Canadiens sign Michigan’s Pacioretty: Is another move coming?
The big news in HabsLand the last 24 hours has been the signing of Max Pacioretty, the 6′2, 199 power forward who stole the show at the Canadiens development camp.
Pacioretty was chosen with the 1st round pick in 2007 acquired from the San Jose Sharks along with Josh Gorges for Craig Rivet (by the way, haters of the trade back then have surely changed their tune, don’t you think?). While common sense dictates he will probably start the season in Hamilton, I don’t buy that. I think there is another move coming. The person who could be moved? The once-untouchable Chris Higgins.
Not only was he mentioned in trade offers to San Jose (for Marleau), Atlanta (for Hossa) and Toronto (for Sundin), but Higgins has the most value of anyone the Canadiens have shopped around.
Now, Pacioretty might have a bad camp, and this point would be moot, but if he has a good camp (a la Guillaume Latendresse) I don’t think the Canadiens would hesitate to put him in the lineup. They’ve only been looking for a big, powerful winger for… oh, I don’t know how many years.
The signing is a built-in Plan C (he is a cheap replacement for an aging Shanahan) should the Canadiens fail to lure Sundin. He also makes Higgins expendable to bring in a centre.
I don’t think Higgins will be dealt no matter what - I don’t think a move will be made until the team is either positive Sundin isn’t coming or they really think Pacioretty can crack the lineup - but this is an intriguing move considering the Canadiens recent history with college players. Higgins himself and Mike Komisarek all played in college for two years, Ryan McDonagh is going into his second year, David Fischer is going into his third year. Pacioretty only played one year at the college level before turning pro.
It really only increases the competition for roster spots. Guillaume Latendresse could be supplanted by Pacioretty, same thing for Matt D’Agostini and to a lesser extent Gregory Stewart (only because Stewart is more 4th line player grit and less scoring than D’Agostini).
And, about Sundin - can you believe the contrasting styles between Vancouver’s Mike Gillis and Montreal’s Bob Gainey? Gillis has admitted making the 2-year, $10 million offer, and recently said that he hopes the Olympics in 2010 can lure Sundin to Vancouver. Gainey has not even talked about Sundin except when he acquired his rights and there has not really been any rumour on what kind of offer was made.
Why is this? I think that Gainey respects Sundin and is just waiting it out. The Canadiens are in the best position out of the teams rumoured to be after Sundin (Vancouver and Toronto).
Vancouver lost Brendan Morrison and Markus Naslund, and while they got Pavol Demitra, they need to bring in more scoring to a team that has the best goaltender in the NHL, but reminds people of the 2000-2006 Canadiens in that they can’t score and rely on their goaltender. They can’t really afford to wait on Sundin which is why they are in talks for New Jersey’s Brian Gionta.
Toronto is in a similar position to Montreal. They are fine with or without Sundin. If they bring him back, that’s great. They’ll have a mentor to teach their young players. If he goes, they will have playing time for the younger players. They aren’t going to contend with or without him, and they are perfectly fine without him - they won’t need to make another move.
But, Montreal is a contender. They have a team set up that was the leading scoring team in the league last year, and actually added a top-line player in Alex Tanguay (while their losses were minimal when it comes to scoring.) Sundin would be gravy. Although, the Canadiens do have a hole at center if they try to have three scoring lines, they have other options that they can take care of after the season begins via trade. They aren’t desperate. Really, it’s Sundin or nothing at this point for the Canadiens. They have Pacioretty into the fold and can afford to wait through training camp to see if anyone steps up. If not, they can pull the trigger on a trade early in the season or at the deadline to load up for the playoffs.
For those who say that the Canadiens could wait for Sundin until December, I don’t think so. Sundin said last year that he wants to be with a team from the start of the season. If he doesn’t sign by September, he will not play this season. Otherwise he would be a huge hypocrite.
Rob mentioned that Bouillon was on the hot seat. I actually agree with that. Guys like Hamrlik and Gorges are safe because, among other things, they have the ability to make a great first pass. Bouillon isn’t great at that, and if the Habs could supplant Bouillon with a bigger guy who does similar things, they really have no reason to do so. Bouillon is more or less an even-strength fifth/sixth defenceman. He was one of Montreal’s best defencemen, but their defence has improved since he was playing with Patrice Brisebois version 1.0 and Sheldon Souray in the early part of this decade. We assume he has a spot, but he would also be a perfect guy to be a 7th defenceman and switch in and out with someone else. He seems like a team player, and someone who (like Brisebois last year) would understand his role.
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on Friday, July 18th, 2008 at 6:43 am and is filed under Komisarek, Brisebois, Max Pacioretty, Hamrlik, Gorges, Higgins, Latendresse, Bouillon, Brendan Shanahan.
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21 Responses to “Canadiens sign Michigan’s Pacioretty: Is another move coming?”
July 18th, 2008 at 12:17 pm
another great article. I agree with most of it but not Bouillion. If anyone needs to go its Dandenault. He’s an extra body where Cube actually fits with Gorges. He doesn’t need to make a great first pass anymore just a good one, considering how skilled our forwards are at picking pucks up in the neutral zone. Pacioretty is a very interresting singning, we could see him on our third line with Maxime centering(i can see the posters now(To the max, max squared, give max a million, etc..) or even with Saku mentoring or as you said a year in Hamilton. I can’t see Higgins going anywhere considering how Gainey has held on to him despite all the offers in the past. Marleau in my opinion is a slightly older Higgins so why make that deal? Marleau adds leadership, true, but Higgins will grow into that role, in fact, he’s already a good leader on the team and his skill is only getting better. You’re right though, we do need a center, a power center, a good faceoff man that can pass well and score thirty goals..umm. Sundin is one of the only of his kind left. But Sundin isn’t the only option, i still have a lot of faith in our farm system and the lure some our prospects hold. we could see a guy like Valentenko traded or Subban. Ryan White i hope to see in a Habs jersey some time next season if he can stay healthy but many others could go to help bolster other teams AHL affiliates and bring us a much needed centerman. I like every player on our team right now except Dandenault, which is something i haven’t been able to say in too many years. Gainey needs to dump Dandy on a team like LA for a second round draft pick which considering LA’s potential should be high next year. Also Boullion knocked out Tucker. That’s got to bode well for him.
July 18th, 2008 at 9:22 pm
LOL, you’re getting way ahead of yourself with Pacioretty. He will spend most of this season in the AHL, and be a third or fourth liner for a year or two in Montreal after that. No disrespect to Max, but he isn’t a top offensive forward. He doesn’t have the skill level of Chris Higgins, nor will he ever. He projects as a solid up and down winger who will complement a couple of scorers on a top two line. Much like the role he filled at Michigan, riding shotgun for Kevin Porter and Chad Kolarik. I doubt that he matches Latendresse offensively, much less makes him expendable. Be happy with what you have, don’t put up unrealistic expectations then be disappointed when they are not met.
July 19th, 2008 at 1:37 am
The scouts, coaches and managers in the Montreal orginization consider Pacioretty the next big thing so what makes us think he isn’t. They certainly know more than any of us so in them i trust. Max may turn out to be a bust, who knows, but one things for sure he’s already better than Latendresse, the laziest player ever to suit for the Habs. Pacioretty was much more than a complememnt to other scorers, in fact, his own coach spoke embarrassingly high of him in the articles i read, saying he’s the gel of that line, his passing, positional play, defensive mindedness, are all top notch. He plays the powerplay, penalty kill, crashes the net, moves the puck fast and effectively, has impecale vision etc. etc.. these are his coaches words not mine. We may be jumping the gun a bit with the kid but lets wait and see what he can do before we put in the Latendresse boat, which is sinking fast from all the big macs he scarfs down in the off season.
July 19th, 2008 at 1:41 am
p.s Rob it’s funny i’ve never heard of Kevin Porter or Chad Polarik, where they drafted and if so where?
July 19th, 2008 at 1:28 pm
Kevin Porter won the Hobey Bakey Award as the best player in the NCAA last season. Chad Kolarik, his long time (7 years) friend and linemate, wasn’t far behind. Pacioretty was an important part of the line as a physical and defensive presence, but you or I could have played with those two and scored 30 points for the season.
Max is what he is, a solid up and down two way winger with second line upside, but he will never be a big scorer in the NHL. I have no problem saying that Latendresse and Higgins will score more points that he does for the next few years at least.
July 19th, 2008 at 1:29 pm
…..Porter and Kolarik were both drafted by the Coyotes and will likely be playing in the AHL next season, although Porter has a decent chance of opening the season in Phoenix.
July 19th, 2008 at 1:35 pm
thank you for the info on Porter and Kolarik, but explain to me how Pacioretty finished fifth in NCAA in scoring with 15 goals and 24 assits in 39 games as a defensive presence.
July 19th, 2008 at 1:36 pm
Rob-i do agree Pacioretty will likely play at least one year in Hamilton before he’s physically capable of playing an 82 game scedule.
July 19th, 2008 at 2:44 pm
Yo guys, been a while. I have to agree with Rob on this one (and parts of what Jeff has to say). It’s way too premature to be thinking Pacioretty will be a Hab next year. And Higgins is indeed way too valuable to the Habs to be considered trade bait. He may not be consistent, but there are some nights that he’s simply unstoppable. Hopefully he’ll be able to string a few of those together in the future. BTW, Jared, where’d you hear about this Gionta rumour?
July 19th, 2008 at 8:49 pm
Pacioretty never finished 5th in NCAA scoring. Fifth on his own team maybe.
July 19th, 2008 at 8:56 pm
LOL, the player Montreal acquired from the Leafs in the deal for Grabovski, Greg Pateryn, was originally supposed to enroll at Michigan next season. But the Wolverines moved him up a year, and the player whose place he takes in their lineup….Max Pacioretty. Not that he wouldn’t have been on the team if Max stayed, but it did put them one player over the rostor limit.
Pateryn will be an even bigger find than Pacioretty in my books. The kid is the size of Mike Komisarek when Komo came to Michigan, and has better hands.
July 19th, 2008 at 11:31 pm
yes, fifth, actually fourth, in team scoring. not league scoring. my point is he was much more than a defensive complement to his linemates putting up numbers like that, and only improving ten fold as the days go by according to Gainey. Pateryn is another gem the Leafs let slip from thier grasp. Big and offensive, just what the Habs need.
July 20th, 2008 at 8:45 am
Wow. I leave you guys for a couple of days, and suddenly there are 12 comments. I love this!
Anyway, I’m not saying that Pacioretty will be amazing right away, and odds are he will start the year in Hamilton. But, it seems like the comparisons are there with another young Canadien who made his professional debut last year and was thought to be riding the coattails of his two much better linemates in Junior, but was called up midway through the season and performed brilliantly. Of course that would be Sergei Kostitsyn. Like I said, a lot of it depends how Pacioretty performs in the big boy camp and in Hamilton at the beginning of the season.
As for Higgins being too valuable to trade, I see that. But, you have to give up something to get something of value, and Higgins is probably the best player the team would even *consider* trading. If you look at anyone on the team (of value, especially in the top-8 forwards), Higgins has the most value if we could get something back for him.
He would have been traded to Toronto had Sundin accepted to waive his no-trade clause (according to reports), so he’s not as untouchable as we may think.
Ryan- The Gionta-for-Bieksa rumours have been around since I think last offseason and have started again recently. I don’t think a deal will get done until Sundin makes a decision, if at all.
I really like Pateryn. Especially since we got him AND a 2nd round pick for Grabovski who was probably set for a year in Hamilton this year anyway. Another shrewd move.
Maybe people will finally stop criticizing Gainey, Timmins and co. for drafting American college players. We haven’t been burned yet, and we’ve got most of our talent from that pool.
July 20th, 2008 at 8:49 am
Oh, and yeah, perhaps I was getting ahead of myself, but when it’s the offseason and not much else is happening, your imagination starts running a little wild. Guilty as charged.
July 20th, 2008 at 9:54 am
Oh, I thought you were talking about the Habs getting Gionta, and I was like “why would the Habs want a one-year wonder with such a high salary?” If it’s Vancouver, it totally makes sense. *snicker*
July 20th, 2008 at 11:29 am
Time will tell, obviously, but I think that the Habs two best prospects from the last draft may be the fifth rounders, Pateryn and Maxim Trunev. They certainly appear to have the most upside. Trunev had virtually identical scoring totals to Nikita Filatov last season in the Russian 3 league, plus he is younger and bigger. Hard to understand why Filatov went #6 overall, and Trunev #138.
July 20th, 2008 at 1:02 pm
Part of the reason is probably because it was almost a dead certainty that Filatov would come over and play in the NHL. That’s what he apparently was vocal about in his team interviews prior to the draft. Also, Trunev is also younger, almost in the next draft class, and may not be as emotionally mature as Filatov (pure speculation though).
July 21st, 2008 at 6:17 pm
I think a lot of the reason that Trunev hasn’t had the same publicity as some of the other Russians is due to the fact that he wasn’t on the U18 team. He was originally listed on the team that came over for the Junior A Challenge in November, but didn’t make the trip for some reason. Perhaps he was hurt, or perhaps they wanted more balance in the lineup and he was too much of a pure offensive player. He wasn’t named for the World Championship team, either, and I don’t know the reasons.
Central Scouting and most NHL teams don’t have a big contingent of scouts in Russia, so they depend a lot on what they see of the players in international tournaments. But I think you can use the examples of Canada and the U.S. to see that many of the best pro prospects from a given year don’t play on the U18 team. This year Danny Kristo was the top drafted player off the U18 team, but there were about 10 other American kids taken ahead of him.
July 21st, 2008 at 6:28 pm
As for the likelyhood of them coming over, at this point in time it actually seems more probable that Trunev will show up than Filatov this coming season. Filatov is caught up in the international agreement squabble between the NHL and the Russian leagues. Trunev, so far as I’m aware is not affected by it, and according to Portland coach Richard Kromm, Max expressed a desire to play in the WHL from the first time he came to North America two years ago. He has been here for two Mac’s Midget Tournaments as well as to attend the Okanagan Hockey School where Kromm works as an instructor during the summer. He is not fluent in English like Filatov, but he comes from a fairly large city in Russian, and has at least some idea of what awaits him in North America. Several other Russian players were taken in the CHL import draft and could be playing in the WHL next season. One of his highly regarded Severstal junior teammates from last season was drafted by Tri Cities, which is not TOO far from Portland. They may even arrange a trade to reunite the two if they are having problems adapting.
July 23rd, 2008 at 6:40 am
Dude, I think you answered your own question ; ).
Umm, despite filatov being embroiled in this Radulov-caused scandal, the fact remains that he was very vocal about wanting to come over to America. Whether or not his desires come to fruition this season are anybody’s guess at this point, but he still will at some point. As for Trunev, because of his lack of (media or otherwise) exposure, I think he is still more of a question mark.
Still, I appreciate the research you did… or just sheer knowledge you have of the Russian international hockey program. You’re not a spy, are you?
August 2nd, 2008 at 8:50 pm
Little update on Trunev, he was interviewed by Hockey’s Future, and mentioned that he had a two year contract with Severstal Cherepovets. It sounded like he would probably remain in Russia for the next two seasons. Greg Pateryn was a late addition to the Team USA World Junior evaluation camp. He wasn’t included in the first list of invites, so I guess someone got hurt or they heard he was impressive in the development camp. Gives the Habs three prospects for the U.S. team in McDonagh, Kristo, and Pateryn. Nicholas Torp will play for Team Sweden in the mini tournament they hold at the camp, with two U.S. teams, Sweden and Finland.
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