Good call on Evans. With Pleky gone I'm pretty sure they will do this actually, will be interesting to see how he does. (I would play him center though not RW, he's a natural C and we have awful depth there right now)

Agree put Hudon on LW, Evans at C, and Byron inn RW, also switch Drouin with Danault... drouin had great chemistry with chuky and scherbak also patioretty has chemistry with Danault

This is actually Jake's First Season Center
He's a Natural RW Just Like Mccarron He Made the Change After His Draft.

he's only on RW until A.Shaw is back then i do want Jake at Center but not until Shaw is back on RW and Hudon on LW to help him with Faceoffs .
its why he's listed as a F not a Center or a RW because he plays all positions but this year was his first as a full time Center Job for Notre Dame
he hasnt seen any time on wing this year.


Shaw Returns i'd have it like :

Patches-Drouin-Gally
Chucky-Danault-Scherbak
Hudon-Evans-Shaw
Deslauriers-Byron-Lehkonen(this way if Third struggles 4th can step up as a shut down line.)

keeping in mind i know that next year the only ones likely to play Center still is Danault and Evans IMO

Do not forget Ryan Poehling. He is having a very good year and I think he will be playing for Habs in 1 to 3 yrs.

true, he said in an interview i saw a few months back when he was playing for team USA that he thought he needed 1 more NCAA season before he was NHL ready .
personally i just think he wants to stay and play with his older twin brothers a little longer as they are all in year 2/4 and i think he wants to help raise their profile maybe
get them up over 20 points a season so team will take notice as neither twin is signed to an AHL team

there is a lot of good prospects since 2014 , Timmons should get credit for convincing Crawford to come to MTL from VAN.
he was a great pick to replace him. i just cant wait until Timmons assistant GM spot is solidified and Larry Carriere is fired.
Timmons is a much better person to develop our youth at the AHL level plus he can find us undrafted pick ups to sign to our AHL club and develop
like Julien Brisebois did in TBL with Dotchin and Johnson

Everything you said about Poehling is probably on target, however, when an NHL team comes calling and put real money in your face, most players leave NCAA and report to AHL team. Money talks! lol As for Timmins, he is hit and miss. In fairness, so are other men in same positions with other NHL teams. One pick he really and I mean really messed up on was David Fisher. I was working with some players and saw young Fisher play. I told Stephan Lebeau, he will never play one game in the NHL and Timmins was really high on him. To this day nobody on the outside really knows if he is really good or does he get out voiced by the GM or someone else. I remember when I was at the O level, our GM was crazy about a kid out of Kingston and bragged to the media how good he was going to be. The problem is the GM did not do his research and I drove ten hours up north and sat with the mother and the mother was very clear her son was not playing in the O but going the D1 route. But our GM would not listen to me and even told me in a parking lot, I knew nothing about hockey. Well, he drafted the kid and he never played one game in the OHL, went D1 and played in the NHL. So, sometimes men see different things. Look at all the comments on here!

Pierre Gautier pick Fisher not timmons , timmons was just 1 of many in the scouting Department but PG ran scouting until Gaineys daughter died and he took over GM interim then Timmons was place in charge interim but it wasnt until 2012 with MB he had anyones ear. he was english there fore he was ignored .

until 2013 he was the Director of Player Development aka the guy who runs training in Brassard last i checked held by Bergeron i believe
it wasnt until 2013 he becomes Director of Scouting . people blame him for a lot just because he was there but thats like me blaming markov for no cups after over a
decade and a half . sure markov was there but he wasnt the problem , same can be said for Timmons when he had to work for no class Pierre Gauthier

http://www.eliteprospects.com/staff.php?staff=6298

Very interesting. I was told he put the draft together https://www.nhl.com/canadiens/team/trevor-timmins. At any rate, I just want this team to turn around. MTL will need to identify their nucleus and build around it. On one hand you have Price, Patch, Weber. On the other hand you have Mete, Juulsen, Galchenyuk, Drouin, Hudon. So it is going to be interesting. Decisions will need to be made. If either Reilly or Valiev turn out. You have 3 solid D to build around.

in OTT it states he did all that but he didnt get hired here until 2003 .

i've followed MTL closely for a long time i assure you Timmons wasnt even top 5 in scouting during Fisher debacle .
in habs tv interviews he reflected on his first draft and that was Chucky's who he considers his first pick as leader

again he didnt have any real power 2013- 2014 as it points out in your link shared
right now as Assistant GM he oversee's most of his replacements at various levels he served including Eric Crawford who i mentioned originally
as the guy Timmons deserved credit for bringing over.

Well, all I know is Habs have 10 picks, with 6 in first three rounds. Out of the ten, if they can get 3 good players, I will be happy. Today I listened to a couple of hours of French reporting on the Habs. Many people are frustrated and wonder what is the direction of the team. Gaston Therrien and Gilbert Delorme are frustrated but Vincent Damphousse was trying to be the voice of reason and was playing it cool. MTL is not as bad as most people think. We need a #1 legit Centre. I think Mete and Juulsen in 2 yrs will be D partners. We have wingers. De La Rose, Hudon and Lehkonen all hustle but within 18 months their offense needs to unblock itself or it will be time to move them. Both Price and Weber will have bounce back seasons. I am glad Morrow is gone, we need to move Schlemko. Alzner is a solid 5 D man even though he gets paid top four. But not his fault Bergevin gave him that contract. Many people love Petry, I am on the fence. His offense is solid but his d-zone is hit and miss. I would also move A. Shaw. I have known him since his days in the O. He has spurts but is not that big and before he gets even more banged up, while he still has value, I would move him.

i agree about everything you said but i think Crawford will find us another solid year like last.
last year was amazing with Ikonen being the biggest 'let down' and i use that term loosely as he's adjusting to playing in a mens league .
Primeau is tied for 8th among NCAA goalies last i checked
Poehling has 26pts in 28 games and thriving
Fleury is one of the best D pairs in the WHL with ANA Mahura with 45 pts in 60 games.(watch him play on rogers cable and he's a cut above the rest and he's on a good team to so that is saying something .)
Brook got injured early on but since returning is on a tear with 26pts in 35 games as a D
Walford and Tyzska are defensive D developing nicely with 29 and 37 pts in 60 games as defensive D

2016 NHL class leads most of our prospects outside those brought in from 2014 and 2015 everyone else has been pushed out or brought up .
i'm really high on Fleury though , those hands and the fact that he's been packing on weight trying to get ready to make the jump to Pro level.

the rest are guys who need years but Fleury is about to turn 20 this fall and though he could stay in Junior i think that would be a mistake to be honest as he's to good .

http://www.eliteprospects.com/in_the_system.php?team=64

also we'll never get the value of 2 picks out of Shaw back unless we use him and flip him as a rental .
he's a solid secondary center and CHI hasnt been a contender since he left if we are being honest because he broke in
the young guys and was a peer leader on bottom 6 helping guys like Danault,Teurovinen,Hartman for example .


i'd wait atleast until Shaw helps hudon jump to center , i think with his help honing the craft he could be a 55-57% faceoff winner like shaw.

It is actually refreshing to speak with someone that takes this seriously. You do your research, that is good. I have seen Fleury play live at the prospects game. He was supposed to be drafted #70th but went #87th. he had a terrible plus/minus but I think he will eventually be a #4 d-man and second unit PP. I think 2 yrs in Laval will help him rafine his game and learn to be a pro. He is a right shot as well and has decent size. I think he will be a good pro.

The issue I am having with Shaw is his health. He is not that big and has had 3 concussions and shoulder issues. I would flip him before he gets too banged up. After this season, he still has 4 more years. I would monitor his situation closely.

i'm really hoping he and Valiev get a chance to sink , there styles just seem like they would fit as Valiev is big enough and fast enough to play the stay at home D
allowing Fleury to branch out offensively some . i'd like to see them in Laval next year on 2nd pair and see if they can earn 1st so long term they can gel because with Juulsen and Weber
even if we have Fleury up and thriving it just means more third pair minute's there is no room to move up unless he takes juulsen spot so having that added chemistry with another player who is likely to play this line and Special Teams could give him an edge.

Really though i think he'll thrive beside whomever he plays with but finding him a good solid stay at home D preferbly with size would be the best fit .


i think the past 5 years i've gotten into watching the habs prospects hard because the NHL Draft and the league itself has a lot more depth youth prospects.
but honestly not until 2015 was i really getting pumped about the volume of quality we were getting , i mean 2014 was good but 2015 and 2016 i think were great and
2017's picks were the best since 2007 IMO

i'm really impressed with what Eric Crawfords done in 3 years time.
guys like Vjdemo ,Bradley ,Addison Bitten and Pazetta are all looking great with all but Vjdemo reporting to the AHL next year if not the NHL in Bradley's case as he's been amazing in Regina thanks to rogers i get to see their games a lot more then when i had Bell . Bradley is on one of the best WHL teams playing with Steel from ANA's draft class and thriving to the point he might even be out shining Steel like Drouin did Mckinnon on ice .(most people dont know that but in every area Drouin was better then Mckinnon including the playoffs he put up 41 points in to lead the league .)


thats not including guys we got like Evans , Nattinen and the 2 prospects we just got so our youth looks great the next 2-3 years coming up .
as long as we draft at least 2 NHL ready players in the next 3 top 40 picks i like where we are going overall as long as we keep moving out the old core .

I dream of a Habs where on offense Gallagher and Shaw are the old guys
Where Weber and Alzner teach our D the importance of consistency
Where our young Goalies are Rotated Chances to back up Price
I Dream of a Habs Youth Core the like's of Which we haven't seen since the 1980's

The players need to block stuff out and stop reading their own articles. Some people are extremely critical and do not have a life. I remember in 2002, I was meeting with Serge Savard at the Bell Centre. At the conclusion of our meeting Mr. Savard took me on a tour of the dressing room and while we were there his cell phone rang and he excused himself. As I was waiting I sat in Jose Theodores stall and waited for Serge to return. The players were not there as they were on away games. A room attendant was cleaning the room and another person had a small group behind a red rope and he was giving a tour of the place. A father lied and pleaded with the rink attendant if he could have an empty roll of tape for his son. It was an empty roll with nothing on it, yet the father was almost in tears as if it was the Holy grail itself. It was at that moment, I understood for the first time, how much these players are elevated to God like status.

I keep the names of my clients confidential but one name I will reveal is Todd Ewan. I knew he was not making smart choices and I tried to reach him but sometimes athletes that are worshiped have a very hard time, dealing with life after the limelight. Sadly he did not take my advice and he later took his own life. I digressed a little from our conversation but to me building a team, is finding good character and building a strong personal of athletes that truly believe in themselves. So, they cannot read or listen to what others say, it has to be them against the world, espcially in Montreal. I worked with Jonathan Drouin when he was with the Mooseheads. I know him fairly well. He was trying to do too much. Being French and making a big plash financially at the beginning of the year. I would have councilled him to only focus on hockey his first year, not read or watch the sports in Montreal. When you leave the rink, leave it at the rink. But he put way too much pressure on himself and he was making a ton of mental mistakes. I can count about 8 games all year, last night being one of them, that he really played with confidence and loose. He will get better and better as the years go by and will turn into a very good player.

i couldnt agree more!

my tutor growing up was Bruce Graham drafted in the 2nd round by NYR after MTL traded his pick for Kovalev
and he taught me a lot about being a big picture guy. i used to watch him on the Ice here in Junior like he was larger than life.
he'd always come back to its not about him ,its about the team and leading them to success and by proxy he'll be successful .

those words shook my world and blew my mind.

here is a guy getting ready to be drafted the Captain of a club doing really well and there wasnt a shred of Ego to him .
now i wont pretend Bruce made the NHL or met his expectations because honestly he was a good skater , big body but his hands left a lot to be desired and
he wouldnt fight (he thought it was classless ) as a 6'6 big body that essentially ended his Pro Career there because when he was drafted we were still years
away from the NHL changes brought on today .

that being said he had a lot of success in other league's mentoring players and even going to england a few times to help grow their league as well.
his Character , Mental toughness and Vision was why he could stay in North America for the most part and make a living .
he used this time to learn more about the Coaching side of things and at age 31 i believe it was retired from hockey to Pursue Coaching .


to me Bruce is Exactly the type of guy you want there coaching the next Generation and honestly i might be a grown man in tears if he gets to Coach where he started here at home in the future.i feel like he's a shinning example of what Character means in todays sport. when he got cut from the AHL after skating away from a fight he could have quit easily , could have given up .instead he evolved and i could not be more proud of him if he was Kovalev's level of player.


i feel like in the social media era a lot of the Context is lost and stories like this dont get the recognition they deserve .
i'd truly like someone like Jay Bruchel who's a Die Hard Hockey fan and Die Hard Canadian to start a web series covering this content as juniors in Canada
has a lot of cool stories you dont get to hear that could endear mainstream fans to see more then just the finished product so they'd appreciate the overall sport more.
(pitched this to Jay once when he stayed at a hotel i was doing security in , he thought the cost was a hard sell but the idea was cool )


i guess i feel like if we can start showing the people behind the gear and pads
maybe fans will stop pushing them to points its just outright abusive (case and point how Price has been treated and how his wife's been targeted )

oh my goodness, Habs stop scoring. I want to lose, so we get a higher draft pick.

lucky for us BUF is winning more then us and ARZ is on a 7-2-1 run in 10
its not just us winning games its just the match ups post season vs teams on the bubble .


but we should waive Schlemko and let the kids play more to increase the odds we lose more (weird concept i know but taking out a shot blocker and putting in a rookie helps us all around including giving our AHL goalies a break as without juulsen and jerabek they goalies down there have been pummeled to the point its harmful to their Development (plus maybe we get lucky and someone claims him like NJD)

I would have no problem waiving Schlemko. Getting lots of shots in the AHL is not a bad thing. Patrick Roy was asked why he never asked for a trade from his terrible junior team, as he was often getting fifty shots per game. He said my goal was to make it to the NHL, so the more shots I got, the better prepared I was going to be.

Mete, Juulsen and Reilly all look like keepers. With Mete injured Valiev gets his shot next game.