EOTP on Rink Side Radio Tonight 9:45
For anyone interested, I will be a guest on Rink Side Radio tonight at 9:45 answering about the Bob Gainey resignation. The hosts are Joe Fortunato (Blueshirt Banter) and Brandon Worley (Defending Big D) and they have kindly asked me to come on. Should be fun!
about 15 hours ago
Robert L
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Gainey Abandons GM Role In Montreal Under Curious Circumstances
There will always be speculation attached to what occurred today and a certain "did he jump or was he pushed" stigma will always be tied to the things fans and reporters are not privy to. Bob Gainey called it a personal decision, saying that he prefrerred to step down a bit sooner rather having to leave once it was too late. Critics will suggest that time was imminent, others will note that with a trade deadline approaching, that the timing is rather odd and curious. According to Gainey, he was asked by the organization for a commitment beyond this season, and was not prepared to make one. There can be no doubt that Gainey leaves the team in better shape than when he took it over in the summer of 2003. There were a good number of high times and some low lights, as there is during any regime. Of course, the speculation will reign supreme for weeks that Gainey was pressured into an early exit based on current player scenarios and team standing. That is the nature of Montreal to scope such extremities. Two news bits heard today, from different sources unattached to today's event will linger in my mind. Earlier this morning on radio station CKAC, commentator and play by play man on the station Martin Maguire was speaking of the Canadiens seemingly never ending goaltending controversy, when he made reference to some inside information concerning the trade market. Maguire claimed that the Canadiens had and still were shopping goalie Jaroslav Halak, and that offers for him had not risen in return value. However, it appears GM's took Gainey's stance in not moving Halak as a sign that Carey Price could now be had. Offers for Price were pourring in, as per Maguire. Maguire's colour man on those broadcasts, former QMJHL coach Dany Dube, after Gainey's announcement today, recalled a conversation he had with the GM this past summer, shortly after he had rebuilt the club through free agent signing. Dube quoted Gainey as saying something along the lines of "this is the team you will be left with," hinting that Gainey knew of the possiblity that this was his last season at the helm of the club even then. Whatever spin the events of the day take on in the future, how many of you actually believe that the Canadiens would fire Gainey in the traditional sense, if ever it came to that? Gainey, a lifelong Canadien, has endured a great deal during his tenure. A family man with very strong personal convictions, he has lost two precious family members in the past decade. This past summer, Gainey became a grandfather for the first time. This past weekend he surely spent some moments of the phone with Brian Burke, who's family suffered a tragedy of their own. Perhaps given the choice, his future with a lighter workload, balancing babies on his knee seemed more enlightening than running a hockey team in a city that never forgives.
In the city where every possible hockey decision represents a potential controversy, it is difficult tell the smoke from the dry ice when it comes to today's decision by Bob Gainey to step down from the position of general manager of the Canadiens.
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Watch Canadiens Press Conference LIve
The Montreal Canadiens press conference this afternoon will be streaming live on the team's official site. You can see it here.
about 19 hours ago
Robert L
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Transactions of the Bob Gainey Regime 2003 - 2010
Seeing as the Bob Gainey era in Montreal has now come to an abrupt end, here is a look back at all player moves made by Bob Gainey since taking over the GM's chair in Montreal on June 3, 2003.
These are just the plain facts on roster moves, trades, draft picks and other transactions during the Gainey regime in Montreal from 2003 to the present July 2009. The analysis is all yours!
The chronological listing includes all moves (players acquired by trade, draft, waivers or free agent signings) on the Canadiens roster and similar relevant moves concerning the Hamilton Bulldogs roster since 2003.
Each seasonal recap will feature a final roster of all players who played for the Canadiens in that particular season, and a listing of departed players. Where possible, it will be noted the means by which a player has left the organization. Also in the recaps will be a list of players transaction for that campaign, along with the a listing of the players drafted into the organization in June of that year.
Additionally, within each individual season post you will see a hyperlink reading "Players stats / Canadiens games / NHL Season Summary" from the Hockey Reference site in which you can investigate a particular season's details more closely.
For clarification purposes, each individual season recap begins with a roster of players from the preceding season, followed by transactions completed after the final game of that season. Exceptions will include minor pro players signed for the benefit of an upcoming season.
The recaps (access each season by clicking the links) is divided into seven seperate posts, reading as follows:
The Gainey Regime 2003-04: Year One - An Organizational Recap and Look Back on 2002-03
The Gainey Regime 2004-05: Year X - The Lockout
The Gainey Regime 2005-06: Year Two
The Gainey Regime 2006-07: Year Three
The Gainey Regime 2007-08: Year Four
The Gainey Regime 2008-09: Year Five
The Gainey Regime 2009-10: Year Six - A recap of moves made from the seven previous seasons and moves from this season.
Notations for players will be included in each recapped season, and are as follows.
(*) denotes players currently on the Canadiens NHL roster.
(+H) denotes players currently on the Hamilton Bulldogs AHL roster.
(+HM) denotes players currently on the Hamilton roster who have played with Montreal.
(P) denotes prospects who have yet to sign a professional contract (NHL, AHL, or ECHL) with the organization.
(-M), (-H) and (-MH) denote players no longer in the organization who have played either in Montreal, Hamilton, or both.
(--) denotes a player who has never played in Montreal or Hamilton. The final group likely never signed a professional contract with the club and were simply not retained by the organization. A final tally of each category will follow these chronological yearly listings.
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Breaking News - Habs GM Gainey to announce resignation today
Whoa, shocker! Glad I didn't name this site in Bob we trust after all!
In an unforeseen story, TSN is reporting that Canadiens general manager Bob Gainey will be stepping down after 7 seasons at the helm of the club. Reports are that assistant GM Pierre Gauthier will assume the position on an interim basis.
A press conference has been called for 4 p.m. and you can listed to it here.
Listening to radio station CKAC this morning, french commentator Martin Maguire was speaking about the approaching trade deadline in regards to what the Canadiens would be doing in terms of their goaltending questions. Maguire had it on good sources that while Halak in the past been shopped, including very recently, that offers for him had not increased. However, Maguire pointed, offers for Carey Price were piling up.
This would be a connundrum leading to philosophical differences, one that would cause Gainey to step down.
Two scenarios: Gainey has traded goalies at this time of year, twice before. I do not think it unthinkable that at this point he would part with Price with the right offer on the table. As I see it, he was about to do one or the other, and the Molson family stepped in.
This story will use up a great deal of ink and be talked about for years. It will be curious to see how much Gainey admits.
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The Mother Of All Habs Centennial Collectibles
Ice It Authentics has come up with a Canadiens centennial item it considers to be the Mona Lisa of sports collectibles. No, it's not an actual photo of Bob Gainey smiling, but it is surely something that would keep your smilling if you owned one. How about one beauty of a painting, three different Habs jersey back spelling out the number 100 adorned with the signatures of a hundred Montreal Canadiens past and present? Dandy huh?
The whole story of how it came about, the folks behind the idea, and lots of cool pics were featured at Ya! The Habs Rule a couple of days back.
Must see stuff folks!
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Kovalchuk Was Almost A Hab
Okay, don't crap yourselves! This story goes back more than eight years ago, not to last week.
Back in the summer of 2001 at the annual NHL Entry Draft, then Canadiens GM Andre Savard swung for the home run fence and pulled out all stops to aquire the Atlanta Thrashers first overall pick, which would turn out to be Ilya Kovalchuk.
He came awful close!
Savard had offered a package of 5 players that included the team's two first round picks that year, which they'd eventually use to select Mike Komisarek and Alexander Perezhogin.
At the draft table, after Atlanta selected Kovalchuk, Thrasher's GM Don Waddell admitted that the Canadiens had come closest in luring him into a deal. He later confided that had the Habs included goaltender over another he would have gone for it. Savard, at the time, never admitted who the deal included, but it was later reavealed that the player he refused to part with was goaltender Mathieu Garon. Savard was offering prospect Jose Theodore instead.
Over time, it has slipped out that the other players on the table included Richard Zednik for certain, and surprisingly Andrei Markov, who was just beginning to round out and was said to be having adaptation problems to North American lifestyle at the time.
Incredibly, future Hart Trophy winning goaltender Jose Thoedore was the stumbling block in it all!
Forward Benoit Brunet's name was also mentioned as Savard levied to make it a 6 for 1 deal, but Waddell wouldn't budge in that direction.
Hindsight is beauty ain't it?
Imagine what the Thrashers might have done as a team with the likes of Theodore, Markov, Komisarek, Zednik, Perezhogin and Brunet?
The following season, the Thrashers would likely have passed over Keri Lehtonen and selected Jay Bowmeester in the 2002 draft. Wow?
And Garon, well he starred for awhile in a few cities for short spells and stuck around long enough to be considered a serviceable journeyman goaltender.

Hindsight in Montreal's regard? Well Kovalchuk would have been adored in Montreal, but what of the Canadiens defence all these years without Markov and Komisarek?
As with many Canadiens fans, I ended up adoring the player Jose Theodore became, but for awhile I strongly considered the possibility that Garon, due to his size, might have the better upside.
Remind you of any present scenarios?
Hindsight does blur the perspective some, with Theodore going on to win the Hart Trophy winner the very next season. At the time, it must have made Waddell second guess himself some.
The whole once upon a time scenario makes for some interesting backwards speculation. It took Atlanta six seasons to achieve a winning record and seven to make the playoffs, where they have yet to win a single game.
Montreal in that time, have never quite had a sniper near the prowess and repute of Kovalchuk. He would not only have lifted fans from their seats in that span, he might have made the seats lift by themselves.
As it stands now the Thrashers have failed consistently due to the lack of a decent backline. Markov and Komisarek, had Atlanta chosen him, would surely have rectified this area.
Montreal is still in search of a gamebreaker the likes of Kovalchuk. Had they sacrificed such depth to aquire him, would they be any better off today?
Needless to say, the complexion of both teams would have been drastically altered had the deal gone down.
When one looks beyond this trade that never happened at teams like Tampa and Atlanta and their current standing, it could be underlined that one player does not make a team successful. Waddell should have made the deal, in hindsight.
In the same perspective, it might be a good things for Habs fans that Savard was so fussy in his upside assessment of Garon. Despite the fact the he, and Theodore are no longer on the scene, it's hard to perceive that the Habs would have been better off in the long run.
Looking back and placing oneself in that timeline, Savard had he made the trade, might still be the Habs GM - hardly a bad scenario!
Whether Andre Savard and his staff would have drafted well enough since then to surround Kovalchuk well enough to make the team a contender within six seasons is guesswork beyond comprehension. Perhaps the Habs fate would have had them take back steps before turning things around. Those back steps might have led to better draft picks, and then again maybe not.
We will never really know.
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Only Habs Stand In The Way Of Bruins All-Time Futility Mark
Should the Canadiens beat the Bruins today and Boston goes on to tie their team record of 11 straight loses, it would equal a mark that began all the way back to the second game in their history. The Bruins entered the NHL in 1924-25 and won the first game they ever played, defeating the Montreal Maroons by a 2-1 score on December 1. It was all downhill from there.
Between December 3 and January 5, the Bruins dropped 11 games in succession, losing twice to the Canadiens and Maroons, the Senators and Hamilton Tigers, and three times to the Toronto St. Patricks.
With four days rest and in Montreal for game 13 of the season on January 10, they beat the Canadiens 3-2 to end the hellish skid. However, on January 12, the futile Bruins went for another dry run, losing the next seven in a row, before this time ending the drought once more in Montreal, beating the Maroons 1-0 at the Forum on February 7, 1925.
That initial season, the Bruins finished with a 6-24 record, winning three of final five games to salvage some semblance of self respect.
Despite that brutal first season, the Bruins weren't dreadful for long. The following, they became a .500 hockey and steadily improved until the 1928-29 season, when they posted a league best 26-13-5 record along the way to winning their first ever Stanley Cup.
For a very in depth look back at that period, Bruins fans should check out an article from the site's archives here.
The Bruins climb to dynasty status was expected, as they roared to a 38-5-1 record in 1929-30. Unfortunately, the record setting season and first place finish were no guarantee of a Cup win as they were snuffed out in the best of three finals by the Canadiens.
The Bruins again claimed superiority in 1930-31, finishing at the top of the 10 team NHL with a record of 28-10-6. Schedules were unkind to division winners back in that era, and the American Division champion Bruins began their first playoff round with a five game set against the Canadian Division champion Habs, who had finished the campaign with 60 points, just two shy of the Bruins' mark. To add insult to intelligence, the system of games back then called for the first two to be played in Boston and the final three, if required, to be in Montreal. To call such a setup controvercial would be succinct.
The semi - final series was closer than the two game set the previous spring, and the Canadiens emerged victorious once more, taking the final game 3-2 in overtime.
Today, there are no survivors from that era of the Canadiens and Bruins rivalry, but what has managed to live on is a certain animosity between the clubs, regardless of standing and consequence. Such warm feelings tend to make even the most meaningless of games between them ones of extreme importance.
Above: "Look boys, a puck is flat and round, and goes into a net. If we insert it there more often than the other team does, we win. It's not rocket science. We can do it."
For the Canadiens today, a win would represent an extension of a humble winning streak and a step towards making the playoffs. It might also mean a thing or two for them to vault the Bruins back in time, to an 86 year old record of frivolous standing. It would be a hearty "take that!" to the team that eliminated them in last season's playoff.
Above: "Look boys, the puck is this fucking big. Put it in the net, calisse, like you's did last year. It ain't frigin' Rocket Richard science, tabernac. You can do it."
For Boston and its players, a dubious date with history's record books are at stake, in addition to halting such a treachurous skid. It would motivate them greatly to hand the Canadiens a loss on home ice while ending the streak.
No matter the circumstance, it is always sweet for Boston fans when their Bruins can foul up the Habs.
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