Friday, December 9, 2011

Rokycany for Rakovnik - Straight Up


The Habs and Canes swapped Czech defensemen today as Jaroslav Spacek was sent packing to Carolina for the used-to-be-Brian-Burke's-favorite-question- Tomas Kaberle.

The Habs are sitting next to last in the NHL on the power play at a horrid 11%. Andrei Markov is out till humans find a way to populate that Earth 2.0 planet everybody's been raving about all week. The oft-injured Spacek, a free agent at the end of the year, was not going to be re-signed.  And the general consensus is that a shakeup was needed.

So of course, the best thing Gauthier can think of is bring the most under-performing albatross in the NHL not named Scott Gomez for another 2 years.

Look, it's simple. If the Habs got the defenseman the Leafs were reluctant to trade for years, then it's a great move and even a bargain. However, everything points to Kaberle having lost his way. Why he would suddenly retrieve his talent in Montreal where everyone else is also struggling with the same issue under a system that has asphyxiated the offense and flair out of the team is beyond us.

The Habs now shelter 2 players making a combined 12 million dollars for the next 2 years whose careers have been utterly derailed. And the worst thing is that the Habs brass in both cases has taken on these contracts AFTER the derailment.

What this also means is assuming Markov will play this year, PK Subban's role on the power play is now significantly impacted. You're not leaving 4.25 million on the bench during the first wave. Is this slowing PK's development on the team?

Montreal, forget the Boom thing. Show some real protest. At 7pm tonight, everybody get out of your cars, stop everything you're doing, put the forks and spoons back on the table...and scratch your heads.


5 comments:

Steve said...

Kaberle skates real pretty. Maybe he is just a skating coach?

James said...

I think this is a actually a pretty good move. There are a few angles to consider... first of all, Kaberle isn't finished like most people seem to think. He was 13th in the NHL in scoring by defensemen last year, had 11 points and was +8 in the playoffs for Boston (playing 6th D minutes). Ok he's having a terrible season now, but come on... he was in Caroline. Everyone would have a terrible season.

Other thing is, the CBA gets re-negotiated at the end of this year and there's a strong chance that a one-time buyout option with no cap hit will be offered to teams (just as it was last time). So there's a good chance Kaberle is here only for this year and will be bought out at the end of the year (along with Gomez!) and all it'll cost is Geoff Molson's money, which I don't give a fuck about.

Last angle which nobody mentions is that Kaberle has played 78 games or more in 6 of the last 7 seasons. This guy is durable. Yeah, that word which currently applies to no one on the Habs. At this point of the Habs being durable is a skill and it's worth a lot.

Having Kaberle instead of Spacek makes us a better team right now, significantly, and the potential downside is nearly non-existent. He could suck all year and would just end up being bought out next summer. He can't be worse than Spacek anyway.

Steve said...

How do the Canes get away with having heavily stylized vagina's on their shoulders?

Steve said...

James, are you the spokesman for PG?
You make some good points.

Public Domain said...

Is this a joke?

It's getting so hard to tell