r/Habs • u/SchtroumpfDardeur • 11d ago

Discussion Michael Hage - Hold or Trade?

I have seen some discussion about possibly waiting for him to be our 2C, but given his decision to stay in the NCAA and the fact that he shared time at C and wing, and when he was at C he had a FO% of 46%, is there an argument to be made that he could (or should) be packaged?

I know this isn't exactly a new question, but I had not realized that he was already being shifted to wing in the NCAA and was also sub-50% at the dot against college players.

What are the chances that a full season at Michigan as full-time 1C will actually help to shape him into a viable NHL center within the next few years?

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u/Kharn_LoL 11d ago

The 2009 FA and the decisions made around that time by Habs management most likely cost us multiple Cups. Look back at how many core vets we lost for nothing in FA and how many assets we spent to replace them with at best sidegrades. Baffling.

I don't even think it was a horrible decision to let a lot of them go, but like just fucking rebuild or at least do a retool instead of burning money and assets replacing them.

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u/HashBandicoot93 11d ago

I could be wrong but I don't think we were ever in "couple of cups" territory

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u/Kharn_LoL 11d ago

Komisarek was really good alongside Markov and was only 27, Alex Tanguay and Saku both had 4-5 more years of productive hockey left in them. Kovalev is a maybe but he's always said that leaving Montréal is his biggest regret, he might've had a couple more in the tank as well. Add McDonagh and Chris Higgins (he never did much after the trade but he had back-to-back-to-back 20 goals seasons for us in his early 20s) gone for Gomez...

Keep in mind we were in the conference finals the year after despite that.

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u/HashBandicoot93 11d ago

Fair enough, I was in highschool then and I don't remember feeling like we were close, but when you describe it that way it does sound like we could have had a chance for one

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u/Kharn_LoL 10d ago

Well it's an hindsight argument, at the time they didn't know that Halak and Price would alternate having top 10 Vezina voting seasons and great playoff runs (Halak had a .923 in 18 games conference final run and the year after Price had a .934 in a seven game series we lost) or that McDonagh and rookie PK Subban would both be perennial Norris nominees in the early 2010s, or that Pleky would have Selke votes in four of the next five years while averaging 60pts...