Where Have You Gone Juha Lind-io?
The Wiry Latvian
On the occasion of the Habs home-opener against the young gun Colorado Avalanche, I believe it is high time I look into the crystal ball and tempt the fates of prognostication on the new look Habs.
We all know the background (new coach, owner, 11 new players, bla bla bla) which I will not go into here at any length. We have had 5 road games to see the new look Has in action. The press is back in fury mode - Le Nouveau Départ and such phrases emblazoned in bold lettering atop a picture of a few tough and hungry looking new players.
The new habs, the new start.
Of course the only reason why it is a new start is that the first start did not go so well (team is currently on the heels of 3 straight loses including a 7-1 shellacking by the lowly Vancouver Canucks). The defense is looking porous as it always does when Andre Markov is absent. Goal is looking at best average and the offense is showing little of the aplomb needed to make up for deficiencies at the other 2 positions.
So where do I see these Habs? What is the potential? I should start by noting that, as it concerns the Habs, I am generally an unabashed optimist. I survived the Rejean Houle era by believing that Juha Lind and Sergei Zholtok (may God rest his soul) would lead us to the promised land. I believed that Pat Jablonski and Ron Tugnutt could rekindle the Roy magic. I believed that Ron Hainsey was to be the next coming of Larry Robinson.
I believed and I waited and believed and waited as draft pick after draft pick fizzled out (where are you Alexander Buturlin?); as goalie after goalie filled the pipes and watched their adversaries fill the net behind them and rotated out to let an another anonymous puffy haired dude take the reins; as coach after coach sat down before the promising lights and professed his boyhood dream fulfilled, the land of plenty glinting in his eyes only to be holding the same press conference a year and a half later at a sports bar in St-Eustache looking wired and haggard and trying to figure out why and where it all went wrong (then go on to a long and successful coaching stint somewhere beyond the hungry glare of the Montreal lights).
Yes, I am an optimist. In every pre-season prediction throughout this dark age we currently inhabit I had the Habs in the playoffs and throwing all they had into the pursuit for the coveted goblet.
But every year they bowed out. And every year it was painful.
- 4 game sweeps
- 3rd period collapses carrying over to series defeats
- Dominant Decembers fizzling in the February foibles and early April apologies
But now the slate is wiped clean, out with the old, in with the new. Out with the losers with 2 cups between 23 guys. In with the new proven winners!
So let us look at this new team as it stands today on October 15th:
Goal
Carey Price is leading a life in reverse. He was the future before he had a chance to be the present and he is in danger of quickly becoming the past if he can't seize the all too brief moment. He has the weight of the city on his shoulders. He sits in his locker room with the steely eyed Jacques Plante glaring down at him:
hin my day we spend da summer working in a quarry, we take frozen puck to da 'ead and get up to ask 'er to give us more
How do you match that? I'll give you a hint, it does not involve your nose...
Price has showed flashes of potential and flashes of utter inability. Montreal is the wrong place for this kid. Montreal plans to crush him.
Jaroslav Halak I believe could be a legitimate starter, not a hall of famer, but a solid goalie. He will never get the chance to groove his game here. Like a good turtle-neck wearing foot-solider, he will play his role and never realise his potential until he gets traded somewhere where there is no resident saviour-in-training.
Defense
Paul Mara is a depth defenseman, Hal Gill is a depth defenseman, Shawn Belle is a rookie defenseman with unknown potential, Josh Gorges is a top 4 defenseman with gusts to a top 2 owing to sheer will-power. The czeching line of Hamrlik and Spacek are a great second pairing. Are you seeing a pattern here? Without Markov, the Habs have no clear 1st pairing and a below average defense.
Offense
The first line is a good first line. I would say it is a top 20 first line in the NHL. Not bad, not great, capable of getting the job done and occasionally able to wow. But they are small, they get thrown around like rag-dolls and I really don't see how they can stand up to 82 games of pounding like that. The Second line has one of my sentimental favourites at centre in Thomas Plekanecs, a man who epitomises everything that is not the euro habs of 2008-2009 - discrete, humble, hard-working. But he has no supporting cast.
Without a young gun stepping into the lime-light, the second line is destined to suck. And I really don't see who will do this. Paccioretty is simply too young and too green. Latendresse is a bust (you read it here first) and Kostitsyn the elder is an even bigger bust (my God how we blew the 2003 draft, thinking about it gives me stomach ulcers). The third line is a third line, nothing more. The fourth line is a fourth line with limited to no scoring potential.
The long and the short? This team is not going to make the playoffs. In fact, the best result I could possibly hope for is that they lose a lot of games, dump salary at the trade deadline and finally get some proper draft picks into the system.
And yet despite this hope and realisation, I will watch most of the 82 games this year. I will cheer and bemoan and wail and gnash teeth and I will hope - hope beyond hope - that this is the year, tthat the long decade and a half of our discontent is over, that these are the guys to lead us to the promised land.
And then I will watch the Montreal winter grey their skins and the Montreal bar-sluts/succubi erode their competitive flame and when they are blurry-eyed and stuporous, I will watch the Montreal fans clamber high atop their band-wagon, rein-up and whip their media hoarde frothing at the mouth to jostle their way in for the kill.