Josh TH hit hit the nail on the head. Souray is a defensive liability in our end. He is slow and awkward ans has been on the ice for alot of 5 on 5 goals. Wht do we play him on the PK? He is fantastic on the PP but he plays too much at even strength and the play late in close games. Will Carbo start to re-allocate the ice time based on situation instead of reputation. For all you Dandy trashers, this guy plays strong defensive hockey, eats up minutes and keeps his mouth shut and is well respected by his teammates. He will be missed. He never gets any PP time for some reason and without it you can’t get points. Last he was #2 +/- defensman and played 82 games and was once of the best players in the playoffs. This coaching staff heeds to be less rigid in theri pairings and ice allocation. What has Markov done this year?

as far as I’m cocerned, we have no defence. Souray? pathetic! Maybe he can shoot the puck from the blueline, and score some goals from there, but that’s about it. he is a total liability on defence. also he’s very, very slow. The only thing he’s great at, is giving up the puck to the opposition. he keeps costing us goals as a result of bad giveaways. Maybe he’s colorblind, because he thinks the opposition’s jersey is red too! also, we don’t have a 2nd line. Carbo needs to shake up the lines; we can’t have only 1 line scoring, and the other lines doing nothing. For the most part, kovalev and Samsonov are invisible. Put Latendresse on the 2nd line, and move Samsonov to the 3rd line. I have a bad feeling in my gut, that tells me Samsonov will be last year’s version of BONK! in other words, 0 GOALS! I can’t see him scoring goals; he just doesn’t seem to fit in. Why is that?I read where Nedved and perreault(centers), are still available. Go for it! Plekanec doesn’t have the talent to score goals, and he shouldn’t be on the 2nd line. Go get Nedved or Perreault for that line. Move Plekanec to the 3rd line, with Johnson and Samsonov. I think this will be a long year defensively for us! Also, WE ARE TAKING WAY TOO MANY PENALTIES! We are spending half the game in the penalty box. That can’t continue! It shows a lack of DISCIPLINE! It’s the coach’s fault. They must teach the players control and restraint. If we were better defensively, these lapses in judgement would never happen! MAKE CHANGES! or suffer the consequences!

True. Pick your poison. Rivet is no better or worse than Souray. and let’s not forget Streit! Oh my God! Collectively, they’re like swiss cheese! So many holes. And all the penalties? I think Ketchup flows out of the bottle faster than Souray can skate! Pathetic!

Wow, after ONE regulatoin loss it seems as though everybody with the ecxeption of fan 3 is pounding on the big red button the says PANIC.

So our defence is bad? Chicago scored 2 goals?? Big freakin deal, and the second one was a Ninnamaa giveaway. Rivet and Souray have outplayed Markov to this point and everyone slags on Rivet just because Stillman’s series winner went off of his stick. Rivet is the second best leader on this team and just as good as Jason Smith, Steve Staios, Willie Mitchell, an overated and overpayed Jay McKee and Mattias Norstrom. Is he the most talented guy? no. But guess what. The 70′s are over folks. The Habs will NEVER have a team completely stacked with skill guys. The Oilers showed how far you get with a lot of grit and heart guys, Rivet is that guy.

As for Souray, he’s just as good as Brad Stuart, Lubamir Vishnovski, Sergei Gonchar or John-Micheal Liles. He does have defensive lapses but so what? Everyone does. Would you rather have Philly’s defence??

The way the Bulin Wall was playing last night the Habs wouldn’t have one anyway. And Andrei Markov has been their worst defenceman so far.

And Gainey is not going to make any Panic trades when his team has gotten points in 5 of their six games and are sitting fourth in the conference. Souray isn’t going anywhere till at least the trade deadline and that’s only if the Habs are out of it, Rivet is almost guarranteed to get re-signed because Carbonneau and Gainey have shown that, with Downey, Begin and Murray, they’re going to keep their meat and potatoes players.

And with Downey out, he’s even considering retirement apparently, Latendresse is stapled to the fourth line. The only players the might consider switching are Sammy and Perezhogin. Plekanec isn’t used to playing on the second line yet and needs time to adapt, not everyone is a Chris Higgins who can just turn it on when put with talented line mates and I still believ and always will the Kovalev is heartless and needs to go.

Abby is now the #1 guy.

Souray, Rivet and Streit???? What about Markov’s imitation of Breeze-by on Havlat’s goal in the first two minutes of the game? Was he tired already or did he just plain forget that the game was, in fact, ongoing? Optomism aside; the Hab’s defence is plain, god awful! I never really appreciated how important Bouillon was to this team’s defence last year. Oh well, at least having Brisebois back in town on Saturday will remind us about how bad things can possibly get. We better hope that Dandenault and Bouillon have a speedy recovery.

Pactum I could not have said it better….relax people take a bloody pill and get over the short comings of this team. Trust me when I tell you that they are like the other 29 teams in the league….they all have some weaknesses and even if the Habs have a great season they could still lose 25-30 games this year. ****…one loss and you would think that the world is falling apart. Get over it!

I for one, am really happy to the start of this season. I have to agree that our defence is suspect, but we are killing penaties and in the stats, anyway, we are among the leauges best defensively.

Some other thoughts……

Habs fans were screaming for Bob to make some deals for this year…and everyone was thrilled with the pick-up of Samsonov.I was not one of those people…I had a feeling he would be a bust…the only hope was that he and kovy would click…….has not happened. I would trade kovy and sammy for a big center and a good defenceman, but I am not a GM…and Bob rules…I have faith..he will not panick, nor has the need to this early…we have some cap space..we have a good solid team so far….maybe Philly is willing to strike a deal soon!!

I am a die hard Habs fan and some of these posts start to sound like leaf fans…want results now by the supposed “big trade”. I think you have to build a team…in todays NHL the days of winning 4-5 cups in a row is gone, never gonna happen again..get use to it and enjoy the best team we have had in a number of years

Kevin Lowe tried hard to resign Samsonov. The morning he was too sign the dotted line with the Habs, the oilers made one last push offering a three year deal close to 3.5 per. ALso the oilers had absolute no interest in Sykora who in all fairness did struggle the last two NHL seasons but after losing Sammy Lowe felt they had to add a top 2 line player although did not want to give Sykora close to what he received. Kevin Lowe was also quoted saying he was upset Sammy left cause he was told my his agent when first being traded that he woud give the oil the first chance to resign him. Although you may have a good point abou this play so far you must at least give correct facts for anyone to respect your opinion.