HabsCast Hockey Blog

From Nhl.com, Leafs and Habs stats so far this season. Our win % is greater when leading after 1, than after 2. That is insane! And we have never come back after trailing in ANY period. Makes you think that if the Habs had some consistency, it could be a hell of a team.
Canadiens
Points: 35
Wins: [...]

You would think after winning the Stanley Cup together, a group of guys would have some sort of bond, that it wouldn’t just be all about the money, that there’s actually respect for the game and teammates, etc. But, look at the Neidermayer situation.
Neidermayer could easily volunteer to sign a new contract with the Ducks [...]

“Komisarek’s Coming To Town”
You better watch out, get ready to cry
Quit running our goalie, I’m tellin’ you why
Komisarek’s coming to town
He’s written his list, he’ll hit ‘em all twice
Doesn’t matter whether you’re naughty or nice
Komisarek’s comg to town
He’ll hit you when you’re sleeping
He’ll hit you when you’re awake
He’ll hit you if you go anywhere near [...]

For the second year in a row, the Canadiens came out with a strong start and jumped up the standings, as high as top 5 in the league for a short while. Then, same as last year, the “Slump”.
Why do we seem so strong at firsts and then crumble?
Some people think we don’t have the [...]

First Option:
Call up Lapierre to solidify, energize and make your fourth line really tough to play against..

Higgins / Koivu / Latendresse
Kostitsyn / Plekanec / Kovalev
Begin / Chipchura / Ryder
Kostopoulos / Lapierre / Dandeneault
Big guys throwing their bodys around making the other teams feel their presence
Second Option:
You call up your best forward from Hamilton to [...]

I was just checking out some players stats for the year and noticed that Joe Thornton was leading the sharks in scoring. Nothing out of the ordinary to see Joe at the top, but what amazed me is that Joe has 16 more points than the second top scorer on his team, Jeremy Roenick.
Joe Thornton [...]

Jacques Demers stated on RDS that part of the solution is to “replace veterans that have been here long, and haven’t made the team better.” (Article at RDS.ca)
He said he wouldn’t name any players, and that we can draw our own conclusions.
As far as I’m concerned, Demers is talking about Koivu… mainly…
The Breakdown:
“The ones [...]

Would Southern NCAA Hockey expansion help the NHL?
We all know that the NHL’s Board of Governors decided in the early 1990s on a plan to grow the game in the southern US via expansion in a long-term effort to expose more of the US to the game. The obvious goal is to eventually get a [...]

Restricted Free Agents
Andrei Kostitsyn ($0.785M)
Mikhail Grabovski ($0.725M)
Josh Gorges ($0.495M)
Total off Salary: $2.005M
Unrestricted Free Agents
Michael Ryder ($2.95M)
Bryan Smolinski ($2.M)
Patrice Briesbois ($1.4M) (.7M contract, .7M bonus)
Mark Streit ($0.6M)
Cristobal Huet ($2.875M)
Total off Salary: $9.825M
Think about which players you would want to re-sign and what they deserve
(or what you think, *they* think, they deserve)
Important RFA’s with one season Left [...]

With some recent programming decisions, the topic of the CBC has been brought up again recently. The arguements usually just go around in the same circles, but, one point that often gets brought up, that I’m starting to question is, whether the CBC is actually making money on HNIC programming like they claim, [...]