Tomas Plekanec - Bigger, Stronger, Faster

Seeing as how I'm fairly new to the blog scene I doubt a lot of you know I'm a prediction nut. I love making predictions on the team, players, anything to do with the sport. This year is Tomas Plekanec's year and I think you can take that to the bank and cash it. Since the first preseason game I saw him in I could tell something about Tomas was different. Sure it's the preseason and it isn't a fair time to evaluate given the opponents he's been facing. But out there I see a Tomas Plekanec who worked hard over the summer, a Plekanec who took training very seriously and it shows and I believe it will pay off.

My prediction is that Tomas breaks the 80 point mark this year. I think he has all the tools to put up 25 goals and 55 assists. He seems like the best Plekanec I've ever seen out there and yes I've seen him play in the preseason before but something about this year is different. It isn't how he makes opponents look silly that makes me feel this way, it's the way he skates, it's the decisions he makes, it's his puck possession skills. Everything that makes up a quality player this guy has aside from being a physical nightmare to play against but he does a pretty good job of being tough to play against anyways.

Here are Tomas stats for the last four seasons:

2006-07	Montreal Canadiens	NHL	81	20	27	47
2007-08	Montreal Canadiens	NHL	81	29	40	69
2008-09	Montreal Canadiens	NHL	80	20	19	39
2009-10	Montreal Canadiens	NHL	82	25	45	70

We all remember the season he had in 2008-09 but lets face it the Plekanec we saw that season definitely wasn't the Plekanec we all have come to love today. He wasn't playing with that spark in his game that year, something was definitely off. I know everyone that year was calling for a trade, even I'll be the first to admit I wasn't very happy with Tomas performance, even though he did score 20 goals regardless.

He averages approximately 25 goals a season so I don't think the 25 goal mark is too far fetched. He's averaged approximately 33 assists per season in his last 4 seasons. Take out the bad year and it's more like 37. We already know he's hit the 45 assist mark though. Taking that fluke bad season into account, the fact that he will have more chemistry with line mate Mike Cammelleri to start the season, I think he'll do better than usual if he remains healthy (Another thing he's great at doing). Once you add in the fact that he's the best we've ever seen him and the fact that we have more depth to plug the holes of our top six, it's all pretty understandable why I feel this might be Tomas' year. If Cammalleri stays healthy the whole season too I believe we could be a wild card this year for the division and honestly we could possibly have an offense that is a nightmare to play against in the coming weeks, once all the kinks are worked out and we have our line up fully in tact.

For a guy who not long ago many people wanted to run out of town, he's quickly become a fan favorite and a beast on our team. I don't think I have to say anything here with regard to my Price article, I think anyone who got this far into my blog probably has the intelligence to put two and two together. We're on the verge of being serious contenders and Plekanec is largely part of the reason why.

Carey Price

After last night we all know the pessimists now have their bread and butter. Price didn't do too well in a preseason game. It's the end of the world as we know it. All kidding aside I'd just like to start by saying that I've been a long time Halak fan since day one. That isn't to say I don't like Price but I've always loved Jaro Halak. The point is though that Jaro is now a new member of the St. Louis Blues and Carey Price is still our goalie, I don't wish Halak anything but the best of luck but now that I know who our #1 goalie is I support him one-hundred percent and I believe the rest of the fans should be the same.

Look I know some people out there are bitter about Halak being traded because I wasn't too happy with it either. But on the plus side we got some pretty nice pieces out of the trade and Price will now get time to develop into the goalie he is supposed to be. How can we expect him to develop if people are just going to give up on the kid after a couple soft or bad goals though? People don't realize just how young he is, just how quickly he was brought up. Players take time to develop and we can't drive Carey out of town, plus how can we expect him to succeed and have confidence if the first moment he makes a mistake we all show no confidence in him ourselves?

He's very mature for his age despite what hear say will tell you and he's come to compete. Nobody who dedicated their entire life into being a top goalie just decides all of the sudden 20 years in that they aren't going to try. It's a matter of confidence and giving him sarcastic claps and cheers when he makes an easy save as a result of letting in a softy in a preseason game, that isn't going to help Price or the team. I know a lot of you out there may disagree with me here but one thing we can both agree on is that we all love the habs, and if you're reading this blog and you don't I appreciate the interest but I have to say it confuses me a little bit. Point though being: if you're a fan of the team, show the teams number one goaltender a bit more respect and give him time to work out his game. No amount of booing or sarcastic cheering is going to help Carey gain more confidence. We as a fan base need to be behind Carey one-hundred percent whether or not we like the Halak trade, whether or not we even like Carey. Why because he's our teams number one goalie and I don't care if that goalie is Alex Auld, Rick Dipietro or Carey Price, whether he's playing amazing or poorly, he deserves to be treated with respect and no amount of booing is going to make him play better or fix his confidence.

I'm sure to the people who read my blog, being that I'm an optimist I'm probably preaching to the choir, but it needs to be said and even if Carey himself doesn't know it there's at least one fan out there who, like the Halak trade or not still supports him and believes he has the tools to be the number one goalie on our team our organization feels he can be. Lastly I'd like to address how this lack of respect for Carey is simply petty and disrespectful not only to him but our great organization. Sometimes you have to be a little more trusting and though I do believe our organization has made a few mistakes in the past so has every organization even Detroit. Gauthier isn't put in place to ruin our team, he has pure intentions and wants us to succeed, he and the rest of our organization believe in and are behind Price one-hundred percent. If you consider yourself a true fan of the Canadiens then you should not be booing Carey Price plain and simple. It isn't due to lack of effort or because he doesn't care, it's because he needs our support and we aren't giving him any.

My Story

My story is that I'm a "diehard" Habs fan from Montreal. Simply put for the longest time I've been an HF poster who now decided why not make a blog. We all have our opinions on the Habs, some of us are optimists and others are pessimistic. I consider myself an optimist and I feel we have something special on our team, a certain "je ne sais quoi". This blog is my perspective on the current Montreal Canadiens and their prospects.

From a young age my dad introduced me to hockey, whether it was playing hockey on the street, watching it in the evening or idolizing guys like Kirk Muller and Vincent Damphousse. They were always my guys and they still are today. There's something special about this sport and something even more special about this organization. From 1993 on I knew what it was like to see the glory of my team winning and it gave me a thirst for victory like no other. Since 1993 as you all know that thirst has never quite been satisfied that is up until recently. We all got a taste recently, enough to quench the thirst but not for long.

That all having been said I didn't feel there were enough quality English Habs bloggers out there and I figured I'd give it a shot and try to be one. I came to the conclusion that I should start a blog when I realized through a thread on HF that there really are tons of quality French bloggers and journalists but very few English ones on the subject. In Quebec that's quite understandable and though I may not have too big a following as a result I figure if I can open a few peoples minds why not give it a shot. Like I said I'm an optimist and I try to give other people reasons to be optimistic about our team as well, but I'll get to that in my next post.

There is no sport quite like hockey, no team quite like the Canadiens in all of sports. What better way to spend your time then blogging about how great it is to be a fan in this day in age. A new era is born, the Neo Habs Generation has begun.