Alias and Habknow, I bow to your thoughts on Koivu vs. Lang. You both may be right but from my experience and watching Koivu over the last two seasons, I think he is slipping not improving since his illness. And as far as his points per game go he has played on the first line almost his entire career as well as the power play so his points per game comparison to Langs is not a fair comparison. All I know is when I want to put my best offense out against the other teams best offense, I would have Lang on the ice instead of Koivu for two reasons. One, Lang is better defensively and two his size allows him to check the #1 centerman on the other teams who generally are much bigger than Koivu. Koivu has proven he cannot handle those situation, his faceoff percentage is terrible against these bigger centers.

As someone said the other day, it is all speculation and fun right now but as I said I am sure that carbo will try all kinds of different combinations. He may keep Kovy, Plec and Kost together at the start of the season but I bet any money when they go into a slump he moves Kovy over to Lang’s line to see if they still have the chemistry they had in Pittsburg. Mark my words it will happen.

I think that if I could trade for Schneider at half his salary then I would go for it. We have a couple of defenseman that will not be around once the young guns start to push them for a position, so a trade could be worked out that would give us some capping space as well as an experience defenceman who has shown recently that he can play defense as well as offense.

Latendresse, has been working on his skating in the off season so hopefully that will improve, you also have to remember he is only 21 and he is not going to be noticed every night. He also has improved his offense and defense every year so he is improving and I would not trade him for a few years until he has matured. Then we will see what kind of hockey player he is going to be. Having said that I think he could use a message or a wakeup call, so I would send him down after 5 games if he has not shown he is going to give it all the time. He can only play 8 more games before he has to clear waivers if sent down, so he has to go early otherwise he is here all season. As for your comparison to Leclair, we could only hope he becomes as good a power forward as Leclair. To me it was one of our worse mistakes loosing Leclair to Philly. Some players are regular season players and others are playoff players, Leclair was our biggest playoff performer when we had him. Then as he matured he kill us every time we played against him.

Alias I realize we can send Halak and Price up and down I was talking about Denis. Does he not have to clear waivers if we bring him up and then send him down?

I already know Halak is better than Denis but Halak should be in the AHL for expierience. Then again we should showcase Halak to trade him at the deadline. and yeh I also heard Carbo doesn’t want to break up tha line, and I know why lol. Carbo’s idea of the 2nd line was Higgy-Koivu-Tanguay. And I believe that line will have the most heart, If not then the third line. All respect to the 1st line, but they are all young euro’s except(kovalev)and then the 2nd line Higgy is like 26,Tanguay 28,koivu 33. koivu plays like a canadian, so everyone on the line is pretty much north Americans. but The kostitsyns will put up more points in the regular season, but in the playoffs, Koivu’s line will be the best.

S.Kostitsyn Is awaesome, but there’s just too much depth on this team, they don’t stac so yes Sergei is better than Higgy but Lang sergei and Lats would make a good checking line.

Last nov is different from this nov Last nov we were not expecting to be a Cup contender, this year we are, and have some exciting, home province additions to the team. I’d imagine tickets would be tougher to get this time around

check out the videos on tsn.ca
http://watch.tsn.ca/nhl/#clip94243
6 Cities In 6 Days: Montreal

Darren Dreger thinks the Habs line ‘em up like this:

1 – AK46-Pleks-AK27
2 – Tanguay-Koivu-Higgins – said Koivu should help Tanguay regain his confidence.
3 – Lats-Lang-S. Kost
4 – Laraque – he didn’t mention Laraque’s potential linemates, but also said Montreal doesn’t have any glaring holes in their line-up at all and Chipchura is the most likely one of the young guns to make the team and stick. We’re looking good!

man, tha game is sooo retarded!

I do not think having a one way or two way contract makes any difference as far as waivers is concerned only the salary that you pay the player depending one where he plays.

The waiver eligibility of players has become a much-discussed (and ill-informed) topic recently. The following will attempt to answer some of the common questions regarding who doesn’t have to clear waivers and who does. Before I get into the details of the waiver process and how to determine when a player is or isn’t eligible, let’s kill off a few long-held assumptions. Here is a couple of things I found, which appear to be correct because I found the same information last summer.

– “The waiver status of a player is determined by whether he has a 1-way or 2-way contract.”
Answer: False. Whether a player has a 1-way or 2-way contract has absolutely no effect on his waiver status – it has to do with the number of years since the player signed his first NHL contract and the number of NHL games he’s played since signing. In fact, there are ten (10) players who have 1-way contracts for 2007-08 and are exempt from waivers.

Guillaume Latendresse signed an entry-level contract in 2006 at age 19. He would have been exempt from waivers for 4 years; however, he played in 80 NHL games in 2006-07, meaning the exemption was shortened to 3 years. He is now exempt until either the end of the 2008-09 season or he plays in a total of 160 NHL games [whichever comes first].

Goalies are treated a little differenec but I could not find anything in the CBA that talks about up and down due to injury. One can se sent down for a 14 day conditioning if the player agrees to it.

Anyway I am not saying you are wrong I just could not find anything at allows the goalies to go up and down without clearing waivers once they qualify. Goalies I believe are six years or 180 game played from age 18. Otherwise the are the same as other players. I believe LA wanted to bring up their best minor league goalie last year but could not because he had to clear re-entry waivers, so they left him in the minor the rest of the year.

I have been to Roberval summer 2003 and spent one night in a comfortable Motel there. Beautiful Lac Saint-Jean!

Go Habs go in Roberval!

Okay I see your point on how you would reduce the icetime but if Tanguay plays on his line are you not reducing Tanguay’s icetime as well and even Higgins too. I guess that is why if we leave Kovalev on Plec’s line with AKost. Then I would like to see Lang with Tanguay and Higgins. I think you would see Higgins blossum playing with those two guys and he could score 35-40 goals. Tanguay could also rebound playing with these two guys. That would leave Latendresse, Koivu and S. Kost for our third line they could get 10 minutes a game where as your top two lines could get 15 minutes plus PP time and Koivu could also see an additional minutes a game on the PP.
I guess to me we want to make sure that in total minutes our top 7 offensive players get close to 15-20 minutes a game of icetime. The rest is eaten up by the third and fourth line and the PK units.

Alias, I think I might have found something that will help me at least understand Marc Denis situation regarding waivers.
Re-entry waivers – new to this CBA is the provision that certain players recalled to the NHL must clear waivers to join the team holding his NHL rights; any other team may claim said player for 50% of his cap hit and salary, with the team attempting to recall taking the other 50% of each. In general, players are not subject to re-entry [recall] waivers unless:

The player is on a -way contract and is subject to waivers when assigned to the minors; or
The player is on a 2-way contract whose minor league salary is in excess of
2007-08: $100,000
2008-09: $100,000
2009-10: $105,000
2010-11: $105,000
2011-12: $105,000

#2 above does not apply to a player who

If a goalie, the goalie has played in 180 or more professional games [NHL, AHL, or ECHL; regular season and playoffs] or, if a skater, 320 or more professional games; AND
Has not spent more than 80 games on an NHL roster in the prior 2 seasons or 40 or more games on an NHL roster in the immediately prior season.

I think the above applies to Denis because I do not think he was on an NHL roster in 2007-2008 season for 40+ games. Last season he played 10 games for the Lightning but I am not sure how many games he was on their roster, he did play 32 games for Norfolk Admirals AHL. Not sure where to find out the other information.

Ah Senet….ya beat me to it….I just found the exact same thing.

Denis total games – 348
Last season – 10 games
Last 2 seasons – 54

So it appears he is exempt from waivers.

That could work as well I guess the good thing about this is that carbo has a lot of options and different combinations that he can try especially if one line goes sour, he can move Lang, Kovalev and Tanguay around to where he thinks that will do the best in any given situation. One thing I think you said that I agree with is that there may be a line #2 and a line #2A depending on whether we are playing a physical team like Philly or a skating team like Edmonton or the Rangers. Should be a fun season.

ok guys, this is going to be an injury plagued season. I don’t see Montreal leading tne North Est, I predict 5th in East.

A defenseman that wouldn’t have made the team anyways, not saying who cares, but that injury in no way affects Montreal’s chances of winning day in and day out.