St John's @ Hamilton : 27/11/04

[M. Beaux-Eaux]

Ellis in nets. Coté returns.

[blaise]

A reprise of the previous night's home game, with the Cowdogs losing 4-1. Hainsey (assisted by Higgins and Plekanec) scored a PP goal. Higgins and Locke managed to remain at 0 +/-. Kostitsyn went -1, Ward -2, Gavin Morgan -4, Smellis-Ellis 4 goals on 23 shots.

Well, Mr. Jarvis, what now?

[M. Beaux-Eaux]

Blaise said:

Well, Mr. Jarvis, what now?

I'm beginning to feel that he needs to clean up the room. Anyway, next game isn't until Friday, so he has plenty of time to run a mini boot camp and to hob-nob with Savard, Julien and Gainey.

[blaise]

Will Jarvis recite a mea culpa? Do penance? Have his ears reddened? Undergo a mini coaching clinic? Be offered a leave of absence on health grounds? Receive promises of reinforcements? Something should be done pronto to snap the Cowdogs out of their comatose state.

[M. Beaux-Eaux]

Blaise said:

Will Jarvis recite a mea culpa? Do penance? Have his ears reddened? Undergo a mini coaching clinic? Be offered a leave of absence on health grounds? Receive promises of reinforcements? Something should be done pronto to snap the Cowdogs out of their comatose state.

Jarvis isn't the problem. Look for a shakeup of the roster instead.

[Deleted]

M. said:

Jarvis isn't the problem. Look for a shakeup of the roster instead.

The goaltending situation at least. Ellis has been completely unimpressive.

[blaise]

M. said:

Jarvis isn't the problem. Look for a shakeup of the roster instead.

Is that possible? The players in Long Beach are even worse. Trades? Unlikely. Hainsey's stock has gone down even further, and I don't think Plekanec or Higgins should be traded. Assigning 2003-04 NHL roster players to Hamilton? Can that be done?

Some other thoughts. Gainey's agreement with Dallas hasn't been beneficial. Nor have his (and Savard's) free agent acquisitions for the Cowdogs been of much help. Finally, why isn't Jarvis at least part of the problem? Is there no such thing as accountability? Coaches at every level in every sport have been fired for tailspins like this.

[seventeen]

Two problems that I noticed in the first 30 minutes that I watched. They don't have enough good scorers. Higgins and Plekanec are fine, the rest are not so hot. The one area I will criticize Jarvis for is his handling of Kostitsyn. Three shifts in 30 minutes. I don't see much developing going on there. At least on the last shift he was out with Higgins and Ott. I don't care what weaknesses he has, you have to play him at least a minimum amount, which to me is 10 minutes a game. I think the announcers said he had about 4 minutes the night before. In this game, the 3 shifts amounted to probably 2 minutes. That's problem #1, which is directly related to problem #2, their defense is pretty shabby. Hainsey was ok and Daley was ok offensively, except he carries the puck way too much. Cote was obviously off with his timing. Everyone else....(sound of buzzer). Focht is a doornail and Jancevski is just another kind of nail.

Ellis looked anything but comfortable, very unlike Tellqvist at the other end. Give Cote some more games, get Komi in there, play Denis 9 games out of 10 and they'll make the playoffs. That's as much as you can ask with this young team.

[Skilly]

seventeen said:

play Denis 9 games out of 10 and they'll make the playoffs. That's as much as you can ask with this young team.

Agreed with all except this.

Ellis is crap, no denying it. He makes me believe I am watching BullS--T instead of Bulldogs.

But Danis is not the saviour he was touted to be either. 7-5-0-1. (or something like that) 1 loss in a shootout and 5 regular in 13 games. They'd be an under 0.500 team at that pace. He still hasn't impressed me ..... *ducks quickly* .... Missed me by this much Blaise ol chap!! ;D

EDIT: Just checked the Dogs record. I thought they were 7-14-0-1, they are 7-11-3-1. OK, they'd be slightly above 0.500 at that pace, but the playoffs are still questionable, where is this great goalie that is suppose to walk on the holy waters of the coupe, part the teams for us to cross into the promised land, and turn blood and sweat into wins and playoff heroics. It was ordained in the holy scriptures of Pascal ......... why hath thou forsaken us Ying-Yann!!!

[M. Beaux-Eaux]

Blaise said:

Is that possible? The players in Long Beach are even worse. Trades? Unlikely. Hainsey's stock has gone down even further, and I don't think Plekanec or Higgins should be traded. Assigning 2003-04 NHL roster players to Hamilton? Can that be done?

Mathias Brunet's mini-campaign to have Ribeiro sign an AHL deal and suit up looks more and more appealing to me, but not to Gainey.

I think it says something that the Rangers chose Balej over Hainsey in the Kovalev deal. as BC can attest "Hollywood" has not been my favourite Habs d-man prospect. However, if it's possible, many eye witness reports have viewed him as regressing this season.

Some other thoughts. Gainey's agreement with Dallas hasn't been beneficial. Nor have his (and Savard's) free agent acquisitions for the Cowdogs been of much help. Finally, why isn't Jarvis at least part of the problem? Is there no such thing as accountability? Coaches at every level in every sport have been fired for tailspins like this.

I don't think that Jarvis is blameless in this situation, but it does seem to me, based on official and unofficial game reports that the players are largely at fault for this dog's breakfast.

I find it hard to believe that a man with 14 seasons assistant coaching experience at the NHL level and a very successful first season as an AHL head coach has overnight become a bumbling incompetent.

I also am not keen on this sharing of our farm club, but I suppose there are brownie points to be collected.

[CentreHice]

To me it doesn't feel as if the Dogs have taken this season seriously thus far...i.e. there is no NHL to which to jump in this campaign. Going through the motions with ineffective goaltending spells trouble. Sounds as if Jarvis' challenge is one of motivation. Perhaps Julien/Gainey have to stick their heads in the room and say that their memories run deeper than one missed season.

[blaise]

I would also have chosen Balej over Hainsey. Aside from their respective records and attitudes, Hainsey would have to be paid more at the NHL level. However, I wouldn't have made Kostitsyn, Perezhogin, or Higgins available, and I'm glad the Rangers passed on Plekanec (which is not to say that Plekanec was a more valuable commodity than Balej at the time of the trade). If the Rangers had chosen Hossa instead, that wouldn't have broken my heart, although Hossa has been showing good signs on his sojourn in Europe and might well make the Habs upon his return.

Unfortunately, some of the prospects various HabsRus posters had reasonably high hopes for haven't produced as yet. They include Milroy, Archer, and Shasby. Of course everyone was hoping that Kostitsyn would accelerate his timetable but that may have been a bit optimistic. I don't include Locke among the disappointments because he's very young and frankly I didn't think he'd make Hamilton roster this soon.

Skilly is gloating about Danis but he isn't factoring in the quality of the players in front of him. If there's a single dependable D on the team, I must have missed him. Come on, Komi!

[M. Beaux-Eaux]

Blaise said:

However, I wouldn't have made Kostitsyn, Perezhogin, or Higgins available...

But they weren't made available.

[blaise]

M. said:

But they weren't made available.

That's right, they weren't. Gainey and Savard weren't nuts.

[M. Beaux-Eaux]

Blaise said:

That's right, they weren't. Gainey and Savard weren't nuts.

Why would you have thought that they would have been?

[Skilly]

Blaise said:

Skilly is gloating about Danis but he isn't factoring in the quality of the players in front of him. If there's a single dependable D on the team, I must have missed him. Come on, Komi!

Watch it now, you are getting perilously close to crossing over to the dark side.

I have been saying for Theo (and therefore indirectly Danis, Garon, Huet, etc) that it doesn't matter how great your goaltender is, if he doesn't have the defensive support then he is bound to falter. It has been my stance that Theo played on par to previous years and his defense was the problem, and others tend to disagree. It is a fine line, but don't fight it, it is nicer over here on the "Theocrat" grass. I also once mentioned that Danis' 0.500 record on a bad defensive Brown team is not impressive because the defense he will get from Montreal and Hamilton will be worse.

Skilly said:

This is the first time I have seen Danis' complete stats. On other threads all you would see is his GAA or Save percentage numbers. And I would argue that the numbers mean nothing to me because it is the NCAA - he should be putting up good numbers there if he wants an NHL career.

But this here takes the cake. He has a career record in the NCAA of 43-43-12!!! In the NCAA?? If he needs his team to score for him to win then he is on the wrong team. I expected that he at least had a winning record with Brown, but 0.500! On a good scoring team he may have had a chance at an NHL career, but on the Habs who rely on the goalie 75% of the time these number do not cut it. If he thought Brown was a bad defensive team in the NCAA, wait until he sees what the Habs have in store for him at the NHL level. The defense has only looked good this year because of Theo and Garon, (I know some will say CJ's system, but that system was more for the forwards to come back and help, when the defense were caught on 3 on 2's and 2 on 1's we all knew the goalie was going to have to come up big)

Nice to see we are coming closer to an agreement; that being Danis needs defense and his stats clearly show it in 2 leagues now.

[blaise]

I pray that the Canadiens' defense will be orders-of-magnitude superior to that of their inferior farm club. I'm not sure that any of the D-men now playing on the Cowdogs will ever appear at the Bell Centre in a Habs uniform--at least I hope not. Well, maybe they could buy a ticket and wear a CH jersey while on a visit to Montréal.

[Skilly]

Blaise said:

I pray that the Canadiens' defense will be orders-of-magnitude superior to that of their inferior farm club. I'm not sure that any of the D-men now playing on the Cowdogs will ever appear at the Bell Centre in a Habs uniform--at least I hope not. Well, maybe they could buy a ticket and wear a CH jersey while on a visit to Montréal.

I wouldn't hold your breath.

The defense has been attrocious for 3-4 years now. And there is no end in sight. Komo will be a start (but he is still maturing), but after him the defense is filled with nothing but offensive-minded defensive liability crap. They need 2 offensive d-men tops (Markov and possibily Hainsey/Brisebois/who knows, because there is no one else on the roster capable of the responsibility) and 4-5 Rick Greens to make damn well sure the goalie sees the puck and bodies get hurt in front of the net. This is Komo's job, but then who? ....

Sheldon "injury prone, look at me get caught" Souray. If he's stay back, yes. But he thinks he is a superstar now.

Patrice "don't touch me I'll break" Brisebois. When is the last time he put the body on someone? He could be the offensive guy, if he'd learn to shoot. Cause that wrist shot that always gets blocked, wouldn't break glass.

Francois "Where's Smurf Village" Boullion. He won't be with the team when play resumes again. Hainsey will be taking his spot.

Craig "thinks he got eyes in the back of his head" Rivet. Next tim eyou watch a game, count how many times he lets someone get behind him. He should be a stay at home guy who pounds on opponents. Its hurts me to watch him play, he has so much potential. Yet in the playoffs he cost us so many goals by not taking his defensive responsibility.

The defense needs a make-over. A new approach to playing defense first. because there is nothing but rookies and free-agents/trades after the bunch above.

[blaise]

I know that the Habs defense is weak right now and doesn't look promising for the near future. I've posted that the last few drafts haven't met this need while Savard and Gainey concentrated on fancy forwards (BPAs?). I can't fault them because they didn't have a crack at any of the top Ds when their turn came up. I was particularly disappointed when Dion Phaneuf was taken just ahead of Kostitsyn because the Habs needed Phaneuf much, much more than AK. It looks as though Gainey will have to sign free agent Ds (or make trades) for quite a few years until the Habs develop some first rate prospects. I don't see a #3-4 D coming out of Archer, Shasby, O'Byrne, Korpikari, Korneev, Streit, or Coté, and it isn't a lock that one of them will become a #5-6. This doesn't bode well for a serious Cup run anytime soon, assuming that the nucleus will consist of Souray, Markov, Komisarek, and Rivet (with Brisebois fading out of the picture).

[Skilly]

Blaise said:

I know that the Habs defense is weak right now and doesn't look promising for the near future. I've posted that the last few drafts haven't met this need while Savard and Gainey concentrated on fancy forwards (BPAs?). I can't fault them because they didn't have a crack at any of the top Ds when their turn came up. I was particularly disappointed when Dion Phaneuf was taken just ahead of Kostitsyn because the Habs needed Phaneuf much, much more than AK. It looks as though Gainey will have to sign free agent Ds (or make trades) for quite a few years until the Habs develop some first rate prospects. I don't see a #3-4 D coming out of Archer, Shasby, O'Byrne, Korpikari, Korneev, Streit, or Coté, and it isn't a lock that one of them will become a #5-6. This doesn't bode well for a serious Cup run anytime soon, assuming that the nucleus will consist of Souray, Markov, Komisarek, and Rivet (with Brisebois fading out of the picture).

This is why I don't get giddy about Danis. As long as the defensive core is what it is (crap) then he will struggle. Theo seems to play well (good, decent, average, take your pick those who oppose him) in games where he sees over 40 shots. I don't think Danis can take that kind of play, and therefore I don't see him shining in the NHL with Montreal.