|
|
Post by MPLABBE on Mar 24, 2002 14:39:43 GMT -5
|
|
|
|
Post by Disgruntled70sHab on Mar 24, 2002 20:10:56 GMT -5
Would that be Reggie under Lemaire's tutalege  ? Hard to say. But it is good to hear others talking about our prospects as well. Cheers. |
|
|
|
Post by MPLABBE on Mar 25, 2002 15:43:57 GMT -5
What year was that? I probably wasn't even a project back then  |
|
|
|
Post by habmeister on Mar 25, 2002 16:12:16 GMT -5
Reggie may have been an ok drafter. But i think that most of us could just follow the CSB rankings and draft a few good players. Being a GM is a lot more than drafting. Your chief scout and his entourage of scouts have more input on who to draft as most gm's don't get to see a player more than a couple of times. That is why we have scouts. So don't give reggie too much credit, because for all we know he was given a list of players by his scouting staff and they followed it to the letter.
The more important job of a gm is keeping your current players happy and the trades you make. Reggie should have kissed patrick roy's butt, or at least tried to smooth things over. Can you imagine if the rocket was run out of town like patrick was? I'd be willing to bet that if we kept patrick we'd have celebrated a stanley cup championship since '93. But reggie wasn't about that.
As far as i'm concerned he was one of the, if not the worst gm's in the history of the canadiens. Thank god he was fired.
|
|
|
|
Post by Habs_fan_in_LA on Mar 25, 2002 17:48:37 GMT -5
WOW!!! We must still be in the playoff hunt if we are still bashing Reggie. He was the worst, but Serge (cigar mouth) Savard is close behind. Let's keep a bad thought for Reggioes bosses and Molson's too. They hired and fired Reggie and sold the franchise to Gilette for no cash and a promisary note that they then co-signed. It was a horrible decade and we need to move on. I don't know anyone that didn't like Reggie the man, and I don't know a GM who worked harder than Reggie. His faith in Mario and his judgement was misplaced. The 8) leading the 8) I still fondly remember Reggie playing with his good and great friend Marc Tardiff and Gilbert Perrault. Going to the Jr's was all I could afford and Reggie was by far the best of the three. On veux Globenski!
|
|
|
|
Post by Forum Ghost on Mar 26, 2002 5:14:32 GMT -5
Serge Savard close behind Houle??? IMO I think that Serge Savard gets bashed far more often than he deserves. Yes, he gets blamed for the LeClair deal and the Chelios deal, and yes, he did not draft anyone of significance in the eary 90's with his first round picks, but because of these mistakes we cannot forget about all of his accomplishments. <br>
In his 14 years as GM of the Habs, Serge's team missed the playoffs only once. He brought two Stanley Cups and other than the last two years of his tenure, he always kept the club competitive. WRT to the trades he made, no question that he absolutely was fleeced on both the LeClair and Chelios deals, but he did make some good trades as well. Especially the trades that he made that heavily contributed to our '93 Cup.
As for the draft, Serge Savard drafted and developed players such as Roy, LeClair, Desjardins, Keane, Skrudland, Chelios, Schneider, Odelein, Corson, Carbonneau and Svboda just to name a few. Like I said, he did not have a good track record in the early 90's but we can't forget about the numerous gems that he drafted previous to that.
Therefore I think it's unfair to compare Serge Savard with Houle. Houle did not win any cups as a GM, missed the playoffs 2 out of the 5 seasons that he was GM, and lasted only 5 years on the job, compared to Serge's 14.
|
|
|
|
Post by GNick on Mar 26, 2002 8:02:37 GMT -5
Serge Savard holds a manager record that is likely never to be broken. Serge is the only GM to win the first round of the playoffs for 10 consecutive years. That was never done before despite some very good GMs ie. Selke, Torrey, Pollock, Smythe, etc...
The thing I liked most about Serge Savard was those landmark trades. What I would't give for a Bobby Smith, Kirk Muller or a Russ Courtnal type trade this year.
However, In his final two years as GM I think Savard spent most of his time building a financial empire instead of looking after the Habs affairs.
|
|
|
|
Post by PTH on Mar 26, 2002 11:37:54 GMT -5
Serge Savard close behind Houle??? IMO I think that Serge Savard gets bashed far more often than he deserves. Yes, he gets blamed for the LeClair deal and the Chelios deal, and yes, he did not draft anyone of significance in the eary 90's with his first round picks, but because of these mistakes we cannot forget about all of his accomplishments. <br> Very much agree, but even in drafting Savard was better than we sometimes give him credit for - early 90's drafting ? From 1991 to 1994 - 4 drafts: Koivu, Tucker, Bordeleau, Vokun, Théodore, Val Bure, Darby I remembered on my own, and after checking there's also Petrov, Jim Campbell, Rivet, Brad Brown, Chris Murray, and Brian Savage. A few of those are marginals, but that's 8 good NHLers(Vokun and Théo (1994), Koivu and Tucker(1993), Bure and Rivet(1992), and Petrov and Savage (1991), which means 2 a year, which is considered good drafting. 3 in a year is excellent, and 1 is sub-par - even 0 doesn't mean you picked badly, just means you didn't get lucky. The leaner years were 88-89-90, which got us Stevenson, Conroy, Popovic and Brisebois. It's those years of "bad" drafting that got Savard his reputation.... the early 90s we tend to underestimate since the guy who was there when the guys were ready was Houle, and he gave away Tucker and Bure, sacrificed Vokun on the Thibault/Théodore altar (though that was IMO a good move) and overall made is easy to miss the fact that the original drafting wasn't bad. Just to say, even in drafting Serge wasn't all that bad. It's in player development that he tended to be a bit weak. |
|
|
|
Post by Habs_fan_in_LA on Mar 26, 2002 11:47:31 GMT -5
Agree on two counts. 1. Serge spent his time on his financial empire. If he did as well with the Hab's as he did personally we'd still be Cup Contenders. 2. The LeClair and Chelios trades vie with eachother for the absolutely positively worst trades in the History of the Hab's as well as the most one-sided in the history of the league. If Savard worked 1/2 as hard as Houle did, we would have 30 banners. Savard started with a much better team than Houle did and it's easier to be a genius when you have players in the bank. It' was easier for Savard #1 to trade great players than Savard #2 to trade Rucinsky and Savage. Am I defending Houle?  ? No, but I'm not supporting Serge Savard either. |
|
|
|
Post by PTH on Mar 26, 2002 12:02:19 GMT -5
Reggie may have been an ok drafter. But i think that most of us could just follow the CSB rankings and draft a few good players. Being a GM is a lot more than drafting. Your chief scout and his entourage of scouts have more input on who to draft as most gm's don't get to see a player more than a couple of times. That is why we have scouts. So don't give reggie too much credit, because for all we know he was given a list of players by his scouting staff and they followed it to the letter. Still, a GM is responsible for putting together the scouting staff and organising it properly. That can take a while, so I think we have to look at the 95, 96 and maybe even 97 drafts as still being Serge Savard's work. It also means we have to give some credit to Houle for the improved drafting as is GM reign went onwards - and for the drafting under André Savard. Houle hired the guy, and as such deserves some credit. Houle did one thing Serge never did, and that good GMs do - he hired his own successor and left the organisational structure in good shape. The blame for that has to go to Corey as well - it had been decided to move Patrick even before Serge Savard was fired, and this kind of a situation where a star could be traded with less PR-backlash was gold for PR-conscious Corey, who might not have realised we'd get hosed on any deal for Patty, especially one done by a rookie GM under great pressure and unfavorable circumstances. Blame Corey for Roy. Houle was just the executioner. Have to agree on that. But a lot of his bad moves are really Corey acting through Houle as a puppet, and some of his good moves, like re-organising the drafting, weren't really recognized for their true worth. But his trades were awful, and he simply didn't have the knowledge and savvy to get the job done properly. He just wasn't a hockey man, not a modern one, and just didn't know what it took to make a team work. |
|
|
|
Post by PTH on Mar 26, 2002 12:10:52 GMT -5
2. The LeClair and Chelios trades vie with eachother for the absolutely positively worst trades in the History of the Hab's as well as the most one-sided in the history of the league. Disagree on that one. The Chelios deal, while awful, was one part of a Cup. Denis S. might not have played all that much in the Cup run, but IMO a Cup erases all sins, and so we have to forgive this deal. Maybe it had to be done for the Cup... Savard also worked in an era where the Habs were a big-money team - Damphousse and Muller were acquired as salary dumps, after all. Probably a lot of others were salary dumps too. That always helps for deals too, to be able to benefit from other teams dumping big salaries. |
|
|
|
Post by Habs_fan_in_LA on Mar 26, 2002 13:35:50 GMT -5
Chelios with a broken collarbone hits harder than anyone on the current Hab's blueline. He had a mean streak that Breezeby couldn't imagine. He was fast, tough, fought, and played both offensive and defensive hockey. At times the best d-man in the league. Dennis Savard was a great player his first 25 seasons in a Chicago uniform, but his cheering from the Hab's bench did little to get him a ring. Chelios starred for 10 more years while Savard sported his ring in civies.
LeClair became a 50 goal man. We haven't had a 50 goal man, make that 40 goal man, or 30 goal man for a few seasons. LeClair was a power forward, a statue in front of the net and a streak down the wing. I think we threw in our/their best defenseman to even up the trade. Gilbert Dionne didn't live up to his potential or the trade would have been even worse.
|
|
|
|
Post by Habs_fan_in_LA on Mar 26, 2002 13:41:07 GMT -5
About our prospects, Hainsey, Hossa, Garon and Balej. Yes they are good prospects, but while they remain prospects other GM's have drafted players who are starring in the NHL. I'd take a GOMEZ over a prospect who may make it in the big's. Our best prospects are Komisarek and Hainsey with Balej and Hossa following. None of them make us a sure thing to win the cup in two years. In two years we may be passed by Atlanta and Tampa Bay.
|
|
|
|
Post by PTH on Mar 26, 2002 15:16:06 GMT -5
Chelios with a broken collarbone hits harder than anyone on the current Hab's blueline. He had a mean streak that Breezeby couldn't imagine. He was fast, tough, fought, and played both offensive and defensive hockey. At times the best d-man in the league. Dennis Savard was a great player his first 25 seasons in a Chicago uniform, but his cheering from the Hab's bench did little to get him a ring. Chelios starred for 10 more years while Savard sported his ring in civies. LeClair became a 50 goal man. We haven't had a 50 goal man, make that 40 goal man, or 30 goal man for a few seasons. LeClair was a power forward, a statue in front of the net and a streak down the wing. I think we threw in our/their best defenseman to even up the trade. Gilbert Dionne didn't live up to his potential or the trade would have been even worse. And the guy we picked with the 3d or 4th round draft pick didn't make it either, so let's forget about Dionne's not developing. We can't look at what could have happened, we have to look at actual facts. At the time it was widely thought Dionne was falling apart, anyhow. Now, the Chelios deal was brutal. But I think it's a forgivable deal - we got a Cup. Maybe Savard had nothing to do with the Cup, and maybe Chelios would have made it even easier. Or maybe not, we don't know all the multiple details of the alchemy of building a winning team. Maybe Serge knew something none of us knows, or maybe he just lucked out. In any case, his fiddling with the team got us a Cup, I'm not going to complain about that, I'll happily take the S.Savard way and get screwed on a trade and win a Cup, rather than the unknown, parralel world in which we still have Chelios - we can't know if we'd have a single Cup going that route. As to the Recchi deal... we dealt 2 19 goal scorers and an excellent young defenseman for one of the top scoring players in the league at the time. It seemed like a fair deal. Leclair looked like another of those guys filled with potential who'd never reach most of it, is was 8 years after his draft year, after all... A comparable deal ? Imagine Zednik, Kilger and Tverdovsky dealt for Simon Gagné. 2 pretty good kids who don't seem to be putting it all together, for someone clearly better and more established, yet younger. Kilger fills the Dionne role and falls off the radar screen Zednik explodes to 50 goal form playing with a top-notch center, while it becomes clear that he's only a 30 goal guy on his own Tverdovsky keeps on improving. For a young top-notch all-star Olympian. Would the deal be that bad ? When you think that Leclair needs a center to produce, and that he might never have gotten to produce much more than in MTL, and that we were clearly getting the better player (at the time!) in the deal, I think the deal can be explained. Obviously Philly won out in the end, but I think any deal in which you get a proven performer in his prime back isn't a total failure. You want to see terrible deals ? Look at the 1-sided ones like Christer Olson for Pavol Demitra, deals like those. Kordic for Courtnall. Richer for Muller was a steal for MTL.... Bure for Hoglund was a steal, Roy for Thibault as well.... there are a lot of 1-sided deals out there that have 1 team clearly getting nothing. In this case we didn't get nothing, we got Recchi. The Recchi deal sucked for us when Leclair developed better than expected, but we still got a Recchi out of it, let's not forget that. |
|
|
|
Post by GNick on Mar 26, 2002 15:36:34 GMT -5
Most lopsided deal in Habs history - Robert Picard for Patrick Roy. Now, that is a classic and made by .....Serge Savard
|
|
|
|
Post by MPLABBE on Mar 26, 2002 16:36:23 GMT -5
About our prospects, Hainsey, Hossa, Garon and Balej. Yes they are good prospects, but while they remain prospects other GM's have drafted players who are starring in the NHL. I'd take a GOMEZ over a prospect who may make it in the big's. Our best prospects are Komisarek and Hainsey with Balej and Hossa following. None of them make us a sure thing to win the cup in two years. In two years we may be passed by Atlanta and Tampa Bay. Why do you keep mentionning ATL will pass us? if they do, who cares? they are not in our division, they are part of the Southeast.I'd be more worried with Boston, Buffalo and Ottawa down the road, who all have significant amount of young talent to compete 2-4 years from now in our division. |
|
|
|
Post by MPLABBE on Mar 26, 2002 16:38:36 GMT -5
Most lopsided deal in Habs history - Robert Picard for Patrick Roy. Now, that is a classic and made by .....Serge Savard you mean the draft pick that got us Roy was acquired for Robert Picard? |
|
|
|
Post by MPLABBE on Mar 26, 2002 16:42:02 GMT -5
As to the Recchi deal... we dealt 2 19 goal scorers and an excellent young defenseman for one of the top scoring players in the league at the time. It seemed like a fair deal. Leclair looked like another of those guys filled with potential who'd never reach most of it, is was 8 years after his draft year, after all... A comparable deal ? Imagine Zednik, Kilger and Tverdovsky dealt for Simon Gagné. 2 pretty good kids who don't seem to be putting it all together, for someone clearly better and more established, yet younger. Kilger fills the Dionne role and falls off the radar screen Zednik explodes to 50 goal form playing with a top-notch center, while it becomes clear that he's only a 30 goal guy on his own Tverdovsky keeps on improving. For a young top-notch all-star Olympian. Would the deal be that bad ? When you think that Leclair needs a center to produce, and that he might never have gotten to produce much more than in MTL, and that we were clearly getting the better player (at the time!) in the deal, I think the deal can be explained. Obviously Philly won out in the end, but I think any deal in which you get a proven performer in his prime back isn't a total failure. . The difference is, Gagné is 21, when we got Recchi, he was what? 26? 27?...essentially, it would be like dealing Zednik, Markov(Desjardins was what? 23-24 years old?) and Kilger for Ryan Smyth or Todd Bertuzzi. I agree...The Recchi deal wasn't as bad as everyone says it is. |
|
|
|
Post by Habs_fan_in_LA on Mar 26, 2002 19:36:32 GMT -5
The reason I keep saying that Atlanta will pass us is because they endured a couple of years in last place to draft #1 and get two players who will STAR in the NHL. I don't want to open up the old tank discussion, but the Nordiques endured last place and drafted #1's to get Colorado into first place. Ottawa went from last place to respectable because of their high draft choices. They didn't have the budget to keep all of their stars of they would be contending with Detroit right now.
Montreal spent three years almost or just making the playoffs and drafting #7 - 12. We didn't make the playoffs and didn't get future/potential/present superstars like Atlanta did.
|
|
|
|
Post by MPLABBE on Mar 27, 2002 16:08:22 GMT -5
The reason I keep saying that Atlanta will pass us is because they endured a couple of years in last place to draft #1 and get two players who will STAR in the NHL. I don't want to open up the old tank discussion, but the Nordiques endured last place and drafted #1's to get Colorado into first place. Ottawa went from last place to respectable because of their high draft choices. They didn't have the budget to keep all of their stars of they would be contending with Detroit right now. Montreal spent three years almost or just making the playoffs and drafting #7 - 12. We didn't make the playoffs and didn't get future/potential/present superstars like Atlanta did. BUT ATL had to endure finishing last...they had nothing!!! |
|
? Hard to say. But it is good to hear others talking about our prospects as well. Cheers.
? No, but I'm not supporting Serge Savard either.