Gainey treads lightly, for now

The ownership issue must be resolved quickly. After that I think the fans and Gainey should forget about Lecavalier! He had the chance to come to Montreal and he passed because he wanted to be a "loyal" member of the Tampa franchise. My theory is he should uphold his "loyalty", take a paycut and retire as the Tampa captain! The Canadiens need players who want deal with the pressure of a true hockey market! If I were Gainey I would package up Higgins, the rights to Komisarek, Fischer, and the 2009 1st round selection to the Islanders for John Tavares!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

HABWARRIOR A list of just some of Gainey's idiotic moves as GM of habs.(in no particular order) -Trading ribeiro for niniima....wtf was that.At least get back equal value. -Getting rid of huet....What for?Made no sense at the time and still doesnt.Poor Carey -Letting Grabovski go to the hated Leafs for someone....who even knows who.Great move Bob. -Not negotiating with any of our ufa's during season,and still none signed. -Not bringing in any ufa's ....oh wait Samsonov was great at 3.5 mil per. -Letting Claude Julien go when he was coach to bring in his buddy carbo.Reeeeeal nice Bobby G. Well u can catch my drift.The cons outweigh the pro's as far as im concerned.Bottom line:lets get a gm that knows what he's doing,eh.

Is Gainey looking at a reboot of the franchise? During last year's playoff run, I remarked to my wife, that the role of almost all teams in the Eastern Conference was to play second fiddle to the Penguins for the next decade. Pittsburgh has two unreal talents in Malkin and Crosby, a great defenseman in Gonchar, and a very good goaltender in Fleury. Couple that with the vastly under-rated Jordan Staal, and you have a dynasty in the making. If it wasn't for Therien's inability to coach his team, the pre-ordained Eastern Conference playoff champ would have been the Pens. Their coaching snafu's and Gonchar's injury probably created the illusion of parity when none existed. I mean do you, really, honestly, believe any team can play against the Pens? So what does this have to do with the Habs? If you're the Montreal GM, you look at your team, and an honest assessment is that you can try and squeak by the Pens once over the next five years, or you can basically reboot the entire franchise from scratch. If you try and squeak by, you might get lucky, but that's not what you're paid to do. And if you're Gainey, maybe you don't believe in luck. I think Gainey decided last year to reboot the franchise. He looked at the Pens, and thought to himself, there is no collection of players I can sign or trade for that could sustainably allow me to compete against the Pittsburgh dynasty. Worse, he looks at his top talent that is on the wrong side of 28, observes that he's lost a generation of players, forcing him to play rookies before their time, and concludes that he needs to reboot. That, in my not-so-humble-opinion, is the real rationale for the most peculiar of Gainey decisiosn, not signing tanguay *after* he traded for him. Gainey made a gamble that Tanguay as a replacement for Ryder, get's him a better team. And maybe he squeeks by the Pens. So how to reboot? One way to reboot is to engineer a trade where you get rid of top talent for draft picks. The problem, for Gainey, is that he doesn't need a pick in the 18-32, he needs 1-10 picks. And no team in the 1-10 zone is trading for Kovalev. And trading one of his younger talents doesn't help him... His problem is a lack of top-tier talent under 28. And frankly, the value of a pick between 3-32 is about the same. So instead, he lets contracts run out. This lets him eek out some good years from some aging players, while he slowly builds up his team. The point is not to give him flexibility to hire the UFA, but rather flexibility to sign his own home grown talent. And the theory is that now that it's been five years, and the Habs went from being a team that everyone expected to miss the playoffs to a team people expect to make the playoffs, he can slowly train his players and get to the point where he's got enough depth to compete with Pittsburgh. Just a thought. http://eastmeetswest.krung.net/east_meets_west/2009/05/to-reboot-or-not-...

For all those inclined to rip Gainey for "doing nothing" so far this off-season (and let's be honest, if he was "doing something" you'd rip on him for something else). I just took a quick peek at the transaction wires since the beginning of April, and since the Franzen resigning on April 11th, the only signings of note are: May 14 Vancouver Canucks: Steve Bernier Re-Signed May 26 St. Louis Blues: Jay McClement Re-Signed-Multi-year contract May 27 Vancouver Canucks: Rick Rypien Contract extended-Two-year contract extension So you see, nobody is doing much of anything at the moment (they don't know what the cap is for one thing). Or should we be arguing that every single GM in the league not named Gillis or Pleau is a useless bum that should be fired right away...p!ss or get off the pot right?

what do you guys think about nazim kadri. if we can trade the rights to one of our ufa's that we dont want to sign. i suggest trading for a top ten pick and draft this guy, hes a habs fan and if the leafs cant move up they wud most likely get him, which will really suck for a habs fan wearing that worthless jersey

Yes Detroit had a 15 year headstart, but look at all the players they've gone through during that time, and while Montreal was drafting like crap during the majority of the 90s and trading away players they had no business in trading, and naming coaches and GMs who absolutely new nothing of what they were doing, the Wings were drafting a pile of gems and making the right moves to put them in the position that they're in now and they're still constantly the among the best in the league (probably the best).......Of course there is luck involved in drafting especially middle to late round picks but Detroits European scouts must have kept an eye on Zetterburg and Datsyuk through out the whole entire season, and seen things they liked that other scouts missed or maybe the other scouts watched those two the odd game who knows

If Gainey leaves, how about Stan Bowman (Scotty's son and the Assistant GM at Chicago): http://blackhawks.nhl.com/team/app?service=page&page=NHLPage&bcid=tea_St... Chicago has done pretty well and we'd get Scotty as a bonus (a senior advisor or consultant).

Evaluating draft prospects,ufa's and players that would "fit" via a trade is usually the scouting or player personel's dept.responsibilities. Holland has the gift of surrounding himself with "good" people. The Wing's now are like the Habs were under Pollack not so much an organization but an organism. No division's with respect to direction and of one mind. Not to mention The Wing's have established stability and have had top notch coaching at all level's. This is why it will be 5 cup's in 11 yrs. There has been kaos in Mtl since abou mid term of Savard's tenure and he didn't leave us in the best of scenario's. The Language "BARRIER" and the restriction's that go along with it have been a considerable deterent in all area's of the Habs re-establishing the prestige that once was associated with CH. I feel for Gainey in some respects because of the forementioned restriction's. We need to once again begin hiring the best available people available without the language "BARRIER issue in order to once again become a stable franchise. In the meantime the futility continues for all those in and out of the organization.

I think detroit's apparent draft mastery is a little over blown,below is the wings draft history. As for the whole datsyuk-zetterberg thing,if the wings thought they were going to be stars why were they not drafted till the 6th or 7th rounds? Also,look at the 11 players drafted ahead of them in those 2 years. How many of them became full time nhl players? I counted 1. The wings have also only drafted one real top line player since 1999,that guy is johan franzen. http://redwings.nhl.com/team/app?service=page&page=DraftStats&team=DET&y...

Thats another thing that bothers me about Gainey...Montreal like Detroit is trying to build their team through their farm system...which I love, definately nothing wrong with that...only problem is, is that Ken Holland is not afraid to trade one of their better prospects if it happens to improve the team

When I look at the Detroit Red Wings, I'm disgusted. Disgusted that the Montreal Canadiens have become a circus sideshow by comparison. The Montreal Canadiens have gone downhill since Scotty Bowman left the organization. Not making him GM was the worst mistake in franchise history and if it wasn't for the fluke drafting of Patrick Roy we'd still be sitting at 22 Cups. Everybody talks about Gainey's great work with Dallas. Where are they now? This season, languishing in the middle of the pack and not even making the playoffs. We need a Scotty Bowman!

Thats why I have lost faith in Gainey for right there, saying that he's comfortable in his goaltending or shall I say comfortable with Carey Price....Price has shown way to many times that he can't handle the pressures of being the number one goalie in Montreal as of yet....I agree with a comment that was made earlier that said that Price needs a mentor, someone who can play about 30 or 35 games, and if he's not willing to do that then atleast have a little more faith in Jaroslav Halak its that simple

Gainey treads lightly...Stunner right there...

Mmmmm...Gainey has appeared to be treading lightly for quite some time now. At least it seems, from a week or two before this past season's trading deadline. Think back...it's the point in the season when a GM looks at his team and makes an effort to inject an added boost for the stretch run up to and into the playoffs if he sees a certain something is lacking. Either our own dear GM didn't watch any of his team's games after Christmas to see the club's self-destruction and so thought that everything was hunky-dory or he did watch and came to the conclusion that nothing at all could possibly help the squad. In any event, virtually nothing has occurred on the roster front. Of course that's due in large part to his method of waiting for the last second to deal with any UFA's. To even have so many UFA's all at the same time can be seen as a serious handicap to anyone who by their own admission is reaching the forecasted end of a 5-year "rebuilding" plan. It looks to me an awful lot like the foundations are going to have to be re-laid Bob, before any further construction can commence to bring this team to respectability. What doesn't help is Gillett's ongoing coyness about what he wants to do with the team. To use a rather strong expression, he should either sh*t or get off the pot! Is he committed to owning the team or not? Personally I think his decision to buy the team (and the Bell Centre) had more to do with the positive cash flow the team generated than with any sense of what the club means to Montreal and all Habs fans everywhere, much less with the huge responsibility and dedicated effort that a serious owner should have. What the Habs don't need is an absentee landlord. Whenever in front of the media, he's polished enough to say the right things, but I never get the feeling that he has any real passion for the institution that is Les Canadiens. It's simply another jewel in his sports empire that he can boast he owns. Add the two together, a GM so laid back (often to the point of inactivity on crucial issues) and an owner who only seems to show up come playoff time, and that's a recipe for a steady diet of mediocre hockey. And that's a crying shame for an organization that has always prided itself on excellence.

Signing Perezhogin along with Emelin is a great idea. He was a first round draft pick and I think would do well in a return to the NHL. I also wish people wouldn't blame Koivu for the lack of success of the team over the last 15 years. Koivu should never have been expected to carry the team as the number 1 center all of these years. The team has failed miserably getting a number 1 center so that Koivu could have been our great number 2 center all of these years. That is managements fail, not Sakus. The job of the captain is to be the hardest working player on the team to be an example to the other players. Koivu has been without a doubt the player that shows up every night and gives his best. If he does leave this summer, he will be missed. Especially in the playoffs where is always turns it up a notch.

any word on perezhogin? there's no mention of him signing another russian contract...he made 1.8 million last year anyone think we can offer perezhogin more money up front? like a one-year 2.5 million deal? considering we have cap space to work with and the UFA pool isn't very good this year, i'd take a risk on one of the KHL's top scorers for the last two years. top free agents: http://tsn.ca/nhl/feature/?id=11818 - Pride + Envy = Second Place

Gainey cannot sign players until he knows what the cap will be set at. You can only offer contracts when you know what you have to work with.

After July the 1st there will be 135 free agent forwards and a 100 defence to choose from. No rush Bob!