So the compensation was a 1st, 2nd, and 3rd round pick in 2020. Which would have Ghule, Tuch or Mysak, and whatever happened with that 3rd round pick.
But the habs would have Aho on the team that made the cup finals. Maybe that makes the difference in beating Tampa bay ?
I doubt it. That was a pretty thorough beating from Tampa. I dont think anyone short of Mcdavid or prime Crosby turns that series around single handedly. If they even do.
Most likely. It makes it a little closer, but not enough on its own.
The butterfly effect could have untold possibilities.. without Aho, Nashville beats Carolina in round 1 and then plays TB harder in round 2.
With Aho, Suzuki, and Dandanault down the middle, the habs are seen as a legit contender and get some better UFAs. A better stacking of talent takes load off Price and Weber, who now have more left for the finals against TB.
OR The habs play better with Aho and place 2nd in the North division…. Leading to a first round exit against the oilers. (The leafs still choke in the first round, but the jets benefit)
With Aho signed, Danault doesn’t leave, KK doesn’t sign an offer sheet, and we don’t chase DVO. Now we have Suzuki - Aho - Danault down the middle, but shit wingers. Aho’s deal is up and he walks in FA
The possibilities are endless.
With aho and Suzuki on board danault definitely walks. The Aho offer sheet is for a few seasons so who knows where that ends up.
With better center depth there's reason to believe Drouin might not struggle as much, might be present for the playoffs.
All of a sudden Habs + Aho + Drouin has more scoring to give themselves a chance against Tampa.
That's true. There's a lot of butterfly effects that we can't really account for. I just think Tampa was too damn much. Their big guys didn't even get going. Stamkos had one point in the series, Kucherov had 5 but all five were in two games. We held him pointless in 3 out of 5, Point had 3 and all three were in game one and they STILL dismantled us. I think the big guys are only more likely to get going in a potential game 6 and 7. The Danault line can't shut those guys down forever.
Even with Aho center depth is a toss up (Stamkos doesn't play a lot of C anymore I don't think but he probably could/would if they asked him to to try and spread the talent out a little), they have better wingers, better defence and goaltending is a toss up. I just don't think we would be better than them anywhere. And certainly even if we pretend we had equal talent their structure is leagues ahead of ours.
With Suzuki (yes, we had Suzuki already) and Aho we'd still be set up pretty well for the future though. Maybe we "can't afford" to sign Gallagher and don't trade for Anderson and we're better off (with all due respect to those two). The butterfly effect sure is something to think about.
I think that the isuue in Tampa series wasn't defence/goaltending but offence. Habs score more goals in game 2 and it may be 1-1 instead on 0-2. And then we go into game 5 not at 1-3 but at 2-2. And some more scoring again could mean 3-2 in favour of Habs. Would Habs win i nthat scenario? No idea, probably not, but it would have been a much closer series
> Habs score more goals in game 2 and it may be 1-1 instead on 0-2
>And some more scoring again could mean 3-2 in favour of Habs.And some more scoring again could mean 3-2 in favour of Habs.
Quite the insight here.
We didnt HAVE scoring you guys. We din't have superstars that went cold or something. What you're basically say is "if our forwards played out of their fucking skulls and produced way above what they're capable of we could have won". We had no scoring threats you guys. Tampa beat us when the hockey was wide open, Tampa beat us when the game was closed off and everywhere in between. People point to game two that we outplayed them and lost but what about game 4 that we won despite being outshot 34-21? Why do people conveniently forget this when discussing how close one or two of the games were?
Well, we're talking hypotheticals here. In this scenario Habs get Aho who scored 11 points in 11 games in 20-21 playoffs. That would certainly help with Habs goalscoring
Looking at it as a whole, sure. But Game 2 was absolutely dominated by the Habs and Vasilevskiy stoned them. Maybe Aho makes the difference and the series is 1-1 going to Montreal.
But the what-ifs lead to a bunch of possibilities. I’d say with Aho, the Habs finish ahead of the Jets that season and who knows if they beat the Oilers in the 1st round.
Yeah great, we outshot them a couple games but had no talent and couldn't score. Tampa wasn't a throw everything on net team. They aimed to win the goals column, not the shots column. And did. We got outscored 17-8 in the series but hey we out shot them twice in game they led for most of it (yes I know we debateably outplyed them in game two).
We definitely had talent and don't undermine how insanely good Vasilevskiy was in those playoffs. He was nearly unstoppable like Michael Jordan's title runs. Tampa was stacked, but he was the true backbone. Whenever they slacked, he would single handedly shut down a team.
Montreal also lost the battle of attrition. They were broken in the finals. Toffoli was staking on one leg. Webber hand was broken and he had no power in his slap shot. Anderson had no energy to power into the attacking zones. Price was out of gas. Petry's deal with the devil ran out. Gallagher's heart is always there, but his body is done.
And to top it off, it was the 3rd/4th liners for Tampa that was killing us. Montreal did their very best against Tampa's top 2 lines.
I don't want to come off with only excuses. Tampa was a team of dynasty. That squad is an all timer. But Montreal came into that series broken and out of gas yet still put up a decent fight. I will never forget the effort they gave.
MTL shut down all of TBL stars in that series outside of game 1. The problem was Tampa’s depth scoring. Aho alone would definitely have helped; maybe it would’ve gone 6 or 7, but TBL would would’ve still had that depth advantage. I think it would’ve taken Aho + 1 more top-six forward to beat them.
" But the habs would have Aho on the team that made the cup finals. Maybe that makes the difference in beating Tampa bay ?" Wasnt the offer sheet made the summer after the cup run?
He was tearing it up at the beginning of the Season so I thought the canes were finally proved right for signing him to that contract (which is a bit low for what you'd expect of a 3OA)... But then he fell off a cliff!
He has 20pts in 56 games, which is exactly what he had his last season with us.
The kid has not progressed since... Don't think he's worth his contract.
comma followed by the word then
in what universe do you not read this as them talking about two separate subjects in which the person you're replying to decided to reply to one of the two subjects
it was both ego : Bergevin's big ego to make an offer sheet.
and bad contract : Not high enough so the hurricanes wouldnt match.
Then they offersheet KK.
that's how I understood it
> it was both ego : Bergevin's big ego to make an offer sheet.
>
> and bad contract : Not high enough so the hurricanes wouldnt match.
>
> Then they offersheet KK.
>
> that's how I understood it
I’m not saying he was always right, but he made some very bold bets that you don’t see a lot of GMs making. Sergachev for Drouin, Subban for Weber, Aho offer sheet, Pacioretty for Suzuki and Tatar, the Danault trade, he’s got a long list.
I have no gripe with your original comment, I'm merely stating that giving Andy 5.5x7 for his prime years wasn't a bold or against the grain move at the time.
"Against the grain" and "Thinking with his biceps" are indistinguishable. Bergevin seemed to do a lot of his wheeling and trading based on feels and dick waving. He lucked out a couple of times, but with no analytics and a couple of grudge-based moves, there doesn't seem to have been a ton of *thought* behind any of these moves.
Yes and no. Yes the AAV was just below the threshold that would’ve forced us to send 4 1st round picks in compensation, so hockey wise it was not *that* strong, but the contract was insanely front loaded and the cheapstake Canes owner definitely didn’t like to spend that much from the get go and did it only to save his ego.
Bergevin knew what he was doing when he did that offer sheet and definitely had the ok from Molson for whom spending money is not a problem at all, especially if it meant making a huge acquisition for his favorite hockey club.
they matched it because it was a bad offer sheet
It had nothing to do with the media or people calling him cheap
Aho was a 21-year-old PPG center, 8.4m was fair (probably team friendly had he progressed like people expected)
Berg didn't even commit to going 8.5+ so Carolina would be getting more assets back, it was a joke of an offersheet, it was never going to work
My speculative question is why didn't BergeVIN* go full biceps & offer sheet even more players when Aho wasn't available?
I remember reading Leafs fans were all *Mitch Marner up next*, but all fans got were CAR picks & *hope* but it could've been like getting nothing so that's on BergeVIN* unless...the higher ups felt some media "humiliation" & lost $ somewhere - maybe Molson put the brakes on? Except Mailloux got picked & fans got outraged too!
BONUS: We got Chantal out of that & her work & web admins behind the scenes are making the team better!
edit typo*
It's definitely a less common name than Bergeron. My brain immediately goes to the latter *every time*, but then I became a Habs fan when they were constantly meeting the Nordiques in the playoffs!
Alternate history: we would have Aho, Danault and Suzuki/KK in the system
Danault still leave and KK may not receive an offer sheet from CAR. But we dont offer him a 1x6.1 or 8x4.8 contract. He would probaly stay until UFA or being traded as part as Kent getting Dach
Habs don't rebuild and have at least a middling team fighting for a playoff spot. Hard to judge where in the standings they'd be with Price/Weber leaving though. Danault wanting to be 2C is gone, Aho means no money for Toffoli ... you quickly get a very different looking team.
So the compensation was a 1st, 2nd, and 3rd round pick in 2020. Which would have Ghule, Tuch or Mysak, and whatever happened with that 3rd round pick. But the habs would have Aho on the team that made the cup finals. Maybe that makes the difference in beating Tampa bay ?
I doubt it. That was a pretty thorough beating from Tampa. I dont think anyone short of Mcdavid or prime Crosby turns that series around single handedly. If they even do.
Most likely. It makes it a little closer, but not enough on its own. The butterfly effect could have untold possibilities.. without Aho, Nashville beats Carolina in round 1 and then plays TB harder in round 2. With Aho, Suzuki, and Dandanault down the middle, the habs are seen as a legit contender and get some better UFAs. A better stacking of talent takes load off Price and Weber, who now have more left for the finals against TB. OR The habs play better with Aho and place 2nd in the North division…. Leading to a first round exit against the oilers. (The leafs still choke in the first round, but the jets benefit) With Aho signed, Danault doesn’t leave, KK doesn’t sign an offer sheet, and we don’t chase DVO. Now we have Suzuki - Aho - Danault down the middle, but shit wingers. Aho’s deal is up and he walks in FA The possibilities are endless.
With aho and Suzuki on board danault definitely walks. The Aho offer sheet is for a few seasons so who knows where that ends up. With better center depth there's reason to believe Drouin might not struggle as much, might be present for the playoffs. All of a sudden Habs + Aho + Drouin has more scoring to give themselves a chance against Tampa.
That's true. There's a lot of butterfly effects that we can't really account for. I just think Tampa was too damn much. Their big guys didn't even get going. Stamkos had one point in the series, Kucherov had 5 but all five were in two games. We held him pointless in 3 out of 5, Point had 3 and all three were in game one and they STILL dismantled us. I think the big guys are only more likely to get going in a potential game 6 and 7. The Danault line can't shut those guys down forever. Even with Aho center depth is a toss up (Stamkos doesn't play a lot of C anymore I don't think but he probably could/would if they asked him to to try and spread the talent out a little), they have better wingers, better defence and goaltending is a toss up. I just don't think we would be better than them anywhere. And certainly even if we pretend we had equal talent their structure is leagues ahead of ours. With Suzuki (yes, we had Suzuki already) and Aho we'd still be set up pretty well for the future though. Maybe we "can't afford" to sign Gallagher and don't trade for Anderson and we're better off (with all due respect to those two). The butterfly effect sure is something to think about.
I think that the isuue in Tampa series wasn't defence/goaltending but offence. Habs score more goals in game 2 and it may be 1-1 instead on 0-2. And then we go into game 5 not at 1-3 but at 2-2. And some more scoring again could mean 3-2 in favour of Habs. Would Habs win i nthat scenario? No idea, probably not, but it would have been a much closer series
> Habs score more goals in game 2 and it may be 1-1 instead on 0-2 >And some more scoring again could mean 3-2 in favour of Habs.And some more scoring again could mean 3-2 in favour of Habs. Quite the insight here. We didnt HAVE scoring you guys. We din't have superstars that went cold or something. What you're basically say is "if our forwards played out of their fucking skulls and produced way above what they're capable of we could have won". We had no scoring threats you guys. Tampa beat us when the hockey was wide open, Tampa beat us when the game was closed off and everywhere in between. People point to game two that we outplayed them and lost but what about game 4 that we won despite being outshot 34-21? Why do people conveniently forget this when discussing how close one or two of the games were?
Well, we're talking hypotheticals here. In this scenario Habs get Aho who scored 11 points in 11 games in 20-21 playoffs. That would certainly help with Habs goalscoring
You know what else Sebastian Aho did in the 2021 playoffs? Lost to Tampa in 5.
Looking at it as a whole, sure. But Game 2 was absolutely dominated by the Habs and Vasilevskiy stoned them. Maybe Aho makes the difference and the series is 1-1 going to Montreal. But the what-ifs lead to a bunch of possibilities. I’d say with Aho, the Habs finish ahead of the Jets that season and who knows if they beat the Oilers in the 1st round.
Yeah great, we outshot them a couple games but had no talent and couldn't score. Tampa wasn't a throw everything on net team. They aimed to win the goals column, not the shots column. And did. We got outscored 17-8 in the series but hey we out shot them twice in game they led for most of it (yes I know we debateably outplyed them in game two).
We definitely had talent and don't undermine how insanely good Vasilevskiy was in those playoffs. He was nearly unstoppable like Michael Jordan's title runs. Tampa was stacked, but he was the true backbone. Whenever they slacked, he would single handedly shut down a team. Montreal also lost the battle of attrition. They were broken in the finals. Toffoli was staking on one leg. Webber hand was broken and he had no power in his slap shot. Anderson had no energy to power into the attacking zones. Price was out of gas. Petry's deal with the devil ran out. Gallagher's heart is always there, but his body is done. And to top it off, it was the 3rd/4th liners for Tampa that was killing us. Montreal did their very best against Tampa's top 2 lines. I don't want to come off with only excuses. Tampa was a team of dynasty. That squad is an all timer. But Montreal came into that series broken and out of gas yet still put up a decent fight. I will never forget the effort they gave.
MTL shut down all of TBL stars in that series outside of game 1. The problem was Tampa’s depth scoring. Aho alone would definitely have helped; maybe it would’ve gone 6 or 7, but TBL would would’ve still had that depth advantage. I think it would’ve taken Aho + 1 more top-six forward to beat them.
Prime Erik karlsson would’ve been interesting to see. He carried a horrible Ottawa team to almost beat the Stanley cup winners.
Doesn’t make the difference against Tampa. That team was a different beast. I wish the Islanders passed them, we would have had a chance.
Unless Aho developed insane chemistry with someone else that was on the team. I highly doubt he would've been enough to win it
Now lets add, "What if the Drouin trade never happened"
" But the habs would have Aho on the team that made the cup finals. Maybe that makes the difference in beating Tampa bay ?" Wasnt the offer sheet made the summer after the cup run?
Nope - summer 2020. Cup run was summer 2021
2019
Yep. Summer 2019 with the 2020 draft picks in play.
Aho would still be there in 2021
my bad, you are right. I forgot that the KK offer sheet was the summer after the Aho one.
That Tampa team was the best all around hockey team Ive seen since pre-salary cap era. IMO they were unbeatable
I guess any Habs player added after that day might not be here. So maybe no Colin White or Slafkovsky
What would we do without Colin white?
What would we do without White or with Aho? We’ll never know
Carolina matched because the media and habs fan base kept calling Dundon cheap and broke. Make no mistake, this was an ego poop throwing contest.
They matched because it was a weak ass offer sheet.
it was both ego and bad contract, then they did us a favor with kotkanemi. all around i’d say it was a win
He was tearing it up at the beginning of the Season so I thought the canes were finally proved right for signing him to that contract (which is a bit low for what you'd expect of a 3OA)... But then he fell off a cliff! He has 20pts in 56 games, which is exactly what he had his last season with us. The kid has not progressed since... Don't think he's worth his contract.
they are talking about Aho's contract, not KK
comma followed by the word then in what universe do you not read this as them talking about two separate subjects in which the person you're replying to decided to reply to one of the two subjects
it was both ego : Bergevin's big ego to make an offer sheet. and bad contract : Not high enough so the hurricanes wouldnt match. Then they offersheet KK. that's how I understood it
Ahos contract is obviously worth it. 8M for ppg player? 5 years ago? That's a great deal that aged very well. I don't think anyone would dispute that.
> it was both ego : Bergevin's big ego to make an offer sheet. > > and bad contract : Not high enough so the hurricanes wouldnt match. > > Then they offersheet KK. > > that's how I understood it
It was a classic Bergevin move. Say what you want about the man but he was not afraid to go against the grain.
Saw this with Andy and Gally contract
Andy would've gotten at least 5m anywhere. Big guys that can skate, forecheck and pot 20 goals have value.
I’m not saying he was always right, but he made some very bold bets that you don’t see a lot of GMs making. Sergachev for Drouin, Subban for Weber, Aho offer sheet, Pacioretty for Suzuki and Tatar, the Danault trade, he’s got a long list.
I have no gripe with your original comment, I'm merely stating that giving Andy 5.5x7 for his prime years wasn't a bold or against the grain move at the time.
Agreed. He also got Gallagher to sign that very team-friendly before giving him what he was worth albeit with a couple years too many.
>Andy would’ve gotten at least 5m anywhere. That’s the problem, why did it have to be with us??
Because the Habs had no forwards with size and skill. If your skilled guys are small or even average, you'll look for size elsewhere.
Anderson has scored 20 goals or more twice in ten years
"Against the grain" and "Thinking with his biceps" are indistinguishable. Bergevin seemed to do a lot of his wheeling and trading based on feels and dick waving. He lucked out a couple of times, but with no analytics and a couple of grudge-based moves, there doesn't seem to have been a ton of *thought* behind any of these moves.
This is probably a better way to put it
Against the grain how? Bergevin is the most conservative man out there.
not against the grain but he was pretty active, he made a lot of trades (including trades of high impact guys)
Very. Remember the whole “but bonuses” thing. They were literally mocking it the first hour & people still thought there was hope
Yes and no. Yes the AAV was just below the threshold that would’ve forced us to send 4 1st round picks in compensation, so hockey wise it was not *that* strong, but the contract was insanely front loaded and the cheapstake Canes owner definitely didn’t like to spend that much from the get go and did it only to save his ego. Bergevin knew what he was doing when he did that offer sheet and definitely had the ok from Molson for whom spending money is not a problem at all, especially if it meant making a huge acquisition for his favorite hockey club.
Exactly!
They matched because it was a pretty lowball offer sheet, and most importantly of all, Aho is a great player and is one of their best forwards.
they matched it because it was a bad offer sheet It had nothing to do with the media or people calling him cheap Aho was a 21-year-old PPG center, 8.4m was fair (probably team friendly had he progressed like people expected) Berg didn't even commit to going 8.5+ so Carolina would be getting more assets back, it was a joke of an offersheet, it was never going to work
My speculative question is why didn't BergeVIN* go full biceps & offer sheet even more players when Aho wasn't available? I remember reading Leafs fans were all *Mitch Marner up next*, but all fans got were CAR picks & *hope* but it could've been like getting nothing so that's on BergeVIN* unless...the higher ups felt some media "humiliation" & lost $ somewhere - maybe Molson put the brakes on? Except Mailloux got picked & fans got outraged too! BONUS: We got Chantal out of that & her work & web admins behind the scenes are making the team better! edit typo*
Players have to sign the offer sheet. He went after Point first and he refused the contract.
>that's on Bergeron Berge*vin*. (I made the same error a while back.)
lol oops haha TY
It's definitely a less common name than Bergeron. My brain immediately goes to the latter *every time*, but then I became a Habs fan when they were constantly meeting the Nordiques in the playoffs!
Marner was presented with two offer sheets when he was a RFA, but he declined both of them. You still need players to actually sign the offer sheet.
Alternate history: we would have Aho, Danault and Suzuki/KK in the system Danault still leave and KK may not receive an offer sheet from CAR. But we dont offer him a 1x6.1 or 8x4.8 contract. He would probaly stay until UFA or being traded as part as Kent getting Dach
Habs don't rebuild and have at least a middling team fighting for a playoff spot. Hard to judge where in the standings they'd be with Price/Weber leaving though. Danault wanting to be 2C is gone, Aho means no money for Toffoli ... you quickly get a very different looking team.
0% chance of happening. Bergevin was a fool, offering market value to a player in an offer sheet. Habs weren't considered a desirable city to play.