Morning. We're back after three barely-merited days of blogging R and R, and boy are we thrilled about it.
It's a good job you can't copyright ideas, because our friend Francois Gagnon had a good one over the weekend and wrote about it in today's La Presse - those of you who read French will find it here.
So allow us to pilfer the idea shamelessly and add our own spin - er, shrewd analysis.
Our Frankie posits that the Habs have, in the local argot, two measures for two identical weights in their evaluations of Andrei Kostitsyn and Guillaume Latendresse, who have comparable goal-scoring statistics in a comparable number of games (Kostitsyn has 53 in 200, Tender has 48 in 223).
Now, the French Immersion braintrust happened to be around for the spirited discussion that led to this - with RDS's junior hockey maven Stephane Leroux - and it's an interesting question that even our feeble minds have considered.
It flows from the strongly-held belief among some quarters of the Montreal media that Quebec-born players aren't getting a fair shake with the Habs.
That's not a point that's made explicitly in Gagnon's story, and he raises an important question: why is Kostitsyn, who has looked like a canine on skates for the better part of 14 months, getting loadsa power-play time and first and second-line time while Latendresse invariably finds himself moved onto a unit with the grinders after a one or two-game audition with the scorers?
Some will say skill level - Kostitsyn is unmistakably a better skater and a more inventive puck-handler, his wrist shot is the best on the team (it's slightly harder than Carey Price's, who, rather weirdly, can absolutely wire the puck. Honest. We've seen it.)
But Latendresse has better hands overall, a more accurate slapshot, better awareness and can be a monster in the corners. He also goes to the front of the net, which Kostitsyn rarely does. Neither is especially consistent, but Latendresse's effort level is dependably higher and he lays the body more.
So here's our two cents' worth.
It's not so much a bias against French-speaking or QMJHL-trained players or one in favour of swifter skaters or potential goal scorers.
Nope, we reckon it's a hierarchy of hockey thing: Kostitsyn is a first-round pick, Latendresse is a second-rounder, the financial commitment in the Belarusian is thus heftier.
And number one picks automatically have more rope - as the Carey haters often point out.
Our experts have crunched the numbers, evaluated the psychology, and read the entrails of a sacrificial chicken (mmmm, Romados grilled chicken), and they arrived at the following conclusion: what if it were also partly a question of the Habs refusing to admit they may have gotten it wrong drafting Kostitsyn 10th overall in 2004, preferring him to, among others: Ryan Getzlaf, Mike Richards, Jeff Carter, Zach Parise, and Brent Seabrook. How good would one of those guys look in the Sainte Flanelle right about now? Not that it's particularly useful to look at drafts in this way, it's always a crapshoot, people.
Then there's the small matter, given the way hockey people think, of the fear that if Kostitsyn were shipped out he would immediately score 40 goals for his new team. Which is probably what would happen.
We also think that Kostitsyn's hockey tools are seductive to coaches, who all seem to believe they can tease out his best on a nightly basis.
To this point, four have failed. And while we have faith in Jacques Martin's teaching ability, Kostitsyn may be beyond his ken - he's now been on the fourth line for long swaths of two games.
And maybe Latendresse's issue is that he's too nice (and he is, genuinely, a lovely guy) and not bloody-minded enough to play the role asked of him. Or maybe his skating really is a problem.
The beauty of pop psychology is that it's always wrong, unless you're the one practising it, as we have done rather unconvincingly for years.
Either way, one of these two guys is going to have to start producing and establish themselves as a top-six forward if the Habs ever want to win a regulation game again.
We close with a cheery thought for all you Habs fans: they are now 7-7-0 after Saturday's needless cliffhanger against the last-place Leaves.
That means for them to equal last year's 93 point total and squeak into the playoffs, they need 79 points from 68 games (35-24-9 ought to do it) - hint to anyone who thinks those mythical four straight wins in February last year saved the season: it was the 11-3-2 start that saved the season.
So. Think they can make it? Without Markov? It'll be tight, but we say yes.
(Oh, and contrary to Mondays past, we won't be talking about the weekend's CIS games in Quebec, the glorious McGill Redmen definitively having been eliminated from post-season contention after a narrow 50-0 loss to Laval. Black armbands all round.)
