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Habs Season Thread: 2024-25 Regular Season

so many posts about the old vets who will regress

but what about the young guys CC, Suzuki, KK, Evans, Romy, Poehling, etc -- is there no improvement anticipated for them?
 
GEEMAN said:
Cmon , our Christmas gift is 100% Covid

Last year 100% we miss the playoffs

This year we miss it 99.9% , we had the worst playoff record of the 16 teams

We were on pace for 87 points in the worst division , put us 82 in a normal year …...we are toast by January

100% Nero gets fired by now , we lucked out taking advantage to put a team on the ice to compete for next year

Using this year as a future analysis is nuts .
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Last year of course. This year we also had the worst schedule of all the teams in the league, because of Covid. It's not all pluses.
 
GrandWazoo said:
Last year of course. This year we also had the worst schedule of all the teams in the league, because of Covid. It's not all pluses.
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horrible schedule, a decent amount of injuries, a coaching change with no practice time to reboot
 
Krustchev said:
There’s this thing called the “off-season” where he’ll be able to make more moves to improve the team for next season. Are you familiar with this?
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Very familiar how it works , good luck with half a UFA roster and some players well past their expiry date

We need 31 to spit nickels like his MVP year to have any hope
 
Canucks were already out of the playoffs by the time Covid hit. They had an horrible offseason, couldn't even keep Toffoli even though they had first dib, or keep their goalie, and do anything to improve their defense. Jim Benning helped us and the rest of the Canadian teams even more than Covid did.
 
GEEMAN said:
Success for any Habs GM is to hire the elite scouts , draft evaluators and player development staff

Team needs to pull a 2007 draft every 4-5 years combined with nailing some first rounders and hit on later picks

There is no excuse about language , weather , taxes, and media …….that's the challenge of this city

Regime needs to work and excel on what they can control

Banking on a quality free agent or a player to waive his NTC to make a difference is futile

Once players get acclimated they will stay in Montreal , we need to draft them first
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Exactly.

I'm so tired of hearing about how everything is hard. I especially hate hearing the excuse of language, weather and taxes. Yes they are what they are but guess what? ALL of these challenges existed long before Bergevin was hired and they were not a secret. Bergevin knew when he applied for the job that these factors were a thing. He wanted the job, he went after the job and he got the job. Now he has to do the job, not make excuses for why he can't. The reason he gets paid is to overcome these things, not use them as a crutch to rationalize mediocrity.

And while there is indeed a salary cap to manage (probably something that they should have hired someone to do exclusively) there is no salary cap when it comes to the front office, coaching, scouting and player development staff. With the revenue that this club generates there is ZERO excuses for not having the most and very best scouting staff in the league. All it takes is money and Molson has plenty of it. If he really cares about winning (which I doubt) then he should be making it rain in order to poach the best scouting talent from around the globe. Too many Bergevin cronies have been given paychecks to scout and coach when they have no business doing so. You want to develop your prospects into good pros? Hire PROFESSIONALS to scout, draft and develop them, not just your f-bomb throwing buddies.

Salary caps only impact the roster. They shouldn't also impact the front office and the organizational depth chart. You can hire as many coaches and scouts as you can afford to pay and the Habs can afford. You also can shape your organizational culture to be the type of franchise that values winning and not just revenue generation. If you have a loser mentality in your corporate culture then your team will be a loser. Your team will expect to lose and get comfortable with losing. Having a salary cap should not mean that the culture which existed back in the glory days of the 1970's needs to change. You can still aspire to be elite, even if the cap prevents you from having dynastic Cup runs of 4 or 5 years in a row.

My biggest issue with the current front office regime isn't that they don't win enough (they don't, but I digress) It's because they no longer even TRY to be a winner anymore. It's one thing to try and fail, quite another not to bother trying in the first place. They have decided that they can't be bothered to put in the effort it takes to be elite and since they make money either way, it's just easier to take their foot off the gas, activate the cruise control and watch the cash roll in. A team owner who actually cared about winning wouldn't employ a GM for 9 years without at least one Cup to show for it. And as others in the organization realize that their actions or inactions carry no consequences, they all relax and put their feet up too. That attitude can filter all the way down into the dressing room (because remember, "h'attitude is everything". I'm sure I read that somewhere)

Winning in Montreal is hard. It's harder when your GM is a mental midget and your owner is an avaricious trust fund baby who would rather sell crap beer and overpriced condos than have a Cup. I don't doubt that both of them would LOVE to win the Cup, but not if it takes money and effort. They are far too comfortable with not winning one for my liking.
 
Bouchard is HC. He had no interest in assisting. He stays in Laval which is a good thing.
 
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