OffThePost.org

Habs blow a two-goal lead in the third period against the Detroit freaking Red Wings, who swept them in the season series 4-0.

If that doesn't tell you loud and clear that your team sucks and isn't improving, nothing will.

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A little more buzz around town about the Habs being open to moving Petry and Tatar.

They already got a 2nd for Scandella, and will likely get mid-picks for Thompson and maybe Kovalchuk. Let's say 3 decent picks in all.

For Petry and Tatar they'll likely want a young player and a high pick for each. That could mean two young players and 5 picks from this deadline, as well as some players with term to offset the salaries.

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Bouchard ships out Varone and Barber, his two vets who he benched and generally didn't seem to get along with. Off to Wilkes-Barre for two other vets.

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Habs nearly blow another 3rd period lead, this time against the Caps, but Ben Chiarot scores in OT to give the Habs two points.

Chiarot has been nothing but solid since the early part of the season. Averaging 23 minutes a night. Goes to show how free agency really is a crapshoot and sometimes it doesn't hurt to throw money at a relatively young one (he's 28).

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Well I mean...they actually DID blow the lead, did they not?

No offense to Chiarot, who of course has been a good pickup for the Habs, but eeeeegads that was a horrible goal for Holtby to give up.

Habs have injuries on the blueline so they've called up the banished Karl Alzner, who by all counts went to Laval and acted like a professional. Part of me hopes he plays well enough to warrant a trade or at least some semi-regular ice time in the pros so his contract isn't a total bust, but that won't be the case. He's really just an emergency callup and I doubt anything he does will matter in the grand scheme.

Meanwhile, Habs are deliberating on whether to give Ilya Kovalchuk 3.5M next season. I'm torn. I'm all for one-year deals that don't sink the team long-term, but he's faded before and will fade again. He's probably just insurance in case Caufield isn't ready and when Gallagher inevitably does something heroic that lands him on IR.

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Speaking of Gallagher, I was quite surprised to see his possession stats are #2 in the league for forwards. Pretty impressive. Tatar is number 1 so I assume they play together.

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Shoresy, "It's called a sweater"

Those two kill it in the fancy stats department. They're both relentless in pursuing the puck.

Anyways, Ilya Kovalchuk is gone but even in his advanced years gave Montreal a rare taste of offensive superstardom. People wanted him back, and now they want someone similar.

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Solid plugger Nate Thompson to Philly for a 5th. Pending UFA, Julien loved him. Probably too much.

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RDS' Francois Gagnon says the Habs are done, barring something crazy or tiny. Tomas Tatar has a massage scheduled for 3 p.m., the act of a man who's not worried about his future.

The Habs are standing pat, it would seem.

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Another mini deal: Matthew Peca to Ottawa for Newfoundland Growler Aaron Luchuk and a 7th.

No regrets with the Peca flyer. They gave him a two-year, 2.6M deal based on his solid AHL play, but he couldn't figure it out in the pros. He was astonishingly inept in Montreal. Deal never came back to hurt him, although it sounded like he was unhappy in Laval.

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Last mini deal: Nick Cousins to Vegas for a 4th rounder. Fuck that guy.

If Laval is still in the race, keep Kk and Poehling down there and have Vejdemo and Evans on the 4th line.

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Brian Wilde sums up the state of affairs: Bergevin wins trades, but never wins the war https://globalnews.ca/news/6589155/call ... -deadline/

This is another deadline of Bergevin being meely-mouthed. This team has too many pending UFAs in 2021, they can't keep them all, yet they won't move any of them out. They're going to go with the same team next season that hasn't made the playoffs 4 out of 5 years. This team hasn't won as is, so logically Bergevin should either knock it down or aggressively try to improve the team. He won't do either. The likelihood of the olds (Weber, Price, Petry), the mids (Gallagher, Danault, Tatar), the youngs (Suzuki, Kotkaniemi, Poehling), the prospects (Romanov, Caufield) and the future draft picks all being good at the same time is pretty much 0.0001%. Someone ought to go from one group to reinforce the other.

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How do you not deal Tatar given what forwards were fetching, that he's having a career year and still has a year left.

The only thing I can think of is that Bergevin thinks he can't go to Price and Weber and tell them he needs to deal currently good players for futures.

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Thanks Chuck, E.L. and Harmy!

Offers on the table were late first rounders and middling prospects.

Well, for Tomas Tatar...what more do ya want?

34th in scoring among ALL forwards? Driving play? Signed to a reasonable cap hit with one more season to go? That Tatar?

The Vegas thing was an aberration.

You can look at what Coleman fetched, while on a FAR cheaper deal(but Montreal can eat some space this year), but Tatar being a superior player(I don't know for sure but at first glance it seems so).

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Thanks Chuck, E.L. and Harmy!

Hey that's fine, not meant as a dig on Tatar, he's a perfectly fine player, but I also think even a low 1st is a pretty good asset to have.

I don't quite get Bergevin's mentality to be honest. He says he's building for the future by getting rid of some extraneous scrubs, but if you're doin' that Marc, why not get rid of some of the vets you can't afford anyway?

That said, I do think they've done a relatively good job building up the farm. There are some relatively exciting players coming up in the Habs system who should make a nominal impact. And if they can somehow get MAGA Boy to stay healthy, they'll be in pretty good shape.

I don't necessarily think Bergevin's a bad GM, but I don't think he's a good one either. He's a well-dressed and talkative guy who's just...average...at what he does.

It is, but there isn't a huge difference from a late 1st rounder to a mid-2nd rounder, so they should be getting something more based on what others were moved for I think.

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Thanks Chuck, E.L. and Harmy!

Victor Mete out for the season after blocking a shot with his foot in the Detroit game. I hate that he couldn't establish himself further in his third big league season. His icetime actually went down and it felt like Julien pigeonholed him as a bottom pair guy. Maybe that's what he is, and there's nothing wrong with that, but for a team so desperately shallow at left defence, there's always been a lot of hope in Mete.

He's a pending RFA and could have Romanov coming up from behind next year. Gotta think the team will once again look for help on defence, but otherwise they've got Chiarot-Kulak-Mete-Romanov in line for minutes in 2020-21.

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