Char B's Montreal Canadiens Fan Profile

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Growing pains? No thanks posted on 03/13/2008

I've said it before and I'll say it again: this team's success is directly related to their youth and how quickly they grow up. The talent is there, there can be no doubt about that. The Kostitsyn brothers are overflowing with raw skill, Carey Price is the best young goaltending prospect in a decade, and Mike Komisarek has emerged as a dominant force in his own end. The list goes on but suffice to say that the Habs have young studs peppered throughout their lineup.

The first challenge was to see if all this young talent could come together and gel into a unit. That seems to have been accomplished given the fact that the team is perched atop the Eastern Conference and boasts the most balanced and most potent offence in the league.

The second question was would these young men be able to knock off some of the more experienced foes in their path. You can chalk another one up for the kids here. One of the strengths of this group is that it shows no fear. Toronto, Ottawa, and New Jersey are three teams who have given the bleu-blanc-rouge fits in recent years. Carey Price was sent into the fray to turn the team's luck against the Buds and succeeded, running up a 3-1 record in his first four starts against the Blue-shirts. Then there was the team's three-goal third period rally against the Devils in January. That springboarded the Canadiens to their first win of a season series against New Jersey since 1993. Ottawa (they have yet to soundly drub a healthy Sens team) remains the one obstacle left to overcome in answering this second question and that test comes tonight in Montreal.

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Trade deadline post-mortem posted on 02/29/2008

It's now been over 60 hours since the trade deadline passed and so by now I would hope the hissy fits and empty tirades have ceased. Yes, your Montreal Canadiens really did trade away their "number one" goalie, and yes, they really didn't land Marian Hossa. At the risk of launching the die hard fan right back into the fury I just said I hoped he had come out of, I say good on ya Bob!

Let's start with Hossa as this one seems to have sparked relatively less unrest among the Habs' faithful. First off, it's never a good idea to trade one player for four players - especially if those four players are in your starting lineup. I have it on good authority that the players being sought by the Thrashers were Chris Higgins, Maxime Lapierre, Ryan O'Byrne and Mikhail Grabovski, all of whom started Tuesday night's game. There a number of reasons a four-for-one trade is a bad idea, namely if that one player gets injured or underperforms you're left empty-handed. Not to mention the fact that regardless of how he plays you're left with four holes in your roster with only one plug to fill them with. In short, it's not an operation which will pay off in most cases.

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Pre-deadline jitters posted on 02/18/2008

With the trade deadline one week away, speculation seems to have cooled in the last few days. The calm before the storm? It would certainly appear that way. The league's 30 general managers have assembled in Naples, Florida ostensibly to discuss rule changes and other housekeeping issues. But with all that brass walking the same hallways and gravitating around the same buffet tables, all the focus will be on who's talking to who and about whom.

That being said, rumour junkies shouldn't be holding their breathe for a blockbuster deal to set off a domino effect, at least not this week. Speculation since this morning's announcement that Peter Forsberg won't be returning to the NHL this season has been that the first shoe has dropped and that a flurry of transactions is now on its way down the pipe.

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A matter of time posted on 02/09/2008

The Michael Ryder situation has clearly come to a head. Earlier in the week, the Newfoundland native noted that he needs more ice time to be effective and that if he's not going to get it in Montreal, maybe he'd be better off somewhere else.

It's been known for sometime now that Ryder is on the trading block and the fact that he's still sporting a habs jersey should be a clear indication that interest in the three-time 30 goal scorer is nill.

Those with a bit of foresight saw this ugly breakup coming way back in the summer of 2005, when the Canadiens took their promising young rookie to arbitration. Successful NHL teams don't make a habit of taking first year players with 25-goal, 63-point seasons to arbitration. It's a tremendously difficult and acrimoneous process which demands that the organization drag their player through the mud, pointing out every flaw in his game and character to prove he's not worth what he thinks he is.

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Will Habs' buds bloom this spring? posted on 02/05/2008

Much has been made of the fact that the vast majority of NHL prognosticators had the Montreal Canadiens not making the playoffs in their preseason predictions. Heck, even as late as a month ago, many were still waiting for the team to fall into a tailspin at any moment. But with the all-star break behind us and the Habs just a point back of the once-thought uncatchable Senators, any lingering questions about the team's staying power have been answered.

Without a doubt, the three keys to that success have been (in no particular order): the development of the team's younger players, the lack of injuries to key players, and Alexei Kovalev having his best season in a Montreal uniform.

The one question left to answer then, is how far these keys will carry them. Of course no one can answer that now anymore than they could way back in September. What we do know for certain is that how far this team goes will depend almost entirely on how quickly they learn to win.

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