Nothing but trouble.

So the Sergei Kostitsyn saga continues.

After being assigned to the AHL before the NHL season began, Kostitsyn had a hissy fit and said he wanted a trade. Bob Gainey stepped in with an intervention and the younger Kostitsyn brother decided to go where he was told. He played five games for the Canadiens affiliate, the Hamilton Bulldogs.

Then he decided again this week that, nope he didn't want to play in Hamilton.

So he packed up his gear and went dark. Nobody could find the kid. The rumour mill had it that Kostitsyn was entertaining at least three offers from KHL clubs.

However TSN is reporting Bob Gainey had a second intervention last night, and Kostitsyn has rejoined the club.

Why?

Why keep forcing him back. He is clearly not dedicated to the team. It's a bad precedent to set. And with all the work the Canadiens have done to remove the tumultuous environment within the dressing room, this puts them many steps back.

Let. Him. Go. Who cares if he goes to the KHL? He's clearly not doing the Canadiens much good on the ice, if he's in the AHL. And his diva behaviour is a distraction the team does not need.
Last season, it was the Russian-Montreal mob... now it's fights and missing the bus.

Backstory from TSN.ca:

"A French-language MSN article posted Wednesday reports that a physical altercation between Montreal Canadiens players Scott Gomez and Sergei Kostitsyn during the preseason was a motivating factor that contributed to the younger Kostitsyn being assigned to the AHL's Hamilton Bulldogs.
The report, written by Mario Langlois, says that the incident took place just prior to Montreal's season-opening game in Toronto on Oct. 1, as the club was preparing to depart for a team-building excursion in Caledon, ON. Before leaving, the team went out for a night on the town and returned to Gomez's house. At some point in the evening, Gomez and Kostitsyn got into an altercation that was serious enough that other players had to jump in and separate them.
General manager Bob Gainey and head coach Jacques Martin were notified about it the next day and according to the report, Gainey didn't want another off-ice distraction like the many that the team dealt with last season. As a result, Kostitsyn was sent to the minors prior to the team's departure for Caledon.
Earlier last month, Kostitsyn missed a team bus during Montreal's preseason game in Quebec City. At one specific practice, the forward was blasted a couple of times by Martin for not paying attention."

Geez where do I even start.

I want to start with the aftermath of the Free Agent Frenzy, but instead I need to talk about the Team Canada summer selection camp. Can someone tell me why I am talking about this. This is one of those things that get announced and you're supposed to go "yah...makes sense".... especially after the 2006 squad that was.... not a good squad. Com'n folks let's make some good life choices.

NO. MARC. SAVARD. you kidding me. arg.

Now this camp is not the end of the line. The final decisions are made before December. So Savard could still make a case for himself. But it just became that much harder. I'm not going to rant about this much longer since this is something i've ranted a few times about. I'm just going to point out that these are Marc Savard's stats for the past three years:


Year --- Team - GP - G - A - Pts

2006-07 BOS - 82 - 22 - 74 - 96
2007-08 BOS - 74 - 15 - 63 - 78
2008-09 BOS - 82 - 25 - 63 - 88


here's a rundown of the invitees:

Goalies: Martin Brodeur, Marc-André Fleury, Roberto Luongo, Steve Mason, Cam Ward

Defense: François Beauchemin, Jay Bouwmeester, Dan Boyle, Brent Burns, Drew Doughty, Mike Green, Dan Hamhuis, Duncan Keith, Scott Niedermayer, Dion Phaneuf, Chris Pronger, Robyn Regehr, Stéphane Robidas, Brent Seabrook, Marc Staal, Shea Weber

Forwards: Jeff Carter, Dan Cleary, Sidney Crosby, Shane Doan, Simon Gagné, Ryan Getzlaf, Dany Heatley, Jarome Iginla, Vincent Lecavalier, Milan Lucic, Patrick Marleau, Andy McDonald, Brenden Morrow, Rick Nash, Corey Perry, Mike Richards, Derek Roy, Joe Sakic, Patrick Sharp, Ryan Smyth, Martin St. Louis, Eric Staal, Jordan Staal, Joe Thornton, Jonathan Toews

Canadiens.

O.K. so from under-rated (Marc Savard) to completely over-rated (see: Scott Gomez, post rookie season). At first glance when I saw the trade that sent Chris Higgins packing for overpaid, underachiever Scott Gomez I was furious. But after seeing some of the other moves Gainey made i'm a bit less likely to call for his head.... maybe just a leg??

A few people have asked me what I thought would fix the Canadiens after such a dismal attempt at making a go of their 100th season.

My answer: get a new team.

Ok my answer included a lot more expletives but it was along that train... besides the point anyways.

Get a new team is actually kinda what Gainey did. Now i'm not forgiving the dumbness of sending Chris Higgins who seems to always score a clutch goals, but at least it seems he did the rest of the task correctly.

He just let people go. He cleaned house. Doesn't matter how much it hurts, just rip that band-aid off. He let Saku Koivu go, which is sad, but it needed to happen. But also: Alex Tanguay, Tom Kostopoulos, Mathieu Schneider, Mathieu Dandenault, Francis Bouillon and Patrice Brisebois.

If that's not starting the eff over, I don't know what is.

They also lost Mike Komisarek to the Toronto Maple Leafs. That's a bit concerning since he's going to a rival. But after last years playoff performance, i'm ok with it.

The Canadiens still have to sign Kovalev, but they did sign Mike Cammalleri and Brian Gionta to contracts. Both small players, but very fast and exciting.

Overall the moves on Canada Day are a win, i guess, maybe...

Well it's a definitely a win if you're comparing it to....

The poor poor Ottawa Senators with their whiny sniper Dany Heatley who's got the team handcuffed with his long contract and no-trade clause that he's choosing to invoke when convenient for him.

"I want a trade... but not that one"

I think if a player walks into the General Managers room and says "I want a trade", that should null and void his no-trade clause. They gave him that clause because Heatley was making a long-term committment to the Senators and was saying "i don't want to move, and i don't want to be a rental player at the end of a season when my contract is up".

Who will the Canadiens pick?

Probably someone stupid...

Okay, jokes aside, I'm intrigued to see who Bob Gainey will choose in this years draft. He seems to have a history of picking promising but flawed players. Carey Price is promising but he eats too many oreos... (and the team put too many expectations on him too early, causing him to eat even more oreos)

Then there's PK Subban, a very promising defenseman... if he could just learn that spinoramas at the d-line when you're last man back is a terrible, horrible, your-coach-has-an-aortic-aneurysm-and-throws-gatorade-at-your-face-during-intermission type thing.

TSN pundits have them picking either Louis Leblanc or Jordan Caron, both residents of the Montreal area. Which screams BAD IDEA!!! BAD IDEA!! to me. It seems every player that is the hometown boy and plays for montreal ends up having some sort of mental breakdown from the stress.

So who do I choose? Landon Ferraro.

Son of Ray Ferraro, he doesn't quite have the scoring prowess of his father, but he's a fantastic skater, and despite size will rough it up in the corners... something that should fit nicely with the Canadiens.

But Gainey will probably pick something dumb... like another goaltender.

"If I'm not signed by July 1, I don't think I'll be back in Montreal"

So the rumour has it right now... (and let's be clear here, this is still classified as a rumour. Because I trust Russian sports newspapers about as much as I trust 2 month old milk) ... is that Alex Kovalev will be handed the captaincy of the Montreal Canadiens and that Saku Koivu will be sent packing.

TSN.ca reports on the details from the story:

A Russian sports newspaper reports that the Montreal Canadiens have offered the team's captaincy to pending unrestricted free agent Alex Kovalev and that Saku Koivu is no longer in plans for the team.

According to Sovietsky Sport, the Canadiens don't intend to re-sign Koivu and would opt to re-sign Kovalev to a one-year deal worth between $6 million and $7.5 million. The story also claims that Kovalev would be awarded the captaincy.

After the Canadiens epic failure of a season, followed by their inevitable playoff loss to the Bruins there was lots of rumours swirling around about big changes within the organization.

This is definitely not one of the things I anticipated.

The big changes I anticipated might have sounded more like "Montrealers have giant street party after Canadiens fire GM Bob Gainey"

But instead they've awarded the captaincy to someone who seems to be unable to lead a pack of lemmings over a cliff. Someone who has been rumoured to have been unable to play well unless he has a fancy "C" on his shirt.

Boy-oh-boy, if this rumour is true, the Habs are going to have to hire one helluva coach.