Begin, Downey and Murray Signed

The Montreal Canadiens made their first signings of the off season inking Steve Begin, Garth Murray and Aaron Downey to new deals.

Great news for the Canadiens. Bob Gainey identified and signed his role players that will make up a core part of the Canadiens next season.
Begin had one of his best seasons last year and newcomers Garth Murray and Aaron Downey fit in quite well.

All of these guys have similar rough and physical styles of play and aren’t afraid of dropping the gloves. Gainey’s assuring early that the Canadiens won’t lack a physical element like they have in so many recent years.

All of these guys have been borderline NHLers and the vote of confidence the Canadiens have just given them should make for an interesting season.

Related Bookmarks Tags

There are currently no tags for this post.

Leave a Comment

8 Comments

#1 BJ says:
June 6, 2006 at 10:42 am

This was a great move by the habs. Now we need to worry about Huet and get a Defenceman and a 2nd Line Center. Get rid of Ribs!!!!!!!!

#2 Habs#1 says:
June 6, 2006 at 6:44 pm

The Habs needed to keep their grit togehter and they did that yesterday. Great move by Gainey. The Oilers proved this year that grit will get you far in the playoffs before what I call the curse of ’93 hit them.

(The curse is that no Canadian team has won the cup final since the Habs in ’93 and no canadian team will win it till the Habs do in what I believe to be the next 1 to 2 years)

Get rid of Ribeiro and Zednik immediately, Bonk they won’t be able to get rid of because of his massive contract and he showed at the end of the year to be a good #4 centre.

Keep the defence intact because they were the fidth highest scoring unit in the NHL, they were very good defensively at the end of the season and now I think Souray’s gotten used to the new NHL they will be even better next season.

Kovalev needs a real centreman to play with (i.e. Lang,Arnott. These are the only viable options folks because they’re not getting Richards obviously and unless Gainey is willing to trade Higgins, Ryder, and Komisarek which Tampa would reportedly be asking for, Vinny Lecavelier will not be wearing the CH any time soon, and Savard would want to much and would not want to play second fiddle to Koivu.)

As well as either getting someone like Mark Parrish or Jamie Langenbrunner to play the second line wing or moving Perezhogin up there and having Kostitzyn play on the third line with Plecanek and Murray, both of which I like a lot. Elias would be far to expensive to also go with the more pressing need at second line centre.

By the way, everyone saying that Latendresse will come and play for the big team next season. GET REAL!!!!! He had a good preseason sure but after that he had a very average season in the QMJHL, he apparently has terrible work ethic and attitude( i.e. Ribeiro) and he did absolutly JACK ALL in the world juniors so Gainey will make him go the hard way through the QMJHL one more season, hopefully have a better showing at the ‘Juniors’ and then at least the 3 manditory seasons on his AHL contract.

#3 PACTUM SERVA says:
June 6, 2006 at 7:12 pm

I could’nt say it better myself habs#1 great post

#4 Habs#1 says:
June 6, 2006 at 10:35 pm

There are three rumored people to be in the running for asst. head coach. All are ex. Habs I believe, and all are good buddies with Carbonneau and I think played with him.

They are Larry Robinson, Mario Tremblay(I really don’t think we want to go down that road again), and Kirk Muller.

Robinson retired because he couldn’t take the pressure in NEW JERSEY! so how would he deal with it in Montreal? Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if he’s just an assistent. I never liked Mario Tramblay and the dark days of the Habs/Molson family marriage started with him and got really bad with Vingealt(not his fault that he didn’t have any good players though) and Kirk Muller’s never had a proffesional coaching job before.

There’s risks to which ever one you take. I would like to see Muller. Who do the rest of you loyal Habs fans think would be the better fit?

#5 fan3 says:
June 6, 2006 at 11:48 pm

Definitely NOT Tremblay!!! ANYONE else!!! Nothing good could come by bringing him back into the picture…it’s taken us like a decade to fix his errors. As for the other two, I don’t really care. Like you said, Robinson couldn’t handle the pressure (and Montreal fans provide plenty of that) and Muller has no coaching experience. I’m sure that Gainey will make the best decision in the end (if it’s even up to him).
As for the trades: all for Begin and Murray but I’m indifferent to Downey. Downey hasn’t done anything wrong but he also hasn’t earned his keep; then again he didn’t get that much of a chance to.

#6 SaskHab says:
June 7, 2006 at 1:42 am

As far as the coach goes, I love the possibility of Robinson coming back. He’s been an assistant with us before and did very well. So well in fact that he got plucked from our staff to become a head coach in the show. As an assistant he would shoulder virtually none of the pressure and due to his unwillingness to be a head coach again it would be pretty safe to say he’d be in it for the long haul at that position. Obviously my second choice would be Muller for lack of a better option in Tremblay. To be fair, because one sucks at the head coach position does not mean they can’t be an effective assistant. They are two completely separate and differing roles, therefore I would even be willing to bring Tremblay into the fold. Now let’s sign Huet and find a decent scoring forward.

#7 Don't Know says:
June 10, 2006 at 7:17 pm

Downey sucks. Habs should get Charra, or Redden , or Spezza , or another big name player like Havlat

#8 Don't Know says:
June 10, 2006 at 7:22 pm

i dont think the habs will do good next yr if they dont sign some good free agents this yr

Leave a Comment

ShoutBox

Last Message 15 minutes ago

Senet1 : Not counting Markov if he plays. If we trade or let go of our UFA defenceman then we will need at least three D-men, I would like a good look at Nash to see if he can play at this level. If not he is gone, I do not think any of our other defensive prospects are ready quite yet. Our junior and college players should be coming on stream for Hamilton next year so we will get to see how much they have developed and whether any are ready for the big time.
Senet1 : While I agree we have quite a few players that could be made available, I do not see a need to make wholesale changes only the necessary one. obviously Gomez, Gionta, AK46(if he will not sign) I keep our top line of Cole, Pacman and David. I keep Eller and Leblanc, Blunden, Bourque, probably Plecanec unless we can really improve on his positin. I keep PK, Emelin, Gorges, Diaz and Naturally Price. Probably Budaj. That basically gives us two functional line and two sets of defence, not counting
goalie : Great to see Pacs gets su=ome success after the devestating dirty check last season that could have paralyzed him for life.
goalie : Given ho the team has played this season one thing in our favor is that we pretty much need to clean house. Other than about 6-7 guys everyone else would be available in my mind.
goalie : After how the tes]am has
Avatar37 : Apparently only one offer for Carter on the low side so far, I think Montreal would be foolish not to investigate the possibility of a trade for him, and if there is low interest, the deal might be able to include moving Gomez. Gomez/Darche/Cam poli and a third round pick? Maybe not, but I'd be in serious talks with Columbus right about now.
Avatar37 : «link»
Avatar37 : for him had we held on to him until now and created a bidding war. There are more buyers than sellers currently on the market and it would have been the perfect time to have traded him.
Avatar37 : Goalie - I'm not sure how we could have obtained more for Halak. We showcased him, everyone knew he was available for trade, and in the end, we took the best offer. Any asset is only worth what a purchaser will pay for it. The Halak trade wasn't like the Cammalleri trade where you had GMs afterwards saying they didn't even know he was on the market. The Halak trade was done properly, the Cammelleri trade was a knee-jerk panic move, and while my opinion is that we could have received more
Avatar37 : I saw the game, the Islanders first goal came from a shot that was clearly above the height of the crossbar. How is it possible for a play to go to review where they have the advantage of mulitple camera angles and the ability to pause and they STILL get the call wrong?
goalie : I agree don't get dilusional over our three game winning streak. Changes MUST be made. I am however, glad to see the effort being put forth by the players.
Mats Naslund : I just went to capgeek to see who the Avalanche might be dealing for a rental - and I see they have only 6 players signed for next season!!! There are a couple young D men on that squad who are RFAs who would do very nicely next season.
Mats Naslund : One thing I know - the 3 game winning streak had better not get PG thinking about holding onto guys for a PO run. Trade them, build the value and move on to next year.
Mats Naslund : How about Max Pac though.. 21 goals and on pace for 65 points this year. That is absolutely monster for a guy at his age/experience and especially coming after a horrific injury. Huge cornerstone moving forward. On pace for 33 goals.. could he get 35?
Mats Naslund : Didn't get to see it either - and while I don't really care about the win, I am very glad that Gomez scored so we don't have to endure all of the negativity in the media about him for the rest of the year. He still su@ks, but at least it won't be a topic every shift he takes.
goalie : Didn't get to see the game at all but it's great to see Pacs get a hat trick and fpor Cole to be + 3. When was the last time this team won three games in a row? Great victory -looks like they're giving 100% effort!
Senet1 : 4-2 win habs
Senet1 : Gomez scores, Yea!!!
goalie : As I said yesterday it will be interesting to see what our lame ass GM gets for players he ships out. Bourque is good and he'll help us but I still think we could have gotten more for him and for Halak when he was traded.
Avatar37 : round those picks occur (probably 3rd).
Avatar37 : An interesting article. If we slip to the 5th or 7th draft pick, a very interesting case could be made for drafting Galchenyuk. If we wind up with the second or third pick, I'm not sure who I'd draft, because clearly Yakupov is going to be drafted first overall. Our second round pick also becomes interesting, I know I'd take Vasilevski if he were still available. It will also be interesting to see if we can turn some of our veteran players (Moen, Gill, Campoli) into draft picks, and what
Avatar37 : «link»
Avatar37 : That is why PG should have waited on trading Cammalleri. Right now, there is a high demand for a top 6 forward, we could have gotten much more than Bourque in return. That isn't a knock against Bourque, but a knock against a knee-jerk reaction trade that didn't maximize our return on a top asset.
Avatar37 : «link»
Avatar37 : chips fall where they may. After all, the only difference between finishing 17th and 29th is how good a pick you get in the draft.
Avatar37 : We currently sit in 26th place in the league. We are 15 points ahead of Columbus, it's safe to bet at this point they will place last. We are, however, only 4 points ahead of Edmonton so it's still wide open as to who is going to finish second last. I still think that it's time to sit the veterans, play the youth, let them get experience, and regroup for next year. I'm not suggesting deliberately tanking like the Penguins, but give all our young players lots of playing time and let the c
Avatar37 : goalie - If it were not for the play of Cammalleri, we would never have made it out of round 1. Cammalleri played as big a part, if not bigger, than Halak did. Sure, Halak played well, but remember the team collapsed in front of him, making his job much easier. We had lots of blocked shots and the ones that got through were typically from the outside.
Senet1 : Goalie you are absolutely right, of course the one thing we had the two previous years that won the games that we are losing this year was our power play. If you look at say 10 games that we should have won had we had a similar power play, again we would not be having these conversations. When your PP goes from first to last in the league that is a lot of goals.How many games have we lost this year by one goal. Again poor management who did not prepare for Markov's possible absence.
goalie : I'll put it another way.... we need more players who are willing to get their noses dirty.
goalie : Two years ago when our goaltending stole series adn our players suddenly scored the coaches / GM believed that that was our true team . Well time has proven that was not. Though I was very glad to see the Habs knock off some very good teams we were very fortunate. And fortunate that spring was spelled HALAK!
goalie : The wrst mistake management could possibly make I believe is to say, we played well some games and we believe the team can play to that level more often in the future. This team CANNOT adnb DOES NOT play to a high enough level. Please do not kid yourself mamngement. hat is partially why we're in the lace we are.
goalie : Senet is correct when he says that if we had more games with a better efort this year we'd likely be in the playoffs. It has been very inconsistent effort but much more than that. We lack big, tough playing and finishing. Never mind fighting for a moment. We did not compete for the pucks nor along the boards nor in front of both nets enough this year. Thus we are in 29th. If the coaching staff doesn't see that then they shouldn't be there.
Senet1 : Surely Molson is not going to keep him as the GM?
Senet1 : when he knows he will be fired at the end of the season. Nothing really makes since in this whole process.
Senet1 : I am not sue why PG has not been fired by now. They could be waiting for another GM to come available at season end, but why would you not set up a committee to manage the team in the short run until a new GM can be named. There is no since in chaning coaches because whoever the GM is he will want to name his own coach. Gainey and a committe of other executives can manage the team through to the trading deadline and onward. What motivation does PG have to making any worthwhile trades when he is