Be Glad We are not the Leafs

This morning I think we should be happy that we are not the Leafs and that we are not being managed by JFJ. When we look at the Leafs minor league team, the Marlies, you don't see many players who look like they will ever make it up to the big leagues and have productive careers. The one guy who might do something is Justin Pogge, but his hype has dropped off since his world junior accolaides.

When we look at the Bulldogs, and I live in Kitchener so I have seen a number of Bulldog games, we have lots of good young talent. Look at our lineup on Thursday night, we had five of our home grown First round picks in the line up.

When we look at our potential stars in the making, we can include the likes of Sergie K., who likes like he will likely be better than his older brother Andrei. Who else do we have?

Ryan O'Byrne
JP Cote
Pavel Valentenko
Corey Locke
Janne Lahti
Maxim Lapierre
Matt D'Agostini
Jonathan Ferland
Duncan Milroy

I am not saying that all these guys are going to make it big in the NHL, but what if 1 out of 3 make it to have successful NHL careers? That gives the Habs a wealth of talent to pull from and a lot of opportunities to trade some of there young talent to pick up that final piece of the puzzle.

The Leafs have traded away all of their draft picks in the past so that they now have for the most part, and team of old men, and a farm system that has been depleted from years of abuse, and no cups to show for it.

Times are looking good for the Canadiens, but the Leafs appear to be heading into another 40 years of cuplessness.

Samsonov, Going, Going.....

The word on the street is that Gainey is about to continue his offseason tune up by buying out the contract of unhappy, non-productive Sergei Samsonov. This should cost the Canadiens 1.2million for the next two seasons.

The most important part of this buyout should be to remove the bad attitude which can be contageous. The other thing it does is ensures an open roster spot for some of those up and coming Bulldogs like Kostitsyn, Chipchura, or possibly Grabovski.

I am really looking forward to seeing who is going to move up from the Bulldogs to replace some of the open roster spots.

The Price is Right Bob!

Last night I had the pleasure of going to the Bulldogs game in which they took a commanding lead on the Calder Cup finals with a 3 games to 1 advantage. The entire team impressed me. However, there was one player inparticular that really caught my attention.

Carey Price the 19 year old who still played in the WHL this season looked like a seasoned veteran. The amount of confidence this guy shows reminded me of the good old days with Patrick Roy guarding the net. Price also showed how calm he was and had to do very little acrobatic saves because his positioning was sound and he as always right in the right place to make the stop.

I do not suggest that Carbo and crew should be rushing this kid up to the NHL but Habs fans you can be certain that this guy is the real deal. Hopefully he gets another year or two to mature in the AHL before he gets bumped up to the big club. We would not want to rush him and cause a similar fate for him as Marc Andre Fleury faced. However, when the time is right, you can be sure that Price is for real and that he is going to be an elite goaltender in the NHL.

Expect to see Price bringing home the playoff MVP when the Bulldogs bring home the Calder.

As for Bob Gainey and his decision to draft this guy, well done, and we can't wait to see the full potential of Price.