Posted by Kyle Roussel
All Habs
What a day.
I’m at my desk around 4:55 pm, anxiously waiting to skip out for the 5:06 train to catch a 6:30 viewing of Transformers 2. I loved the first, and have been waiting with baited breath for part 2.
Then, breaking news! Oh no! Please – not Vinny!
Could it get worse?
I don’t know, but what I heard left a lump in my throat:
Chris Higgins has been traded to the New York Rangers.
Ok, ok, I can live with that. Higgins was a nice player, but I just couldn’t put a finger on what he was supposed to be. A scorer? A shutdown guy? Who knows.
He’s a restricted free agent so I couldn’t see the Habs getting much in return. A middling draft pick. Then the storm clouds started swirling in my mind…what if Gainey swung a deal for one of the Rangers overpaid dogs in Wade Redden, Chris Drury or the sickest puppy of the bunch: Scott Gomez and his albatross contract?
I had to split for the train before hearing who the Canadiens got in return, but part of me wishes I still hadn’t turned on the radio when I got to my car. Why couldn’t I have just turned on Dave Matthews’ wonderful new cd instead?
Chris Higgins, Ryan McDonagh, Pavel Valentenko and Doug Janik for Scott Gomez and 2 other guys.
I kid you not, I nearly rear ended the car in front of me. It HAD to be a joke. But nope, there was local radio anchor Mitch Melnick scratching his head with TSN’s Pierre McGuire. If I could have turned in to the Hulk, I could have. I could have lived with Scott Gomez and his stupid contract. It’s not quite as long or hideous as Vincent Lecavalier’s. But to give up Ryan McDonagh AND Pavel Valentenko? The Rangers should have thrown in a draft pick just for the favour of taking Scott Gomez off of their books. Instead, Gainey threw a coveted first round pick at the Rangers.
I thought Glen Sather is usually the one to get bent over the barrel with these sorts of deals?
I thought stockpiling youth and prospects was to be used to build your team for the future, not to throw at rivals in exchange for 8 millions dollars of mediocrity. Oh sure, Gomez is a cute player and all. But for 60 points per season, I would have kept Saku Koivu thank you very much.
I truly hope Gainey is looking to parlay this deal in to something else. Immediately.
I’ve always supported Gainey, but this trade makes not one ounce of sense. It does not upgrade the Canadiens at all. In fact, it gives us another small forward with average production, but with an inflated price tag, and our farm is short 2 assets.
If this is the way it goes down, I hope the Molsons have their hand on the trap door button beneath Gainey’s feet because this is getting silly. UFAs walking away for nothing, and now with a golden opportunity to rebuild the team, he’s going to load it with bloated contracts? Enough.
I didn’t want to write, nevermind post this because I’m just so dismayed at this sequence of events, but I always reserve the right to change my mind when and if Gainey decides to fix this colossal brain fart.
Oh well, at least 2.5 hours of robots smashing the hell out of each other helped to distract me.
That's awesome, I got the news as I got out of a viewing of Transformers … nice timing, right?
Great…
Another doug gilmour/joe juneau/audette/radek bonk…
Oversized contract… CHECK
Was good a century ago… CHECK
Hope to restart his career… CHECK
Will last less than 1 season with the habs… CHECK
Now we know what it's like to have Daniel Briere. Or at least the size of his contract.
When the Rangers signed Gomez to that contract everyone was laughing at them. Then Gomez goes out and proves the critics right. Then Gainey goes out and proves he is less intelligent than the average guy in the street when it comes to hockey matters.
Factoring in the contracts, Rangers can sign Chris Higgin's buddy Mike Komisarek with the money they save in the exchange. For about the next 6 years or so.
I was no fan of Ryan McDonagh, and I think that this is an admission by the staff that they blew the pick. Valentenko is probably a better prospect, but the chances of him coming back to Montreal were minimal. But still they have a better chance of being NHL players than Tom Pyett or Mike Busto.
It's like Glen Sather was spring cleaning and threw out some junk into the alley. Bob Gainey comes trudging along and thinks it's a garage sale.
"How much you asking for this stuff, Glen?". Sather, thinking he is joking, asks a ridiculous sum. Gainey scratches his head, scratches his nose, scratches his ass, then mumbles.."Gee, that seems like quite a lot, but here ya go…".
My "knee jerk" thought was that I would like to "knee" the "jerk" who made the deal from the Montreal side in the groin. Repeatedly.
Look, i actually kind of like the move. I think he was a strong player on the market and was happy when i saw what had happened. I don't know if it was such a bad move. I said in my blog that it was actually "a steal for montreal" i doubt that now but still think it may be a good move.
So, what is the difference between Scott Gomez and Alex Tanguay? Both came out of the same draft, and I believe that Tanguay has been more productive over his career. Don't have the numbers in front of me now, but pretty sure Alex has more points and better ppg average.
Gainey pays a steep price for Tanguay last year, (1st and 2nd round picks), Alex has a decent year marred by injury, and now Gainey DOES NOT APPEAR INTERESTED IN RESIGNING HIM. Kiss a couple of premium draft picks goodbye for about 50 games worth of play from Tanguay. THEN Bo(zo) turns around and trades the team's best remaining left winger in Higgins for a guy who is less useful than Tanguay and will EARN $8 MILLION next season.
You can slice it, dice it, spin it, bend it, fold it, and mutilate it any way you want. It's nonsensical. The ravings of a madman.
I won't even get into Jaroslav Spacek. At least The Clown didn't trade a couple of valuable draft picks for his rights the way he did with Mathieu Schneider a few months back. Who you ask? Mathieu Schneider….. you may have caught a glimpse of him late last season when the team was in their tailspin. The guy they traded a second and third round draft pick for.
Well, there goes Big Mike. In comes Little Mike. For an extra 1.5 mil per season. Lousy tradeoff. Komisarek and Cammalleri came out of Michigan at the same time back in 2002, and Red Berenson was pretty clear on who he regarded as the better player and better person at the time. I don't think that has changed over the years.
For all the crap that Gainey throws out about Montreal developing it's own talent, he has just thrown out a good portion of the team's best home grown players for a handful of "suitcase" mercenarys who get traded every couple of years.
Just to dig another "knee" into the "jerk", I just noticed that both of the veteran defensemen the Habs signed are left handed shots. Which puts them in good company in Montreal, where holdovers Hamrlik, Markov, Bouillon, and Gorges share that characteristic. Meanwhile their top (and some would say only) right handed defender signed (for less money according to some rumors) with the Maple Leafs.
Does that mean we see Ryan O'Byrne playing the right side on the top defense pairing? Or will he remain in the press box where he belongs?
To be sure most of the team's top defense prospects shoot right, but I think it will be awhile before Weber, Carle, Subban, Fischer, Stejskal, Pateryn, etc. are able to contibute at the NHL level. Maybe by the time Hamrlik, Gill, Spacek, Bouillon, et al retire the team will feature an all right handed defense corps. Who knows.
Same/same at left wing. Long a weak spot on the club due to Trevor Timmin's addiction to right handed shooters or left shooting right wingers, they had converted center Chris Higgins as the top LW, with converted right wingers A. Kostitsyn and Guillaume Latendresse behind him. Now Higgins is gone, and so apparently is the player they brought in to finally hold down the top line LW spot, Alex Tanguay. Someone explain to me please…….
…never mind….they just signed a 5'7" RIGHT WINGER for $5 million a season.
Rob, is there anyway you will not complain?
Komisarek signed for less money in Toronto? From what I heard, he signed for slightly more but even if it was true, how is it Gainey's fault? He gets top line duty next to Markov, he was offered over 20M on 5 yrs… Can't blame Gainey for not trying.
Hal Gill brings experience and grit… and about a foot more than Bouillon. And a ring.
Spacek is reliable defensively, and if he's less than Komisarek, he more than makes up for it with offense, badly lacking in Komo's game.
The difference between Tanguay and Gomez? You're kidding me right? Faceoffs, for one! Gomez is a first line center. Yes, he had a bad year, but he had 70 points the year before. And if you go back, 60, 84 and 70 points with the defensive minded Devils. Obviously, he is responsible defensively.
Gionta scored 146 goals in his last 5 season with, again, New Jersey. Again, responsible defensively.
Cammalleri just come back from a 39 goal season. Scored 34 three seasons ago with the abyssymal Kings. An obvious offensive talent and he's only 27.
But most importantly, Gainey managed to make a big trade to help his team and signed four players on the first day of free agency when we are used here to get snobbed but UFAs.
Gainey did his job, wether you think you could do better doesn't matter.
Look at it this way (strictly from a hockey perspective):
Koivu at 34 years old, or Gomez at 29 years old. I take Gomez. A better playmaker. Not as much heart as Saku, but it was time to clear the air.
Tanguay or Cammaleri? Gimme Cammaleri and his 39 goals. He may not match that here, but he's a sniper.
Kovalev or Gionta? For the same amount of points, I'll miss Kovalev's flair (really, I will), but Gionta will be a better 2 way player.
On defense, we lose Komisarek, but get Gill and Spacek. Spacek is MILES better offensively, and responsible defensively. Gill has negligible offensive production, but replaces Komisarek's size and defense.
I'll be honest and say that I'd take Komi back instead of having those 2, but this is a tough business. You win some, you lose some.
The only way the team "improved" itself in this debacle is through the fact that Kovalev (thank God) was slow witted enough to sit on Gainey's offer too long. But even that fortuitous circumstance can't be attributed by any sense of reason on Gainey's part. Just dumb luck, like having Briere turn down their contract offer a couple of years back. Or Turgeon and Lapointe turning down Andre Savard's higher offers back in the day.
But where in this mess is THE ORGANIZATION OF STABILITY, LOYALTY, TRADITION, CLASS, etc. that Montreal trumps itself as? The treatment of Koivu is distasteful at best. You HAVE to offer your team captain a contract, even if it one he will likely refuse. As shoddily and clumsily as Gainey dealt with his "friend" Guy Carbonneau a few months back, the situation of Koivu is worse.
How about the myth of letting the kids grow and bond together over the years? Montreal spends a lot of money and time bringing kids in to acclimation camps etc. from the time they enter the organization, then when things go wrong (mainly due to the ineptitude of the G.M.) they toss them out like garbage without a qualm.
The team threw away FOUR FIRST ROUND DRAFT PICKS in one day. The ONLY BRIGHT SPOTS IN THE ORGANIZATION over the past decade or so. Komisarek (2001), Higgins (2002), McDonagh (2007), and the pick traded for Alex Tanguay (2008). Prior to that Gainey wasted the picks of Hainsey and Hossa (2000), Perezhogin (2001). He didn't even get anything in return for them. Most of the team's other first rounders are only with the club because they are untradeable. Like Kostitsyn (2003), Chipchura (2004) and Fischer (2006). Carey Price is the only exemption, and that was dumb luck in the lottery draft that gifted them the #5 overall pick. No gaurantees about Price, either, I get the feeling he will force a trade sooner rather than later. Who can blame him?
What is the difference between Tanguay and Gomez. They are the same age, similar style, similar career stats (Tanguay has the edge in points per game and +-). One guy (non Francophone) is worth an arm and a leg in trade and $8 million a year. The other is worth NOTHING? Despite the fact that he waived a no trade clause to "come home" just one year ago, and cost the team two high draft picks?
There is no "home" anymore. No there there. Just a mad dictator and a bunch of cynical old mercenaries marching to their conclusion.
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