We’re liking Marc Bergevin even more today, with the addition of Manny Malhotra, Tom Gilbert, and re-signing of Mike Weaver

Are the Habs going to be a better team when they start the season next October? It certainly looks like it and that’s pretty amazing news for a squad that made it to the Final Four in the recent playoffs.

The Montreal Canadiens signed seasoned centre Manny Malhotra to a dirt-cheap one-year $850,000 deal on Tuesday and I definitely like that one. He’s one of the best face-off men in the game, has grit and brings bags of experience to share with his younger team-mates. He’s, in theory, your fourth-line centreman, and looks just fine there. Good move.

Marc Bergevin also inked Florida defenceman Tom Gilbert to a two-year $2.8-million-per-year deal and this is also a good pick-up. You can look at Gilbert as Josh Gorges’s replacement and you get him for less dough and less years. (The Habs were on the hook for four more years at $3.9 million per annum for Gorges, under that dumb dumb deal signed by Pierre ‘Who Gave Me the Keys To This Place?’ Gauthier.)

Arpon Basu on nhl.com suggests Gilbert will be a natural quarter-back for the Habs’ second power-play unit, maybe playing alongside Nathan Beaulieu on the blueline. (Obviously the first unit with remain backed by P.K. ‘Superstar’ Subban and Andrei ‘I Don’t Want To Be Captain’ Markov.) Everything I’ve heard today is very positive about Gilbert.

The even better news is that the team has also signed Mike ‘Dream’ Weaver to a one-year deal that will give him a raise from $1.1 million to $1.75 million. Money well spent considering how solid Weaver was down the stretch in the regular season and in the playoffs. That means both of Bergevin’s surprisingly strong mid-season pick-ups – Weaver and Dale Weise – are returning to the club.

Also a couple of big departures, two of them to Buffalo. A day after turning down a trade to the Maple Leafs, Gorges was shipped off to the Sabres, in return for a second-round pick in 2016. At first glance, it’s a little odd that Gorges would rather play in Buffalo than Toronto but I liked his reasons, as reported on the Gazette’s Hockey Inside/Out. He told the Gaz hockey site: “Nothing against that organization or that team. But when you build a rivalry it’s hard mentally, emotionally to think, ‘Wow, I’ve grown to hate this team, to play against them, how could I ever really go and put my heart and soul into it?’ And so I just wanted to take some time before I made a decision.”

Pretty cool eh? Still, like I said in my previous post, this is just business. Gorges has too many years left at too high a price. As simple as that. And all of this talk of him being the next captain was just that. Talk. A few of us thought Gorges had kind of being auditioning for the role anyways, which was a little off-putting.

Speaking of captains, the Habs need one. Brian Gionta has also left for Buffalo, signing for three years at $4.25 million per season. Hey I wish our former captain all the best but there’s no way Montreal was going to make that kind of deal for him. He gave a lot to the organization but his best years are well behind him, as was underlined in this year’s playoff run.

So who’s the next captain of Nos Glorieux? Hey that’s a theme for another day’s column. (I can’t really think of an obvious candidate. I love P.K. but his head wouldn’t fit through the dressing-room door if they gave him the C.)

One bittersweet move. Ryan White is no longer with us. They let him go to unrestricted free agency. Hey he is maybe not the most talented guy in the league – or on the team – but I loved his attitude. Oh and Thomas Vanek has snuck off to Minnesota, as expected. The nice thing is the deal is a lot less sweet than everyone expected, just getting $19.5 million over three years. He’d been offered $50 million for seven years with the New York Islanders during the past season, but that was before he proved himself to have absolutely no heart as a playoff performer. I like the notion that my old joke turned out to be true – that he was losing a million bucks a night during the Habs run by sucking so bad.

And Tuesday’s deals come on the heels of the Parenteau-Briere trade (the subject of my previous post), also a positive move for the Good Guys.

All in all, a good week in Habsland.

Stay calm and Carey on…..even if Mr. Price is not playing

What the hell is wrong with you people? They lose one game and you are in a total effin panic. People saying the series is over. Philippe Falardeau – Philippe Falardeau for God’s sake! – saying Rangers in five, with or without Carey Price. Get a grip.

You need to talk to the What Me Worry Kid. Cos you know what Carey ‘Alfred E. Neuman’ Price would say. ‘Just chill out man’. It’s just one game.

Yeah it was a blow-out but so what? You lose 3-2 in overtime or 7-2, it don’t make an inch of difference. You lost one game. All good teams bounce back from this kind of loss. Chicago has done it in these playoffs. Have you seen what L.A. has done? They stared down a 3-zip start to a series and roared back to win.

And we’ve dealt with adversity too. You may recall that Boston series. It just ended. The Good Guys were down 3-2. They’d just played a plain awful game five in Boston. They came out flat. They looked like they were playing the Islanders on a Thursday night in November. And a lot of you panicked then too.

And guess what? The Habs came back and played what I’m calling their best game of the past decade in game six. And just to further refresh your memory, the Canadiens then went into that hostile rink in Beantown for game seven and taught the Bruins a lesson. Our pal Milan is still in therapy trying to work through that loss.

So please, to cop a line from a great Aislin cartoon, can everyone take a Valium. It’s 1-0 for the Rangers. The series is just starting. Yeah they’re way faster than the Bruins. Yes Therrien has to adjust his game. And I think he will. Maybe you get Galchenyuk tonight and, if not tonight, then Thursday. Hopefully you kick Bourque’s butt straight into the press box and bring in either Moen or, even better, Ryan White.

I believe Price will be playing but if he’s not, suck it up. Your not the first team to lose your starting goalie. The Ducks went through about 17 goalies. Sh– happens. Price has a just okay game in the first game of the Tampa series and the Habs still found a way to win.

So stop freaking out. It’s a nice day. Go out and enjoy yourself. And get ready for a very different Habs come 8 tonight.

Habs in seven. And yes I called it Habs in seven over the Bruins. I’m way better at this predicting stuff than Louis Morissette.

Believe.

P.S. I filed this and one minute later saw the news that Price is out for the series. I stick with everything I wrote. Suck it up. Show character. Or go home.

And when in doubt, watch this 1971 playoff highlight reel.

The Habs find a way to win…again

Brandon Prust.

That was Ken Dryden’s line in the greatest book ever written about hockey, The Game, which has just been re-released on the 30th anniversary of its publication. The Habs netminder was talking about the fabled 1976-77 Canadiens, who lost just eight games all season, and only one at home! Dryden recalled that they would always somehow find a way to win, no matter how bad they might be playing.

Now let’s not get crazy and compare the 2013-14 Habs to that era-defining squad but right now – ten games into a streak without a regulation-time loss – it’s hard not to think of Dryden’s words. These guys do indeed find a way to win.

Saturday night might’ve sounded like a gimme, playing against the Buffalo Sabres, one of the worst teams in hockey this season, but those are often the teams hungry for a win. So it wasn’t a cakewalk, with Les Boys just managing a 3-2 victory.

It was the fourth liners who came to the rescue. The first goal was an all-fourth-line production with Travis Moen getting the puck to Ryan White who then fed Brandon Prust for the goal. On the second marker, Moen got it to Prust who showed quick hands whipping the puck out to Tomas Plekanec (just coming on the ice) to score.

And thus this wild ride continues. One pal said this run is like an odd market surge. So when does the market crash? Or does it?

Habs head to Ottawa with all the momentum (or why I love Ryan White)

Ryan White

Patrick Roy got it right on L’Antichambre.

“Carey Price va à Ottawa avec le momentum,” said the last goalie to lead the Canadiens to a Stanley Cup.

The whole team heads to the nation’s capital – or make that Kanata – with all the momentum on their side after winning 3-1 Friday at the Bell Centre. All day, all I heard was dark talk from Habs fans. Price was weak in the first defeat. Oh my God, Eller, Pacioretty and Gionta are out. Life is over as we know it.

Then the chatter stopped and a hockey game broke out. And who would’ve thunk it. The Senators sleepwalked through game two and Montreal generally looked amazing.

And I’m not afraid to say it – Carey Price had a very good game. He lost teeth, made huge saves and only let in one goal.

But mostly I just loved the fact that tonight Ryan White decided it was just the right time to play his best game ever in a Habs uniform. He laid on big hits, scored a beautiful goal, the first of the night, which brought the Habs to life, and then ended the game with style yapping at Guillaume Latendresse, with The Tenderness looking visibly irritated. (Am I the only one who just has this instinctive distaste for The Tender One?)

It was a character game. Price dealt with his demons, Michael Ryder actually scored (for the first time since Newfoundland joined Canada), and Brendan Gallagher showed the same character he’s shown every time he’s taken to the ice in the past year.

And what a great way to end a great night, with coach Michel Therrien taking a few nice shots at The Walrus (aka Senators coach Paul MacLean).

Many – with good reason – were upset by MacLean’s comments Thursday night’s after Sens D-man Eric Gryba’s ugly hit on Lars Eller, which left the Hab lying in a pool of blood on the ice. MacLean basically laid all the blame on Habs defenseman Raphael Diaz for making a suicide pass to Eller just before the hit.

“The player I would be mad at is 61 (Diaz),” said MacLean. “That’s a dangerous place to be.”

Like he doesn’t know who Diaz is after spending several days preparing for the Habs series!

Prust was not amused.

“We don’t really care what that bug-eyed fat walrus has to say,” Prust said at practice Friday morning.

Therrien said MacLean’s comments rubbed him the wrong way.

“It was not about the hit….it was the comment,” said Therrien in his post-game press conference Friday. “When I saw the comment, I was pretty upset.”

Then he got off a good shot at The Walrus, when talking about how Diaz had another good game Friday.

“And No. 61, by the way, is Raphael Diaz, in case sometimes they don’t know.”

Did you get that Mr. MacLean? Want us to spell the name for you? Classic.

Tonight it’s the Habs making the jokes not the bug-eyed walrus.

Let Ryan White play against Toronto

Can we cut Ryan White some slack? White is public enemy No. 1 in Habsdom with everyone, from the coach on down, dumping on the tough forward.

Yes White got a really dumb – D-U-M-B everyone’s accusing me, sang The Ramones – four-minute penalty Thursday night in Buffalo and the Sabres scored during the penalty. But he’s not the only reason they lost the game.

I think Michel Therrien was way too rough on White in his post-game scrum. Man did the coach looked depressed when he was talking about White.

“Ça fait trois fois que ça arrive. La première fois, j’ai discuté avec lui. La deuxième, je lui envoyé  un message. La troisième….il est mieux de comprendre.”

Rough translation: I’m really peeved off with this guy. Less rough translation: This has happened three times. The first time, I talked to him. The second, I sent him a message. The third, well it’s time for him to figure it out.

But the Habs didn’t lose the game because of White. They lost the game because they blew a third-period 4-2 lead. They lost because Thomas Vanek scored a controversial goal with 1.9 seconds remaining. Blowing a 4-2 lead – man that was a familiar feeling, sadly enough, for anyone who had the misfortune of watching last year’s sad-sack Hab-nots.

You could just as easily say the Canadiens did not come home with two points because Therrien didn’t send out the hot hands of Brendan Gallagher and Tomas Plekanec in the shoot-out. Sending out Brian Gionta? I say bench Therrien Saturday night against the Leafs.

Give White another chance. But if he goes all boneheaded on us again Saturday night, feel free to give him a one-way-ticket to Hamilton. Or worse – make him watch L’Antichambre every night for the duration of the season.

White isn’t the problem. The problem is a team that blew leads to lose games two nights running. No the wheels aren’t coming off the bus. Rather this is The Team That Fell to Earth. Last weekend’s euphoria hit the bathroom floor like a frat boys’ projectile you-know-what after a heavy night at the punch bowl.

Don’t panic. And don’t beat up on White. Just saying. Actually you wanna bench someone, bench wee Davey Desharnais. There I said it.

Bergevin impresses with his signings, particularly by picking up Prust

Okay so there were no superstar signings – did you really expect any? – but newish Habs GM Marc ‘Dashing Man’ Bergevin did not so bad on free-agency-day aka Canada Day aka Moving Day aka Spain Day.

Bergevin went shopping on Sunday, nabbing tough-guy forward Brandon Prust from the New York Rangers, right winger Colby Armstrong from the Toronto Maple Leafs, and Frankie the Bull aka Francis Bouillon from the Nashville Predators.

All good in my view. It’s not gonna instantly make a bad team good but it’s a few steps in the right direction. All of a sudden one of the wimpiest teams in Bettman’s League is a lot tougher. Earlier last week, Bergevin signed Ryan White to a one-year-deal and Jokerman Bergevin also signed Travis Moen to a whopping four years and $7.4 million.

In other words, when opposing teams start pushing Carey ‘Man in Black’ Price around and yapping at P.K. ‘Malcolm’s Brother’ Subban, there will be any number of guys – Prust, Armstrong, Bouillon, White or Moen – to say ‘Hey pal, touch Pricey again and I’m gonna make you look like that guy that got trampled by the bull at the last rodeo Price attended.’

It’s a whole new thing for the Habs. This is the team that – under the misguided G&G regime (eds. note: Misguided? Methinks some stronger language is needed here!) – used to work with the philosophy that size and toughness was highly over-rated and that the Smurfs was the best movie to come out of Hollywood in the past decade. When they finally got an enforcer, they went and picked up Georges ‘Commensal’ Laraque, who was more interested in organic fiddleheads than crushing heads.

I really liked what I heard from Prust in the Canadian Press piece by Bill Beacon.

“It’s good to have a little more team toughness,” said Prust. “Other teams coming into our building will know they’re in for a long night.”

Yeah $10 million over four years is a lot of dough for a guy who had five goals and 12 assists last year with the Blue Shirts but I think what Bergevin liked more in Prust’s stats was the 156 penalty minutes.

Armstrong is the biggest question mark here. He only played 29 games last year with the Loafs, plagued by injuries and the jury is out whether he’ll really help the Habs. But if he’s healthy, that’s another big – six-foot/195-pounds – forward to make room for the Habs’ pint-sized skill guys showcase that skill.

Bouillon is a great guy to get back. In fact, he’s just a great guy and you have to wonder why they let him go to Nashville in the first place. Oh yeah, the out-of-it team brass had no idea what they were doing back then. He’s small but super tough and is all heart – the perfect guy for a team that played like it had no heart most nights last season.

All guys who seemed suited to new coach Michel ‘Hey I Got a New Suit’ Therrien’s lunch-bucket style. So yeah good news.

 

The Habs don’t know how to develop talent

You probably already suspected this – that the current Habs are clueless when it comes to developing players. The Firm of G&G – Gainey & Gauthier – are infamous for trading away talented players who then flourish elsewhere. We all kinda already, in our bones, knew this.

But a terrific column by Francois Gagnon in La Presse a couple of days back really puts this in focus. Gagnon’s piece is inspired by a study undertaken by Ed Willes evaluating the drafting track records of NHL teams between 2000 and 2009. He rather improbably has Your Montreal Canadiens coming out in first place on the drafting chart, which I think will come as a shocker to most of you.

“Sorry, can’t explain this but the numbers don’t lie,” writes Willes.

But here’s where Gagnon’s column comes into play. His point is that yes the Habs did indeed draft lots of quality players during that decade but the cream of the crop then went on to thrive elsewhere.

Gagnon notes that of the 26 players drafted by the Canadiens since 2000, only seven are still with the team – Louis ‘I might become a good player’ Leblanc  from the 2009 draft, Max ‘Hero’ Pacioretty, Yanick ‘Huh?’ Weber and P.K. ‘I feel good’ Subban from what was obviously a pretty good drafting session for the Habs in 2007, Ryan ‘Fisticuffs’ White from 2006, Carey ‘What me worry’ Price from 2005, and Tomas ‘Under-achiever’ Plekanec from 2001.

That’s the good news. The bad news, as detailed by Gagnon, is all the quality players we drafted and then gave up for almost nothing in return. Yes Mr. Gainey and Mr. Gauthier, take a sip of your high-end coffee and take a look at this. Ryan ‘Hello Mr. Gainey’ McDonagh. A throw-in in the now infamous Scott Gomez-Chris Higgins trade. He’s now one of the New York Rangers’ top blue-liners. Dumping McDonagh is right up there with Reggie ‘This is my claim to fame’ Houle throwing in the great Mike Keane – hey I even named my son after him – in the Patrick Roy deal with Colorado. How many Cups did Keane go on to win? Don’t ask. And maybe McDonagh will win the Cup this year. But I digress.

Gagnon continues with the list of shame. The ‘Where’s the party’ Kostitsyn brothers, both to Nashville. Mikhail Grabovski, who is now a key player with the Maple Leafs. Given up for a song. Jaroslav Halak. The less said the better, okay? And he’s now team-mates on the Blues with another former Hab draft pick, Matt d’Agostini.

Mark Streit. That’s one that kills me. Captain of the Islanders. We all knew he was great when he was here but the Firm of G&G just let him slip away. And the Gagnon list goes on – read his column to see how many decent players the Habs brain-trust dumped like yesterday’s papers.

Then the fine La Presse columnist moves on to the guys we could’ve picked up in drafts past but didn’t, including a couple of French-Canadian stars, Claude Giroux – No. 2 in the points standing as we speak – and Simon Gagne.

So how did Bob ‘What About Bob’ Gainey and Pierre ‘Major Major’ Gauthier do such a cruddy job of developing the talent they had right there on the bench? Good question. I don’t have the answer. I can’t get inside these two guys’ minds to know why – and that I’m thinking is probably a good thing!

That’s the mysterious part of this story. The less mysterious part – it’s downright crystal-clear actually – is the fact that G&G have mismanaged the team. That’s not up for debate. At every turn, they’ve made the wrong moves. (And we haven’t even got to how they mismanaged the coaching situation. Let’s leave that for another blog.)

Urgggghhh!