OffThePost.org

After their worst game of the season against the Sharts, the Habs kept McDavid off the scoresheet for 62 minutes before losing 2-1 in overtime.

Montembeault has been crazy good lately, he's brought his Save Pct to .910.

Suzuki and Caufield are back to producing after some slumps for each.

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Dreger says Monahan might be the first forward off the trade board: when he re-signed in Montreal Hughes promised he'd be moved to a contender. He's playing well now is importantly healthy, so the time is now.

Allen, Savard, Armia (who's been a PK beast), might also be in play.

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Tonight's goal scorers against the Devs:

Roy, 20
Slafkovsky, 19
Caufield, 23 (a week ago)

And Struble, 22, and Harvey-Pinard, 25, played big roles too. You love to see it.

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Caufield isn't just an elite shooter, I believe it was him who basically deflected a high puck from the end boards area back out to the front of the net for Slaf to score.

Tremendous talent on this roster.

Caufield is a complete player and just because he occasionally gets knocked off the puck by bigger players people don't see that. He's an excellent back checker, he's sneaky good along the boards, and has great on-ice awareness. He doesn't need to score 40 to prove his worth, although that wouldn't hurt.

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5 games for Gallagher for his elbow to the head of Pelech. The Habs won't really lose much with him out.

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Habs enter the ASB in 26th, and it feels like a foregone conclusion they'll finish in 27th barring a goalie miracle. The Wild currently occupy that spot and are too good to be there. The Jackets are 6 points back in 28th and the rest are bottom feeders by design.

Ultimately, the Habs didn't really take a step forward as a team, but individually Slaf is improving and the defence is figuring itself out. Trade Monahan, Savard and Armia (who's suddenly good again) at the deadline and let's keep tanking.

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Up until this year I'd have argued that any club should embrace the tank, take the pain and be as bad as you can be for 4-5 years. To me the Habs are the kind of club that can't commit to the hard tank. They're in denial, thinking if everything goes right they can maybe get a playoff spot or at least be competitive. I'd also consider that Calgary and Vancouver's problem over the last decade, they never formally embraced the tank and just ended up being mediocre at best.

After watching the Canucks this year, well it does now seem to me to be possible to avoid that hard tank route but it apparently takes a pretty deft management to pull it off and some luck in getting a Pettersson at 5 spot and Hughes at 7 spot. But it can be done. It's just highly unlikely. My guess is both Chicago and Anaheim make it back to a conference finals before the Habs do.

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Shoresy, "It's called a sweater"

I think they're in the midst of a pretty serious tank. They inherited Suzuki, Caufield, Guhle and got lucky rolling the dice on Montembeault, so unless you burn that down for no good reason, they'll inherently be better than the Sharks and Hawks. That's sorta the thing, there wasn't really a way to truly scorch the earth because the young players they have are pretty decent. But they've added Slaf and Reinbacher with lottery picks, and got another coming up. If they hit on those three picks, they'll have something cooking. Especially if Hutson hits too.

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Seems to me you need a couple future hall of famers to win a cup, and a few all stars to surround them with. Do you think any of those you mentioned are future hall of famers? Although there is Vegas, who are just quality top to bottom without having truly elite players. So perhaps the Habs can go that route.

And I said Anaheim, not the Sharks. I'm really not sure what the Sharks are trying to do. They have some older vets that have trade value that they should be off loading. They look more like Edmonton or the Av's development plan, never fully embracing the tank, being bad despite their efforts to not be bad, and just stumbling along.......if you do that for a decade eventually you get lucky.

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Shoresy, "It's called a sweater"

I've heard this argument about needing a Bedard/McDavid, and yeah, it's franchise changing to have them, but the draft lottery is luck of the draw, and you can finish last for multiple seasons and end up with a few Lafrenieres and Slafkovskys.

Are the Habs really going to trade *all-star but not franchise altering* Suzuki and Caufield for a chance to maybe get a franchise player? It's just not really feasible. They'll get three top 10 picks and one them first overall, possibly more down the line. That's a good base to start on.

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I'm not saying Bedard/McDavid. They are another level, A++ players if you will. You're right, you could wait decades and not draft one of those players. I'm thinking more about the A+ players. Stamkos/Hedman or MacKinnon/Makar or perhaps Toewes/Kane/Kieth; Kopitar/Doughty.

There are just very few teams that win the cup, that don't seem to meet this pattern of two A+ players. I mentioned Vegas, I could probably throw the Blues and Hurricanes in along with them over the last 30 years as being the three teams that I think didn't rely on a couple exceptionally elite level players but more reliant on teams where their top 10 players were all B+ to A level skill. Just a breadth and depth of talent if no truly elite.

So I think Montreal can possibly contend, its just seems an even more difficult path to achieve. Considering what they have now and how young they are, you're probably right there is no turning back and they might as well hope for the best.

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Shoresy, "It's called a sweater"

I hear ya, and it's why I wanted them to take a chance on Michkov, because he's got that A-grade talent and dropped for non-hockey reasons.

But they got their no. 1 and landed Slaf. Them's the breaks. He's a special talent, and I'm not ready to not assume he can't become the most impactful player on this team.

Reinbacher was an underwhelming pick, but the team banked on rare size-skill types with their lottery picks, which could pay off. They think he's the next Shea Weber. Time will tell.

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Kinda sucks the Habs picked the wrong draft to tank for, but nothing can be done about that. It's the hockey equivalent of the Raptors winning the lottery and ending up with Andrea Bargnani.

Personally I could be wrong about Slafkovsky, I see a good player there but not a franchise-level talent. Oh well, it's not like Shane Wright is destroying the professional ranks at present.

I mean, look at Gorton's last rebuild. Announced the Rangers were tanking, then tanked, got the 2nd overall and 1st overall picks and took what many considered to be the consensus picks for those slots, and ended up with Kaapo Kaako and Alexis Lafreniere, neither of whom will be a franchise superstar. If not for the fact they COMPLETELY lucked out by getting a superstar winger and superstar defenseman to sign there and a top-four defender to demand he be traded there, they'd be in pretty bad shape. But really the only true fuck-up I'd say they did was selecting Lias Andersson and hiring David Quinn (though he helped the tanking efforts).

I can't begrudge the moves Hughes has made thus far. He had a huge mess to clean up thanks to Bergevin and has done well considering. Also taking a chance on Marty St. Louis has appeared to have paid off, even though it's unlikely he's in charge when the team is finally ready.

I think Slafkovsky is a special player. He's made incredible strides the last few months.

He's only 19, but I've never seen someone on the Habs so effortlessly big, getting comfortable with his body but also has good hands and smarts. I don't think he'll ever become a 90 point player, but he can be a dominant puck possession guy with a mean streak who puts up points.

I think he can be a consistent 30 goal, 70 point guy.

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If he can be a guy who drives play at an elite level and consistently put up points around that level consistently then he'll be the guy the Hurricanes wanted Andrei Svechnikov to be. That's definitely a franchise star at the very least.

IMO they could use at least one more top-pairing defenseman (maybe Reinbacher is that guy) and another scoring line center. The mock draft I saw had them picking 7th and selecting a kid named Konsta Helenius--never heard of him.

Guhle looks like the real deal, certainly getting a trial by fire since there just isn't a veteran who can take on those matchups and minutes as well as he does.

If that's what Lindholm is going for, Hughes needs to cash in on Monahan. Monahan is only two months older than Elias.

If it's a sellers market in general, he should maximize return value for Allen, Savard, Armia, Evans right now. Anderson would be nice but unlikely.

Take back Johansen, Faksa, whoever and see if you can strike lightning on them as rentals next year.

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In the end, the Habs get two first rounders and a conditional third in exchange for boarding Sean Monahan for a year. If that's not elite asset management I don't know what is.

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The Jets winning the cup is the condition of the 3rd round pick so that is pretty remote. But still two first rounders for the cost of paying Monahan's salary for a year is pretty substantial, and definitely the kind of work fans want to see from their teams management. I didn't think he was worth a 1st rounder, more like a 2nd and 3rd in my mind but apparently the cost this year for rentals is going to be even more ridiculous than normal.

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Shoresy, "It's called a sweater"

Unless i am missing something, was it not one first rounder

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