Canadiens’ Kyle Chipchura at close quarters Saturday night with Toronto defenceman Hal Gill.
André Ringuette, NHLI via Getty Images
In this week’s One-on-One, The Gazette’s Kevin Mio sits down with Canadiens rookie forward Kyle Chipchura, who has quickly established himself as an important player on the roster.
Chipchura was the captain of Canada’s national junior team that won the gold medal at the 2006 World Junior Hockey Championship held in British Columbia and has been known as a leader throughout his career.
In the one-on-one, Chipchura discusses his experience at the WJHC and what adjustments he has had to make for playing at the NHL level.
Read on for a sample of a few questions:
You have been a captain in junior and with the national junior team. Do
you dream of one day becoming a captain of the Canadiens or any other
NHL team?
"That would be great, but at the same time, there are some pretty
good leaders in the room, some of the young guys who have been here for
a while. I think the leadership of this team is going to be solid for
many years."
What has stood out for you as a highlight so far this season?
"I guess my first NHL game in Pittsburgh. Also, my first game here
at the Bell Centre against the Hurricanes is something I will never
forget. You dream your whole life about that."
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Higgins wants to be called Russell Crowe! Maybe we should start referring to him as “Maximus” on this site.
Hey KamiDave,
I know how you feel after moving out to Vancouver not to long ago, you could always try and go to “Bang-on prints” (at least I think thats the name of the place) they make custom T-shirts they should have a CH logo….they have one of their stores downtown right near the HMV.
– Drew
Create a custom T:
http://www.uberprints.com/
If you Google “custom T’s” you may find more sites like this. Pick out a T and upload your image. Not sure if the image has to be high res or not. Should be plenty of CH images out there.
I really like chipchura , I didnt expect much out of him in his 1st year but he has been really good. he has more offensive skills then I thought.
yup, could be some kind of a bug….I haven’t read many of your posts, but there are some people who keep posting the same stuff over and over again, like who we didn’t draft, if thats all they have to say, they should be deleted….gets kinda boring!!!!!
that would be awesome !!!!! —- love to see that ….. if that wouldn’t make him smile on the ice i’m not sure what would
TOTALLY off topic, but…
I’ve been looking for a habs t-shirt for a while now to no avail.. all I want is a white tshirt with habs insignia, that’s it. No writing, nothing else.. can’t seem to find one anywhere… I’m from BC and they don’t have any at the sports stores here (lucky to find Habs anything) and I was just in Montreal last month, but had no luck then either. (Found lots of stuff, but it was all long sleeve multicolored lots of writing or just not what I was looking for).. if anyone has any suggestions of what website or where to look, that’d be just peachy! I need a shirt to piss off my co-workers, and be stylish at the same time.
I didn’t expect much from Chipchura, I guess his reputation of being a checking line center type and my concern for the CH lacking offense when the season began had me looking elsewhere,… but not for long.
It was readilly apparent that Chip was a more complete player than I had expected, as good as he was ” without the puck ” its when I realise how well he was doing “with the puck” that I started to get excited about having him on board,… and before too long I started thinking Ron Francis and the likes.
As for now I see him as a true competitor and a classic ” two way player ” that sees each instant on the ice as crucial moments to a game.
Great hockey mind, responsible yet eager as well as able to make things happened offensivelly as well…. without question an excellent 5-on-5 performer for years to come.
Good idea, thanks.
Imagine the Bell Centre chanting in unison everytime Higgins scores: “Maximus! Maximus! Maximus!”
Hey Kevin,
Why were cournoyer12 and my posts both deleted?
Thank you.
hummmm
now that we’ve got the goalie fpr the future, I guess we could try to draft a big guy
Numbers are not always what they are cracked up to be. BG was a third line player and is about to have his number retired. It’s about where you fit.
So true, good analysis. People think the third line is a demotion, but having a smart center on a checking line that can occasionally score is a big plus for the Habs. While I like the comparison with Pahlsson, I actually think Chipchura is going to be a much better player.
agreed….currently he is right where he should be. If he continues to work on his game he could be 2nd line material.
Actually he’s way ahead of what the Habs had planned. This year they had hoped he could get his feet wet and next year maybe he could move up to the 3rd line , and he is already there and playing well and with poise. He’s a quick learner. A 2nd line center for most teams has to have a lot of offensive skill which Kyle lacks but he can fill in on the 2nd line but his skills are more suited to a 3rd line center. Look at Fisher for the Sens , he has some offensive skills but the Sens are still looking for a 2nd line center as Fisher real skills are suited for a 3rd line center. 3rd line centers are really important as you seen last year with Pahlsson of the Ducks who not only won the cup but was in the running for the Conn Smythe trophy.
I don’t think he’s a second line centreman… Nightmare is right, his skating is not up to par! The playmaking is awesome though
Because he’s so smart.
Didn’t help the leafs last night. Higgins, Koivu and AK74 are showing that speed and skill works just as well as size and skill. They were playing keepaway from th leafs last night, it was awesome.
I’m starting to think Pleks could be a first line center a little bit down the road.
We need size now…maybe we won’t need it down the road
we WILL have pacioretty non?
Plus/minus is a guide and not a truly exact stat but it’s good to use to set up your agenda. Lately their has been a lot of plus/minus given when we were changing and most of them were not even in the play no matter what they did. I think it was O’Bryne that lost 2 +’s as he had changed and Komi took his place and made two strides and got a “+’s”. O’Bryne got an assist but no “+”. go figure. IMO i think you are underestimating Streit and Dandy’s value to the team and should look at the game objectively and make your on opinion and not always use stats as your crutch.
Chips is also plus 1, on a team where only a minority of players are in the plus column.
BTW, for anyone who doesn’t believe in plus-minus… tell me this pretty well doesn’t reflect the reality of this team… these are all the players on the low end of the stat:
Michael Ryder -3
Patrice Brisebois -3
Andrei Markov -4
Guillaume Latendresse -5
Mikhail Grabovski -5
Mathieu Dandenault -6
Mark Streit -7
Bryan Smolinski -7
Ignore GRabovski cause he only played a few games and anyway he’s down on the farm so out of the race. So in that list there is only one player who it would upset me if he was traded. Markov, of course – and it should be pointed out was minus-nine about a week ago and has been rapidly climbing out of the doghouse as his play returns to normal. The rest – Slowinksy, Streit, Dandenault… to me, these are guys that just aren’t up to the level of the team in consistency, energy, skill, or some combination thereof. And breezer and Ryder… well, each has their own situation that we know well. Very telling… very telling indeed!
________________________________________________________________
Be happy! At least the FUTURE looks bright!
Plekanec, Higgins, Komi, Chips, Lapierre, O’Byrne, K1 &K2, Price
I second and third that!!!!
Chipchura is the BOMB! Pointe finale.
Nice article, he seems like a good kid.
For some reason my RSS feed stopped working. I keep getting this “Unable to connect to database server” on some Drupal page. I’m using the latest Firefox. Any help?
Hi,
Which RSS feed are you using?
I like Chippy! I don’t think he’s first line material, but could work his way up to second line. A great role player to have with a great attitude!
I think he’s 3rd line center with up to 20 mins. a game depending how the game goes. The team would be hurtin if he was 2nd line center due to his lack of quickness and playmaking ability though it’s not that bad.
Pacioretty will be the next Erik Cole, but better
The “Live Bookmark” built into FF. Here’s the link I use: http://feeds.feedburner.com/habsinsideout
It just stopped working a couple days ago.
Same here… It says it can’t connect to the database and to install Drupal.
The MySQL error was: Access denied for user ‘kostjay4′@’localhost’ (using password: YES).
Currently, the username is kostjay4 and the database server is localhost.
Thanks. I’ve emailed the person who maintains the feeds. Should be fixed soon.
Update: links should work properly now. Sorry for the inconvenience.
No no, thank YOU.
Off-topic
With Price playing so well do we trade Huet? Since he won’t sign here again in the off-season I’m all for it. I’d hate to lose him for nothing like Souray. Then again if the Ducks had to put Bryzgalov on waivers, the market can’t be too good for impending UFA goalies.
If they don’t trade Huet it will only be because they can’t get anything for him (or can’t get anything out of our conference). Price seems to be coming along quickly and handling the situation smoothly.
But if there’s no market for him, they might as well keep him – especially if we seem play-off bound. I wonder if Edmonton is interested – they suddenly seem happy with Garon, but Roloson is under .900. Maybe we could give them Ryder and Huet and get their super-pest in return.
________________________________________________________________
Be happy! At least the FUTURE looks bright!
Plekanec, Higgins, Komi, Chips, Lapierre, O’Byrne, K1 &K2, Price
Chipchura est cuuuute!
Nice analysis.
________________________________________________________________
Be happy! At least the FUTURE looks bright!
Plekanec, Higgins, Komi, Chips, Lapierre, O’Byrne, K1 &K2, Price
Agreed! And I do like Grabovski… but I think he wasn’t quite ready so sending him down might have been good. I would also give him a bit of a break though because he wasn’t playing during the earliest part of the year when we were winning games (remember that??). And anyway, rookies don’t deserve quite the same scrutiny I think in the plus-minus. Veterans like Breezer and Smoky… those guys should make fewer mistakes, be more accountable. N’est pas?
________________________________________________________________
Be happy! At least the FUTURE looks bright!
Plekanec, Higgins, Komi, Chips, Lapierre, O’Byrne, K1 &K2, Price
What’s your favourite movie of all-time?
“Probably Old School.”
Yikes :O
He’s… he’s crazy man. I like him, but he’s crazy.