I don't think Gallagher is injured. But it's tough to play with 6 fingers out of ten. He gave it all years after years and now that he starts his new contract he's on the bad side of his career

Petry is injured for sure, Gally possibly as well

I don't really know if they're injured in the traditional sense or if its just father time catching up.

Gallagher is playing with a bionic hand and Petry has been playing hard minutes for years now.
Not saying they both wont bounce back but I think last years run might of been the climax for their careers.

Love the excuse. Petry is injure for sure But Gallagher ? We saw he starter to decline into the playoff. He was always 1 or 2 sec behind everyplay. Worse contract at the worst time

Have they really been "Bad" though? IMO, Gallagher and Petry would be two of the last guys I'd be talking about. Gallagher's numbers are basically where they were last year, and Petry's biggest difference has been the lack of offence.

I mean, it's pretty easy to spot the difference when it comes to Petry...he spent the past 4 seasons starting 51%+ of his even strength shifts in the offensive zone...this year? 42.7%. It's not that he's doing it poorly, it's that his usage isn't really a great way to get him doing what he does best-providing offence. Consider that he averaged around 2.25 shots per game last year...this year? Less than 1.5.

Gallagher isn't even that bad. He's scoring only a little lower than his career avg really. Gallagher at least brings the intangibles, which he still brings and honestly Im ok with him thus far. The entire team is having the worst years of their careers so we're really over analyzing on some guys. Gally was burdened with taking over the leadership for Weber and Price while losing his line mates for the past 3 years and in a diminished role. I don't blame him for not lighting it up.



.................................Petry on the other hand.......................................


Jeff Petry stars in CLIFFHANGER 4: Defensively comatose!

Petry looks like if after the playoffs last year, to get his mind off the Stanley cup loss, decided to give rock climbing a try. Then one unfortunate day while climbing, he slipped and fell on head and was rushed to the hospital where he eventually fell into a coma. Finally he wakes up from that coma the day of the first game of the Habs season and to everyones surprise, coach Ducharme decides to put him in but unfortunately Petry fell on the part his head for hockey skills so he's been trying to teach himself how to play hockey all over again and the on ice product reflects that.......Molson decides to hire a top of the line sports psychologist to get him to face his fears and climb that mountain again to expulse what ever demons he as a result of his fall and comes bac..........

.......listen I'm just going to stop it right there. Long story short, Petry has been so bad, that I just created an entire storyline that could win an Oscar, to explain how bad he's been.

Lol, great story, Petry has been historically bad this year

I still believe it's mostly a case of playing the wrong way for the personnel they have. As a result, the team has no identity. They can't play a shutdown game. They can't play a transition game. They can't play a possession game.
What they are doing, is trying to pull elements from different areas and mash them together. Some of the things they are doing, simply don't work in combination.
For one example, you can't have forwards playing high in the defensive zone to cheat on transition, while you have your defense being jammed up behind the net, often by their own initiation.
If they aren't getting to pucks quickly and moving them before getting tied up (or able to maneuver the puck after being pressured), the forwards are stuck waiting for pucks that never come. The defense has to be quick enough to make the first play, or strong enough that they can work the puck into control.
Our defense is instructed to trade themselves off with a forward, preventing them from making clean plays or protecting the net.
Our forwards are instructed to wait for the puck to come up the boards instead of closing the gap or helping to recover possession.

That's just one way in which our strategy is contributing to poor results. There are other examples in many areas of our play. None of these flaws are being recognized or addressed. This is primarily a coaching issue. Personnel better suited to some of these tactics would help, but it's still not a strategy for success.

I completely agree. When Julian was let go, I honestly thought the best candidate was Joel Bouchard, and was surprised that they selected Ducharme instead. It just seems as though they are playing uncomfortable hockey: there is so much nervous energy in the defensive zone, and when things break down they resort to the stretch pass as their only method of providing offense. I have also never been a fan of their power play structure.

Maybe they have the wrong players, too. But to me, this starts with coaching and management. That's just my opinion.

There's no excuse for the power play to struggle through multiple years and staff changes. That makes it a GM issue. Same goes for other areas like center depth and puck moving defensemen, with the excuse that "it's hard to make trades". Other teams do it, even if they have to overpay. You also can't "build through the draft" and fail to draft the BPA or develop any of those picks into top contributors.
Ducharme is not doing a good job, but he does have mitigating factors with key injuries and perhaps lacking the personnel to form a definitive strategy. As a new hire, he deserves a little leeway. Bergevin has failed to improve the construction of the team or organization on multiple fronts however. He's out of excuses.

If Bergevin has been with the Canadiens as their GM since the start of the 2012-2013 season. If he hasn't built a winning team by now, what is leading anyone to think that he will?

I completely agree: he needs to go and has needed to for quite some time. There is no excuse. While they would never do it, I think a guy like Jeff Gorton would be an outstanding choice. I assume Darche or Madden would be solid choices (if they go with what we should all assume to be a fracophone GM. I am not going to get into the geopolicial discussion of whether that is the right or wrong choice here).