Boone

First glass-half-empty observation of the season:

I don't like the exhibition schedule.

It begins with road games on consecutive nights, after two days of on-ice training. And Team A will be playing both.

Georges Laraque has tweaked his groin already, and the puck hasn't even dropped.  I fear his injury will not be the last.

Yes, the players train in the off-season. But plunging them into a schedule of playoff intensity doesn't make sense.

Canadiens play six games on seven nights this week.

Ridiculous.

They're home to the Senators on Friday and travel to Ottawa on Saturday.

Florida is at the Bell Centre on Sunday, followed by Detroit on Tuesday and Boston on Wednesday.

All this to determine if Kyle Chipchura makes the team?

Plus, lest we forget, revenue from five exhibition games at the Bell Centre.

Playing soccer in the sunshine behind the Sportplex 4-Glaces: Tomas Plekanec, Roman Hamrlik, Mike Komisarek.

And the parking lot is full already.

•  •  •

Lines to watch: Plekanec with the Kostitsyn brothers, Robert Lang centring Alex Kovalev and Guillaume Latendresse.

Also Kyle Chipchura, who's trying to win a job, with Gregory Stewart and Tom Kostopoulos.

An interesting defence pairing on Team A: Pavel Valentenko and Yannick Weber.

•  •  •

First prediction of the season:

Plekanec will play with the Brothers K. Sergei and Andrei are great together, and if Pleks  can figure them out – as opposed to going nuts, like he did with Boris and Natasha two years ago – the line will flat-out fly.

I think Lang will centre the two Alexes, and Latendresse will play with Koivu and Higgins.

The fourth line, most nights, will be Bégin, Lapierre and Laraque. Kostopoulos and Chipchura in the pressbox. Dandenault dealt.

The defence pairings are set, with Brisebois as an extra.

So everything is set. Let's start the season.

•  •  •

Alex Tanguay is the first number 13 since Billy Boucher in 1921-'22.

Notable 17's preceding Georges Laraque: Jason Ward, Benoit Brunet, John LeClair, Craig Ludwig, Rod Langway, Murray Wilson, Larry Pleau, Phil Roberto.

Some number 20s before Robert Lang: Bryan Smolinski, Mike Johnson, Richard Zednik, Valeri Bure, Craig Conroy, Sylvain Turgeon, Jyrki Lumme, Mark Hunter, Cam Connor, Pete Mahovlick, Bob Berry, Dave Balon, Phil Goyette and the immortal P.J. Stock. 

The Canadiens most potent line has been broken up – at least to start the exhibition season.

When the Canadiens take on the Boston Bruins Monday night in Halifax, Tomas Plekanec will still have Andrei Kostitsyn on his left wing. But coach Guy Carbonneau says Sergei Kostitsyn will play RW on the line.

Has Alex Kovalev been placed on waivers?

Of course not. Kovy will make his exhibition season debut Wednesday night in Detroit, Carbo  said, with the linemates who joined him at this morning's practice: Robert Lang and Guillaume Latendresse.

Another new line that Carbonneau will try Monday: Prized acquisition Alex Tanguay with two rookies: Ben Maxwell and Max Pacioretty.

This is what training camp is for. Carbonneau, an inveterate line-tinkerer, can really go to town.

... but there's a Facebook group called Habs Girls.

I swear on my mother I'll add a link to Habs Guys the moment it's launched.

How do you spell relief?

OK, maybe not L-A-N-G. But no one is going to miss the Sundin soap opera, which dragged on way past its best-before date.

Let us rejoice. This was a good week for your Montreal Canadiens.

Patrick Roy, Robert Lang, Patrice Brisebois ... all good moves.

And to top it for the guy who signs the cheques, George Gillett was in the director's box at Anfield today, watching Liverpool beat Manchester United 2-1.

•  •  •

OK, I'm flip-flopping on Roy. When his number was first mooted as a retirement candidate, I thought Roy's method of leaving the team disqualified him for the honour.

I was wrong.

Cue the Stones:

You can't always get what you want
But if you try sometimes well you might find
You get what you need 

I like the move.

Lang is big, good on faceoffs and a righthanded shot. He and Kovalev played well together in Pittsburgh.

And as the pic suggests, he has the kind of dark, brooding good looks that have been missing since José Theodore was traded. 

Robert Lang isn't Mats Sundin. But as that sorry soap opera has played out, maybe Plan A was never meant to be.

Canadiens enter the season with three solid centres  and brisk competition between Maxim Lapierre and Kyle Chipchura for fourth-line duty.

Pat Hickey, on the DL rehabbing his new knee, says "Once again, the Canadiend prove to be masters of the late Friday afternoon news release.

"Now, I'm hoping that every team runs out of money and the Swede has to sign with Atlanta or the Kings. This is a good deal which turns out to be Mikhail Grabovski for Lang and prospect Greg Pateryn. Hope people focus on that and not harp on Gainey letting another one get away." 

Robert Lang doesn't make the Canadiens the powerhouse that Sundin would have.

But like Mick says ...

And let's add a Stephen Stills line:

If you can't be with the one you love, love the one you're with ... 

Mats Sundin says he'll announce his decision on Aug. 1.

Before proceeding, let us pause for a brief invocation by Montreal's poet laureate, the great Loenard Cohen:

If it be your will
That a voice be true
From this broken hill
I will sing to you
From this broken hill
All your praises they shall ring
If it be your will
To let me sing 

If it be Mats Sundin's will to play for the Canadiens, fans will be singing his praises – from Mount Royal and beyond – between Aug. 2 and some time in the late – possibly very late – spring of 2009.

Former Canadiens first-round draft choice Ron Hainsey – 13th overall in 2000 – has signed with Atlanta: five years, $22.5 million
contract.

Nice raise on the $900,000 the 27-year-old earned with Columbus .... and yet another indication that puck-moving defencemen (see CAMPBELL, Brian) have become a very valuable commodity in the NHL.

•  •  •

Brooks Orpik, who's an old-fashioned bone-crunching defenceman, is staying put in Pittsburgh.

He's signed a six-year contract for $22.5 million, $3.75 million per. Orpik, one of the better Penguins in the Stanley Cup final, was making $1 million

Anyone else getting nervous about the Andrei Kostitsyn negotiations?

While Bob Gainey has been wooing Mats Sundin, who plays hard to get better than he plays hockey, there's another clock ticking:

AK46 can become a restricted free agent on Tuesday.

As Pat Hickey points out in his column today, Jeff Carter's deal with the Flyers – three years, $15 million – raises the bar for Kostitsyn, who posted similar numbers this past season and was drafted one spot ahead of Carter in 2003.

Carter has completed a three-year contract that paid $942,000 per. Kostitsyn's deal paid $942,000, $802,000 and $612,000.

Yes, AK46 is said to like Montreal.

Yes, he enjoys playing with his kid brother.

Yes, he's undoubtedly grateful the organization took  a chance on drafting him and helped with his medical issues.

But No, he's not an idiot – and neither is his agent, Don Meehan. The market is overheated, and come Tuesday, some loony NHL general manager might dangle a Carter-sized offer sheet in front of Kostitsyn, obliging the Canadiens either to match an iflated number or say goodbye and settle for draft choices.

The Canadiens will not give AK46 $5 million based one good season. But if I'm Meehan, I'm not taking a nickel less than $3.5 million and I'm not going for a  day longer than two years, with the idea of cashing in huge on the next contract.

•  •  •

The Toronto Star updates the Sundin soap opera with a report that he was supposed to give the Canadiens an answer yesterday but didn't and is supposed to give the Leafs an answer tomorrow.

Theory is that if Sundin hasn't said Yes to either team by July 1, he'll be saying No to both.

•  •  •

Two good pieces on free agent frenzy in the Globe today by Eric Duhatschek and Tim Wharnsby.

"Just a coincidence," says Trevor Timmins.

That's his story, and the Canadiens director of player development and amateur scouting is sticking to it to explain why the team has used its first draft choice to take Minnesota high school players three years in a row:

David Fischer from Minneapolis in 2006.

Ryan McDonagh from St. Paul last year.

Danny Kristo from Eden Prairie today.

Hey, nothing against Minnesota.

We love Bob Dylan.

We love Prince.

We loved Bill Nyrop.

But three in a row?

This is wierding me out, man.

Unfortunately, TSN is not doing live coverage of phone calls between Bob gainey and Mats Sundin.

A few minutes into the draft, Gainey dealt his first-round pick and a second-rounder next year (Canadiens' pick, not the one from Washington for Cristobal Huet) to acquire Alex Tanguay from the Calgary Flames.

Canadiens also acquired the exclusive right to talk to Sundin. What they'll pay the Leafs probably will depend on whether they can sign him.

Bottom line on draft night for Montreal fans:

The future is now.

•  •  •

And a quiet night for the Q.

In the first round of the draft, there were more players selected from Denmark than from Quebec.

In his brief press scrum in Ottawa today, Bob Gainey offered a variation on the mantra he's been repeating since the trade deadline:

The Canadiens, Gainey said,  would like to land an "accomplished forward." I take this to be synonymous with "impact forward." Gainey also said if he had his druthers, the acquisition would be a centre.

A scan of the Canadiens' complete draft history reveals the good, the bad and the just plain funny

Favourites of Seth, the fat kid in Superbad: Graeme Bonar, RW, 1984, Les Kuntar, G, 1987, Rodney Presswood, D, 1963, and Clifford Cox, C, 1974

It's still too early to say, but last year's draft could prove to be one of the Canadiens' best.

The Canadiens' two first-round picks – defenceman Ryan McDonagh and left wing Max Pacioretty – had fine seasons as college freshmen in the U.S. and are considered blue-chip NHL prospects.

Second-round pick P.K. Subban had a good season for the OHL Belleville Bulls. The offensively-gifted defenceman has a good shot at making it to The Show.

The Canadiens also fared well in the third round. Centre Olivier Fortier won the Guy Carbonneau Award as the Q's best defensive forward, and Swiss defenceman Yannick Weber of the Kitchener Rangers could be the second coming of Mark Streit.

The draft also yielded a sleeper: fifth-round pick Andrew Conboy, a bruising LW with goaltender-screening size and an enforcer's disposition.

The countdown begins.

A week from this evening in Ottawa, your Montreal Canadiens will add another building block – or two or, inshallah, three – when the National Hockey League conducts its annual entry draft.

In a salary cap league where players can become unrestricted free agents when they're as young as 26, drafting wisely and developing young talent are the cornerstones of successful franchises.

Examples – good and bad – abound, but the most obvious is the Stanley Cup champion Detroit Red Wings.

Tuned in too late to see Carbo lose but just in time to see Patrick Kane win the Calder and a Lifetime Achievement Award – so new they haven't named it after anyone – for the great Gordie Howe.

Funny they're flashing "Hart Stories" when we all know Ovechkin is going to win it.

There's a lot of filler material here to pad this out to 90 minutes.

And Ron McLean.

I think I'll watch basketball.

But not until I watch Lidtsrom win the Norris.

Dion Phaneuf looks stricken. What, he expected to win?
First surprise: Brodeur! I was sure it would be Nabokov.
And Bob Gainey presents the Hart to ...

 Alexander the Great

 Missed the Selke.

Datsyuk? 

TSN's Scott Cullen takes an interesting off-season look at the Canadiens.

In addition to signing a UFA such as Mats Sundin, Marian Hossa or Ryan Malone, Cullen suggests Canadiens could be in the hunt for Olli Jokinen, who is on the block in Florida.

I'd be ecstatic if the Canadiens somehow landed Jokinen. He is a horse.

Danick Paquette.

Plays RW for the Lewiston Maineacs of the Q. Nice size: six-footer, 209 pounds. Turns 18 next month.

I heard Paquette talked up on CKAC as someone the Canadiens should think about in the draft next week.

He was Lewiston's first choice, 11th overall in the 2006 Q draft.

Paquette scored 29 goals, added 13 assists and was plus-8 this season. Here's the stat that caught my eye: 213 PiM.

A tough kid.

Could use a few of those.

Cliff Fletcher, Toronto's interim general manager in charge of getting coffee for Ron Wilson until Brian Burke takes over, says he will be talking to impending UFA Mats Sundin before July 1.

A posible scenario is a sign-and-trade, which would give the Leafs something for Sundin, rather than having him just walk next month.

Canadiens and Detroit are mooted as the frontrunners.

And it's acknowledged as fact that a deal was in place to send Sundin to the Canadiens at the trade deadline. He nixed it with his no-move clause.

I'd love to know who was headed to Toronto in the deal. If I were Fletcher I'd have asked for Christopher Higgins and a prospect of Ryan McDonagh calibre.

Any guesses? 

For the second consecutive season, there were no fighting majors in the Stanley Cup finals.

Gary Roberts and Brooks Orpik dished out some punishing checks. So did Nickas Kronwall and Brad Stuart.

The Penguins and Red Wings yapped at each other from time to time. Dirty looks were exchanged.

But no gloves were dropped. Not even once.

When hockey becomes meaningful, the fighting stops.

"There's this theory out there that when you play the
Detroit Red Wings, our lack of success in the playoffs is because we
weren't tough enough," Ken Holland told Eric Duhatschek of the Globe
and Mail. "I don't think it had anything to do with that. Some years,
it was a great series and we just lost. Some years, we had key people
out who were injured. Some years, the other team's goalie absolutely
stood on his head.

"But to think we ever lost a series because we were intimidated, I've never seen it."

Pittsburgh's Georges Laraque never got a chance to intimidate the Red Wings. He was a healthy scratch for most of the final.  Aaron Downey – who averaged less than five minutes of ice time in 56 regular-season games – didn't play a single game for Detroit.

Philadelphia's Riley Coté didn't play in the series against the Canadiens and averaged four minutes of ice time in the games for which he dressed.

Coltor Orr averaged 4:26 ToI in the playoffs for the Rangers, Derek Boogard 4:48 for Minnesota. Jody Shelley averaged 3:15 for San Jose, Eric Godard 3:31 for Calgary.

And for the rock 'em/sock 'em defending Stanley Cup champs, George Parrios averaged 2:42 per game in the Ducks' early exit from the playoffs.

So tell me again, Don Cherry and P.J. Stock, why the Canadiens are soft and need an enforcer.

Writing in the Torontro Sun, Steve Simmons suggests Michel Therrien may be in trouble in Pittsburgh.

The story says neither Brooks Orpik nor Jordan Staal wants to play for Therrien. In Orpik's case, not a big deal. But if the kindly old coach has lost Staal, that's a major problem.

More ominously, Simmons writes, Mario Lemieux is not a fan of his coach. If that's true, Therrien is toast.

I think Therrien's troubles began when the media started calling him "Mike". 

It recalls the story of Berel, Cherel and Schmerel, three brothers my grandfather knew in the old country.

"I'm going to America," said Berel, "and evereyone will call me Buck."

"I'm going, too," said Cherel, "and everyone will call me Chuck." 

"I've decided," said Schmerel, "to stay in Russia." 

Final Pittsburgh flurry notwithstanding, for Canadiens fans the last game of the 2007-'08 hockey season was déja vu all over again.

The best team in hockey won the Stanley Cup.

The gutsiest team in hockey made it close.

And Pittsburgh, battling back from a 3-1 deficit late in the third period, came within inches of sending Game 6 into OT.

So a series that started slowly turned into a classic. And the skill of both teams produced some beautiful hockey.

Henrik Zetterberg – the best two-way player in hockey – won the Conn Smythe Trophy.

The whole series was a triumph for smart, clean, thinking-person's hockey. 

Another tyrannical bully bites the dust.

So we're down to Rosie O'Donnell, Robert Mugabe, the Saudi royal family and the dude in North Korea.

I wonder if Vincent Lecavalier's shoulder rehab prevents him from hoisting a glass of champagne. 

At least for Game 6 tomorrow night, the Penguins have an edge.

Actually, two edges.

After 110 minutes of hockey, Petr Sykora sends the series back to Pittsburgh for Game 6.

Man of the Match: Marc-André Fleury, a Patrick Royesque 58 saves as Detroit had about a dozen chances to win the Cup.

The game ends with Crosby jawing at Henrik Zetterberg.

For all the good it will do him.

Jiri Hudler scored the winner in a tense 2-1 game. The Red Wings have a 3-1 lead going home, and there's every chance this series will end Monday night at the Joe.

Turning point: Detroit killed off a 5-on-3 disadvantage in the third period. Pittsburgh managed but one shot.

The Penguins had 23 in the game to 30 for the Red Wings, who have had a shot edge in all four games. 

Number one star was the great Z, whose defensive play was superb ... and frustrating for Sid the Kid.

Dallas defenceman Trevor Daley signed a three-year, $6.9 million contract with the Stars this week.

Dallas's second-round draft choice (43rd overall) in 2002, Daley, who'll be 25 in October, played in all 82 games, plus playoffs, this season. He averaged 19:48 of ice time while scoring five goals and adding 19 assists. Daley had 85 PiM and was minus-1 on the season.

He's 5-11, 207 and plays bigger. The Toronto native, who made $800,000 this season, is a good skater and puckhandler who frequently jumps up to join the Stars' rush.

Daley's salary – $2.1 million, $2.3 million and $2.5 million over the next three seasons – is useful as a benchmark in contemplating what the Canadiens might pay Josh Gorges, who's a RFA on July 1 and made $495,000 this season, and Mike Komisarek, who'll make $1.9 million for the upcoming season and become a UFA on July 1, 2009 unless Canadiens sign him to an extension. 

We all know how this will play out, right?

Some time before the draft on June 20, Mats Sundin will announce that he does not intend to sign a new contract with the Leafs.

Frenzy will ensue in Montreal and among Canadiens fans everywhere else. We will twist ourselves into knots envisioning Sundin centring the first line, Sundin on the power play, Sundin crowding the crease.

Bob Gainey will say nothing, of course. But there will be rumours that Ol' Velcro Lips has had his UFA prize in Montreal for a weekend visit. Sundin will be spotted having dinner at Toqué with George Gillett, Gainey and Guy Carbonneau.

Speculation will spin into overdrive. La Presse will run a story saying it's a done deal because the team has ordered a Reebok jersey bearing the number 13, unused since Billy Boucher and Edmond Bouchard in the 1921-'22 season.

And then at midday on July 1, Mats Sundin will sign a three-year contract to play in Detroit. 

He will do this because:

• The Red Wings literally speak his language

• Sundin wants to win a Cup, and he'll have a better shot at it in Detroit than in Montreal 

• By joining the Red Wings, Sundin avoids bitter accusations of stabbing Toronto fans in the back by signing with a bitter rival

Later it will emerge that Canadiens offered him more money than Detroit.

Réjean Tremblay will find a way to blame the whole debacle on Saku Koivu.

With great fanfare and equally well-disguised disappointment, Canadiens will announce they've signed Stéphane Yelle.

And in the immortal words of Bob Dylan: "Bury that rag deep in your face, 'cause now is the time for your tears." 

I hope I'm wrong.

It's been known to happen.