Spacek a puck-moving defenceman

This is my first comment ever,and it is a desperate plea for HIO to return to it's beginnings: lively,provocative,realistic discussions about the Habs and the NHL in general.  Not this reactionary bs rhetoric,and childish name calling that it has become.

First,  Gainey is not an idiot.  To all you bashers:  you are not smarter than him,you do not know more about hockey than he does,you do not know how to run a franchise,and you do not know the cba like he does.  That is why he is running the most storied franchise in all of sports,and you are at home typing your useless comments.

Gainey has ressurected this club to a level of competiveness and respectability.  If not for injuries last year I believe we would have competed for the cup.  When completely healthy we were one of the top teams in the NHL. To say "injuries are no excuse" is bs.  Players and coaches have to say that otherwise they are critisizing themselves and their teammates.  Reality is" that was the excuse".

The NHL is not a superemarket where you just pick what you want.  Aside from the Red Wings,what other club has been able to land big time FA's and made blockbuster deals with any consistancy or success.  The laffs,Philly,Rangers have all tried to buy a cup and have failed.

As for this years moves:  Is Gomez worth 8mil? No.  Are the Habs better with him?  Absolutely. We are faster,better offensively and defensively,grittier,and we have got better at face-offs,as well as the PK and PP. All we had to give up was an inconsistant streaky scorer who was soft with the puck, injury prone and defensive liability, and a prospect.  BTW, if Mcd was a bonafide elite dman,he'd be a pro already.

As for the dmen.  Bob has added a solid,fast,puck moving plus dman in Spacek;as well as size and experience in Gill.  Things or dcorps lacked.

Finally and most importantly, the biggoted "don Cherry" Cnd vs Eur rhetoric has to stop.  If your logic is "look at the last 5 Stanley cup winners.  They had a majority of cnd players"  Then lets look at the last 100 yrs of teams that finished last in the NHL:"majority of cnds on those teams as well".Why? BECAUSE THE MAJORITY OF PLAYERS IN THE NHL ARE CND! Most euro players that come here are of the elite variety.And just like the majority of elite cnd players they are soft. Why would any club go half way around the world to get a grinding 3rd or 4th liner to play here,when there is a truckload of them in your own backyard.If you think euro's are pansies,then try living in Russia for a year.  Where the avg life expentancy for a male is 60.

I know this is an open forum,but if you just want to spew bile and insults,go to am radio where this crap belongs.

IMHO, Gainey has lost his marbles.....

Well, at this pace we might get a full roster. What this roster will look like come the 2009-2010 season and what the team will achieve is debatable.

I'll go on record as saying we won't make the playoffs.

MONTREAL CANADIENS PICK UP UFA HAL GILL AND WE WILL END UP IN LAST PLACE FOREVER.

PENGUINS PICK HIM UP AS A UFA PAY HIM ALMOST THE SAME AND THEY GO TO THE FINALS AND WIN THE STANLEY CUP.

Naw we aren't insane here. We just want only Quebec 40 goals scoring players and top ranked defence for next to nothing...

Dime a dozen player, MAYBE WE SHOULD STICK WITH BREEZER, DANDY or BOUIILION?????? all making not much less than him... 

One piece of the puzzel at a time bob, keep it going.

I said there would be as many as 8 new faces on this team including our kids from the farm and it looks like it will be all of that.

So am I to understand the habs have signed Hal Gill? If so, I like it, he was very solid in the playoffs plus hes tough.

Hal Gill?.... u have got to be kidding. Now we have gotten older and slower. Bob better sign one of th top forwards available. 

"How would you like a job where when you made a mistake, a big red light goes on and 18,000 people boo?" Jacques Plante

Philly just got even tougher with the signing of Ian Laperriere.

And the hatred continues even though we picked up a 2nd-3rd line defence from the STANLEY CUP CHAMPIONS. Remember last season when they went to the FINALS he was one of their top 4 D-players.

DAMMIT, we really don't need players with PLAYOFF experience...

Virgin Radio reports Hal Gill signed with the Habs, 2 years - $4.5 million.

-- "One day, the truth will come out" -- Guy Carbonneau

Not unhappy with this signing - and our average height just went up 2".

I would take Komisarek over BOTH of them ... 3.8M$ + 2.2M$ = Francois Beauchemin and Francis Bouillon.

I'm tired of the ineptitude running this franchise.

i get that hal gill is replacing the size and grit that we may potentially lose with komisarek, but my canada is now officially ruined.

i'm not saying there's no upside to any of these signings but

spacek, gomez, gill.

Actually, Gill played very well in the playoffs, and guess what....he won a cup.  More "winning" experience.

So, we now obtained a quick puck moving dman and a big bruising dman to fill the 6/7 slot.  I am quite happy.

Good god, guys..Relax..He comes cheap and a good 5th/6th d-man with a veteran presence..

BOB NEEDS TO BE SHOWN HIS WAY OUT OF TOWN!!!!

hal the thrill gill.......can he skate.

Hal Gill...wow lol.

At least people can't say he signed another small player! lol

Hall Gill to Montreal, Now we have 6 Left handed defense!...LOL how do you become a GM..

wow hal gill wow nooooooooooooooooooo

HAL FUCKING GILL!!

STOP HUFFING PAINT CANS AND SEEK HELP FOR YOUR RAMPANT SENILITY GAINEY.

Just in from Komisarek's agent says from the 13 teams its down to three including the Habs

Hal Gill is a Canadien.... http://www.sportsnet.ca/hockey/nhl_signing_tracker/

I hear we have signed Hal Gill also    :o(

 bob seems to be blowing up the old team and signing veterans. after last season i guess hes had it with the young punks partying there azzez off and hurting team and is going with old vets.plus its now or never before bob gets evicted from the hot seat.

I'm not really sure where i sit with this.  On the surface i'm not liking it, as it isn't filling the needs that were set out early on.  What it looks like we are doing is filling the holes that we are creating as we inevitably lose players to free agency.  Granted Bob was trying to swing for the fences but when that didn't work out he had to patch holes from the existing players who are now leaving Gomez/Koivu, Spacek/Komisarek.  In that regard not taking into account salaries we are a better team despite the fact that i really will like what Koivu brings to the table.  Furthermore both these guys were assistant captains in their respective teams so at least they are bringing those leadership qualities that will help the younger players to develop.  So while i don't think the moves are proactively astute i think in the absence of being able to sign the free agents we wanted to it's not too bad.  The salary factor is a concern to me as Gomez is now the highest player on the team by a large margin...not sure how that will go over in the room (Why pay Gomez almost twice as much as Kovy?).  I'm conflicted with this, too many factors to try and address and it's not easy...my gut feel is that this isn't great.... not bad but not great and that's just a player for player comparison.  Too many other factors to address that i'm not going to get into right now as you never really can analysze some of these things until they pan out or flop.

Oh well i hope Gainey knows what he is doing.  I'll leave it at that!

I like this one, but still think we need another veteran D-Man. Go get Chelios cheap and a couple of wingers and I'll sleep well tonight.

This is getting very tough to watch!!!!  I have been a Gainey supporter from the start and I continue to stand behind him until we actually see the on-ice product but, these two moves are frustrating.  I am not a huge Gomez fan, he is solid and good in the face-off circle but, he has no size!!  The truth is that I don't care what the "experts" say because as I recall Maguire was raving about the Jokinen deal at the deadline in Calgary and he was a huge flop!  Bottom line is that if these "experts" knew so much why did players like Daigle, Yashin, and Lawton flop?  I just hope Bob has more to his plan than Gomez and Spacek!

why not beauchemin?? jesus!!

Man, i was holding out a small hope that Komi would be back, but not after seeing this.
I wonder what his offer was, had to be around the same $ wouldnt it? 3mill'ish'.
Also, what will happen with Schneider, i wouldn't mind seeing him back - less $ of course.

And what are we doing up front now, i am a very frustrated habs fan.
I wish Koivu was stayin.

Is Alex Tanguay signed?

Whoever is trying to make lines is flat out stupid. Its the first day of free agency. Calm down, sit back, and enjoy. Once Gaineys work is done only THEN should we critique it. Thats like telling an artist his art sucks when he is halfway done it. PATIENCE

In my eyes, so far Gainey has done well. He got a good center and a good solid puck-moving defenceman. He has a lot of roster spots to fill so lets see what he can do.

Please... just calm down

Spacek ... 3years @ 3.8M$ ... what a joke. 

If you all think its so great ... I have 20 pairs of tickets, REDs ... 400$ a pair.  You can pay to watch this lousy team  ....

so what's the team look like with players signed right now?

Gomez - with ??  and ???

pleks - A. Kost & S. Kost

Lapierre - Latendress - Pacioretty

Metropolit - Laraque - Stewart / Chipchura / D'Agostini

Markov - Hammer

Spaceck - Gorges

Weber - O'Byrne

Price - Halak

even if we sign 2 more top line players (Kovalev + ???) , does this team make the playoffs?

maybe we re-sign koivu and move plekanec back to the wing where he probably belongs?

Sorry to be negative! My own feelings along with hearing TSN panel discuss the Montreal situation and the Gomez/Spacek signings makes me very depressed!!! I can't see any silver lining except high draft picks for the next 4 years! And hopefully we won't trade those away?