teams get success from deadline trades, and that success is short term at the very best. The reality of the salary cap makes it even harder for teams to make transactions than it was in the pre-cap era. Whatever trade could've happened, to me, would have been nothing compared to the excitement of seeing a player like Subban come up and impress the hell out of most. We are finally at a point where we are adding important players internally at every position. Why screw this up with an overpayment on the trade market right smack in the middle of a transition season?

If there is a need to fill, and since this is a team with a stream of renewal of players with youth who don't cost much, then the obvious way to do so would be through the free agency market, as you don't need to let go of assets you'd rather keep. I've always been of the opinion that the trade market should be used for securing assets for players who you will lose and don't need in the short term, or to fill a need that you can't presently fix with either prospects or free agency. Or obviously, if an offer that is too tempting comes along, which is rare. But for any of those, I don't tend to think that trade deadline is the best time to do so. The off-season offers much more wiggle room.

Monday, March 1, 2010

Trade deadline: Rumor habs interested in Raffi Torres

Rumors are going around that the Canadiens are interested in Raffi Torres of the Columbus Blue Jackets. The rumor comes from the following source www.twitter.com/Dallas_Dave. He's a legitimate source as he has broken the Lehtonen to Dallas trade and the terms of the Kovalchuk trade. He's also been given props by Bob Mackenzie of tsn.

Torres is an intriguing player because he's the exact type of player Montreal needs on their bottom six. He's extremely gritty and is great along the boards. There's just two problems, one he gets paid 3 million this year and two, he's an unrestricted free agent next year(could be good or bad).

I guess this rumor indicates that Pierre Gauthier is looking to bolster his bottom 6 and hopefully add some much needed grit.

Two more days left, we'll see what happens.