How far the Habs have fallen
by Jack Todd, The Gazette
February 23rd, 1978 – Steve Shutt scored four goals and Guy Lafleur added four assists as the Habs extended their team-record undefeated streak to 28 straight (23-0-5) with a 5-1 win over the Cleveland Barons.
That little item on the lower-right corner of last Thursday’s Scoreboard page caught my eye, like a message beamed from another, unimaginable world. Twenty-eight straight games without a loss. A four-goal game for Shutt, four assists for Lafleur.
In that 28-game stretch alone, those Habs had one fewer win than this year’s Canadiens (24-38 going into Sunday’s game in Florida) had in 62 games.
The Canadiens had a total of 10 regular-season losses in 1977-78. The previous season, of course, the Canadiens set an NHL record by losing only eight times in 80 games. Eighteen losses in two seasons. Add three losses in the playoffs in 1978 and two in 1977 and you have a total of 23 losses over two complete seasons.
What a far cry from this year’s Habs, who are so bad that team president Geoff Molson had to take to Twitter Sunday to deny rumours that he had finally had the supreme good sense to fire his clownishly inept GM: “Rumours of Pierre Gauthier’s firing are false,” Molson tweeted.
More’s the pity, especially with a critical trade deadline looming Monday and the Ghost still calling the shots.
How far we’ve come from that 28-game undefeated streak – straight downhill, for the most part. Of course, the popular wisdom is that such domination is impossible in today’s NHL. But the Detroit Red Wings 23-game home winning streak (which the Canucks put the boot to last week) argues that it is still possible to build (or rebuild) a dynasty.
In the past two decades, the Red Wings have had only one full season (1996-97) with fewer than 40 wins – and they won the Stanley Cup that season, one of four championships during this stretch. The Wings have won at least 50 games six times in that stretch and 62 once, in 1995-96.
That is the goal: Consistent excellence, year after year. Just as teams once aspired to be like the Habs, now it’s time for the Canadiens to aspire to be like the Red Wings. What happens between now and the June 22 entry draft in Pittsburgh will shape the next decade and go a long way to determine whether the dynasty is rebuilt – or allowed to unravel for another 20 years.
The Canadiens can see this season as a disaster – or an opportunity. First, with the team near the bottom of the standings, it’s an opportunity to get a very high draft pick. At the top of everyone’s draft list are players who, when added to this team’s young core, could help the Canadiens get back into contention: Nail Yakupov, Mikhail Grigorenko, Ryan Murray, Filip Forsberg, Mathew Dumba.
Because everything this season has gone so terribly wrong, and because all the bad decisions emanate from the general manager’s office, where the Ghost operates in some sort of odd tandem with the Shadow (AKA Bob Gainey), there is no reason on earth why Molson shouldn’t wield a very large broom come season’s end, before people start saying that he should fire himself.
George Gillett Jr. may have been in it for the money, but he did a good job running this franchise – and Gillett would never, ever have put up with the mess that Molson has allowed this season.
Now Molson has to find a new GM and a new coach, because Randy Cunneyworth has shown that being unilingual is the least of his problems. Cunneyworth seems lost, like a man who has pressed all the buttons he knows how to push and still can’t figure out how to start this machine. Game after game, loss after loss, he still has Scott Gomez out there, taking minutes that should go to Lars Eller or Louis Leblanc, especially on the power play, doing that Gomez thing: skate like the wind from blue line to blue line, dish – and disappear.
Molson has to pick the right people, because the road back from this disastrous season is going to be long and difficult. But an NHL player poll says that Montreal still ranks fifth on the list of desirable destinations, despite Gauthier. There’s still a mystique about this team that even Gauthier has been unable to kill. The Canadiens have a good young nucleus, led by Max Pacioretty and Carey Price. Everyone else, including P.K. Subban, should be available going into Monday’s trade deadline.
Kick the tires on that 1984 Nash: So why is it that every time someone mentions Alex Ovechkin these days, it’s preceded by “what’s wrong with …” It’s getting to the point where the phrase is almost part of the guy’s name.
On the other hand, for the past month on TSN, it’s been all Rick Nash, 24/7, part of this ridiculous trade-deadline stuff – a whole lot of hot air leading up to absolutely nothing. They keep telling us that Nash is a great player, a dominating, franchise talent.
Oh, really? This year, even with the short-handed goal he scored against Pittsburgh Sunday, Nash has 21 goals and 22 assists and is a minus-23. OK, so he was never an Ovechkin (Nash had 79 points in his best year) but Nash has twice hit the 40-goal mark and he’ll be lucky to hit 25 this season.
So why don’t we hear “what’s wrong with …” every time Nash’s name is mentioned? Gee, it couldn’t be because Nash is Canadian and Ovechkin is Russian, ya think?
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