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Habs Came Up Empty
by Paul on 07/10/07 at 05:48 PM ET
Comments (3)
from Red Fisher of the Montreal Gazette,
After more than a week of waiting and wondering, Souray is still out there. So is Mike Johnson, the best of the Canadiens’ acquisitions for 2006-07. Alas, Radek Bonk is a Predator after that franchise’s mother of all fire sales.
The best the Canadiens could do was sign defenceman Roman Hamrlik, who probably dislocated his shoulder in his haste to put his name to a four-year contract at the obscene price of $22 million U.S. (Has Alex Kovalev asked to have his $4.5-million-a-year deal renegotiated yet?) Bryan Smolinski was signed to a one-year deal for $2 million. Then: Tom Kostopoulos….
While I’m sure the Canadiens tried hard to bring a desperately needed franchise player such as Daniel Briere to this city, the bottom line is that they came up empty, while their non-playoff neighbours improved.
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Comments
And if we can get rid of Cancer Kovalev for something half decent that would be nice too…
Posted by Blitzen from Cantley, Canada on 07/10/07 at 06:03 PM ET
Red’s also assuming that the burgeoning crop of young talent on the team won’t improve. He’s right, if Higgins, Latendresse, Plekanec, Lapierre, A. Kostitsyn, and Komisarek fail to improve over last season; if Ryder doesn’t improve on his 30 goals, and if Markov fails to play up to his hefty salary, and if Halek or Price aren’t capable of backstopping or out-playing Huet; if any of the youngsters who could possibly join the club this fall (Chipchura? Grabovsky? S. Kostitysyn? Locke? O’Byrne? Cote?) fail to add anything, then yes, the Canadiens won’t be a better team next season.
As for the signings, Red really dropped the ball on this one. Hamrlik is a better all-round d-man than the one-dimensional Souray. Yes, I’ll miss Big Shel’s big shot, leadership and his willingness to stick up for his teammates, but I won’t miss seeing him deked out of his jock regularly. Smolinski is a considerable upgrade over Bonk, considering he can play the wing and center, has a consistently decent scoring touch, plays a smart defensive game and is pretty good in the faceoff circle. And Kostopoulos is an energetic checking forward who can’t be any worse than Johnson.
If Gainey hadn’t added anyone at all, it would be worse.
Posted by Spector from Charlottetown, PEI, Canada on 07/10/07 at 07:30 PM ET
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Red’s a great hockey writer but he really needs to join the 21st century. The Habs aren’t the dynasty Habs of old and wishing for them to be won’t help. I like what Gainey has done. I actually am quite happy that he failed to bring in Brière because he would have crumbled under pressure here. I would have liked Smyth however. We didn’t get him but it wasn’t due to a lack of effort on Gainey’s part.
Posted by Blitzen from Cantley, Canada on 07/10/07 at 06:01 PM ET