Habs Notes - (Jeff Lieberman)

Member since October 23, 2011

Toronto

Habs fan since: 1985
Favorite current player: P.K. Subban
All-time favorite player: Mats Naslund

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Recent Comments

• Comment on Pacioretty, Tretiak, Ovechkin featured in Friday's gala charity auction
  McGuire was a coach and scout. He had no success in Hartford and surely nobody would allocate any credit to him for the success the Penguins enjoyed while he was with that organization. He has not held any job with an NHL club in roughly 15 years. Do those of you who believe he would be a good GM think the rest of the league is simply wrong about this guy?? So far as I can tell, there is nothing in McGuire's past to suggest he can handle the duties of a GM, nor does he appear to me to have the savviness for the job. Perhaps he is a good judge of talent. He may even be a good game strategist. If true, then let's bring him on as a scout, assistant coach or video coordinator. But I do not understand how or why anyone can reasonably believe that his years as a TV analyst have equipped him to negotiate player contracts or transactions with other managers, interpret and apply the CBA to best manage the cap, and otherwise lead an organization. McGuire is very opinionated and expresses his views with passion. He is a good analyst. He speaks French. If that qualifies him to be the next GM of the Habs, then godspeed to him! But I think the organization and the fans deserve better.
• Comment on Liveblog: The Lars Eller Show
  Subban - Gorges Gill - Kaberle Diaz - Emelin Weber has not been part of the mix on D. So, if Campoli is playing, one of Diaz or Emelin must be sitting out. Or, maybe it's Kaberle. That could explain his absence from the morning skate.
• Comment on Liveblog: The Lars Eller Show
  If Campoli is back in, who's out on D? Cammalleri and Kaberle were apparently the only regulars who did not participate in this morning's optional skate. What's the story there?
• Comment on HIO at practice: Fight!
  Thanks for enlightening me Mark! Now the Gorges contract makes all kinds of sense because you would have us believe he stands alone and there are no comparables. Surely that's what his agent argued.
• Comment on HIO at practice: Fight!
  If we did not have the leverage to sign him to an appropriate contract then we should have let him find out at season's end that no other team overvalues him the way we do. My intention was not to be critical of Josh, and he doesn't have to QB the PP. But, in a cap world, a d-man drawing a $4M salary needs to put points on the board, or opposition forwards through the end boards. Doctors who happily admit mistakes? That's dangerous! Let's hope they're off the payroll.
• Comment on HIO at practice: Fight!
  I like Gorges. He works hard and is good in the room. But at this level I believe you pay your d-men to intimidate the opposition or QB the offence. Gorges does neither of those things. Kris Letang, who will win a Norris Trophy some day, is making $3.5 M. Dan Girardi, who is playing 27 minutes a night for the top team in the East, and has almost as many BS as Josh and nearly twice as many hits, makes $3.3 M. Nevertheless, the AAV is not completely unreasonable and Josh will always play his arse off. What really troubles me about this deal is knowing that we could have signed him last summer to a long term K at a lower cap hit, likely in the range of $2.75M - $3.3M (consistent with contracts for similar players like Seidenberg (BOS), Ericsson (DET), Polak (STL) and Robidas (DAL)). That's on PG. Are we to believe that the same doctors that endorsed the Markov deal, preached caution with regard to Josh's knee? Could they have really been so completely effing wrong about both players?? Or, is PG just a rotten poker player. Molson better replace him before he gets fleeced again in contract talks for Price, Subban and our other RFAs.
• Comment on Carriere: LL could stick
  The GM candidates that have been bandied about by the media are completely laughable. None of these guys (e.g. A. Savard, Damphousse) has done anything to suggest he is capable of managing a hockey club with any success. We would be the joke of the league if McGuire was our GM. If language didn't matter (and it shouldn't) Molson would be wise to think outside the box a little and hire Don Meehan. He is the best agent in the game and has been fleecing GMs in contract negotiations for years, including PG. He probably watches as much if not more hockey than most scouts, and is plugged in at all levels of the game. Trouble is, it would likely take a king's ransom and then some to convince him to leave his agency, IF he would even be interested at all. The GMs of last year's Cup finalists (Gillis and Chiarelli) are both lawyers and ex player agents.