I doubt St.Louis gave us a choice of Berglund or Eller, I think Berglund after his big rookie year(and despite a tough 2nd year) is pretty much an untoucheable in St.Louis.
I think if we had any choice it was getting a guy like Boyes plus a lesser prospect than Eller(Faitchild Gardiner), Boyes doesn't have a ton of value after a subpar year and a good size cap hit. Would have taken some major juggling to fit him under the cap at 4 mil.
Well the "rumor" was pretty strong and not by Eklund or any other of those types of people....St-Louis brass was REALLY HIGH on Eller. They also thought he was ready to jump in and were quite puzzled by the season Berglund had....AND add the fact that they REALLY REALLY wanted Halak. I'm just certain that this deal could have been done. Again, while Berglund was MY pick in 2006, Giroux close 2nd, I have to be consequent and say that I would have prefered Berglund to Eller, yet still convinced that next year, we will see a much better Eller.
I don't mind the Halak trade so much, it just doesn't upset me terrible.
The Sergei donation was not brilliant, I think a crafty guy who plays a fiery game could be good.
But the O'Byrne trade really bugs me. We kept benchwarmer Picard over this big bodied giant, who's a real good kid, did everything the coach said and was home grown in the system just so we could hand his job over to Picard to fill a silly ethnic quota thing. O'B would have done well against the Bruins tonight.
Seems to me that Eller is better in defense than Berglund.
Once all the dice will be rolled, not sure who will be the best.
Eller is stronger than Berglund and his moves are just on the edge of getting it...
I still think the Halak vs Eller trade is a good deal.
Just that Halak is four years older...
Schultz... is the wild card that may make PG brag about it 3 years down the road (but he is not the bragging type).
Schutlz vs Conboy: who do you take?
I have to be consequent once again. If you go back to my 2008 draft wishlist, it's still on record, one of the guys I wanted was Ian Schultz. So I still believe in him. Though Conboy is a better skater but I believe will never be able to be a good fighter. The guy destroyed the USHL players who usually were much much smaller and had no idea who to fight. His fighting skills were overrated. But Schultz had some pretty decent customers in Juniors and was doing great even if he was not the tallest out there, he's not small but not 6'4'', 6'5'' either. Needs some acceleration big time though. So I still believe in him and I do see at least one guy making it.
Hey, I remember the 2006-2007 Hamilton Bulldogs with a certain Troy Bodie. I would have bet my house that there was no way this guy would ever play in the NHL....well he's closing on 100 games. Not sure he'll last long but that's more than I ever thought. If he can make it, our guys can since I believe they have more in them then he had at that time.
I have to be consequent once again. If you go back to my 2008 draft wishlist, it's still on record, one of the guys I wanted was Ian Schultz. So I still believe in him. Though Conboy is a better skater but I believe will never be able to be a good fighter. The guy destroyed the USHL players who usually were much much smaller and had no idea who to fight. His fighting skills were overrated. But Schultz had some pretty decent customers in Juniors and was doing great even if he was not the tallest out there, he's not small but not 6'4'', 6'5'' either. Needs some acceleration big time though. So I still believe in him and I do see at least one guy making it.
Hey, I remember the 2006-2007 Hamilton Bulldogs with a certain Troy Bodie. I would have bet my house that there was no way this guy would ever play in the NHL....well he's closing on 100 games. Not sure he'll last long but that's more than I ever thought. If he can make it, our guys can since I believe they have more in them then he had at that time.
But once he has fill out his frame and if he takes some boxing lesson I think it would be possible to Conboy to at least be able to hold his own on fight no ? because if there is somewhere a player can work on is on boxing, with the proper techniques and practice alot of guys are able to get better.
I'll be very pleased with it if he resigns Wiz to anything less than $5 million a year (hence making the Wiz trade an absolute steal for us, imo).
Gauthier's made some good trades, and some bad ones, but his bad ones were mostly forced on him by Martin.
Giving up on O'Byrne was forced on him by Martin. Martin simply refused to play the guy, so what can Gauthier do other than trade him?
And Martin blew SKost's trade value to smithereens with how he handled SKost during last year's playoffs. Yes, Nashville made out like bandits there, but that's because Martin made it abundantly clear (explicitly to the media, no less) that SKost was a lost cause for Montreal.
When Halak/Eller was made, everybody knew that Montreal was thinking long-term while St. Louis was thinking both short term and long term. It'll be a few years before we know if we received good value here or not. So far, Halak and Eller have both been disappointments for their new teams. Not exactly an advantage for either team, imo. If anything, it makes the deal look worse for St. Louis, since they were aiming more short term success than we were with that deal.
I wanted to share this with you guys, betting some would be interested in having a review on Pierre Gauthier’s moves as GM as we celebrate his 1-year coming into force. I was looking for the right place to put this and resorted for this thread. It’s a resume of his work as GM and a quick trade by trade analysis. Conclusion of the analysis is that you win some, you lose some (duh!). But Gauthier has more positive impact than negative overall. And the second finding, he has the aggressivity and ability to trade roster players for prospects or vice-versa for some quick help.
It seems some posters in this thread are following the sacro-saint Habs management dogma:
You shall defend every trade done by the management.
So facts are less important than reality.
Personnally, I would trade Gomez for a group comprised of Ribeiro, Latendresse and SK.
Especially considering their combined salary is about the same as Gomez.
As for Pouliot (traded for Lats), he is a great asset still in progress but I would have given Dago + Chipchura and someone else (Carle, Weber, White or another player) for him.
The winner in the Lats/Pouliot trade is not clear to me... Point is: Getting Pouliot was great, loosing Lats was bad...
That's the point of a trade. You have to give something to get something.
LOL habs got absolutely hosed by the blues, stop kidding yourselves. Just because Halak was a tradeable asset, doesn't make it any better to sell so low.
I got your back on this one. It was a terrible deal only because he never waited till the last possible minute to make the movie. If this was all he could get, fine.. but we'll never know because he folded early.
LOL habs got absolutely hosed by the blues, stop kidding yourselves. Just because Halak was a tradeable asset, doesn't make it any better to sell so low.
Judging by the fact that you are claiming they sold low, you have no clue whatsoever what you are talking about.
To make the loss of halak worse we get nothing in return. Ellers, a 4th liner who doesnt seem to have the speed or the strength to play in the Nhl and schultz, is an ahler who hasnt put up any points this year.
Does not have the speed to play in the NHL? Seriously? The guy is an excellent skater.
I got your back on this one. It was a terrible deal only because he never waited till the last possible minute to make the movie. If this was all he could get, fine.. but we'll never know because he folded early. 
