Markov: c'est fait! The $23 million man...

Markov: C'est fait! That was RDS.ca's title of the article they have on Andrei Markov.
The $23 million man, Markov now top-paid player in team's history: The Gazette's intruiging yet FANTASTIC TITLE.

Wait, I have to be unprofessional for a second:
YEEEESSSSS!!!!!!!
YEEEESSSSS!!!!!!!
YEEEESSSSS!!!!!!!
YEEEESSSSS!!!!!!!

Phew, glad I got that out!

Just a single day after my first part to my "Which Hab...only one Hab...$$$$$ Hab" series, featuring ANDREI MARKOV and the MONTREAL CANADIENS, the Canadiens did well and signed the 28-year old Russian to a 5-year $23 million contract.

Markov is now the team's top-paid player in team history, surpassing Saku Koivu's $4,75 million annual mark, and Alex Kovalev's $4,5 million mark.

Markov, get this, will make more than 3 times more money than he made last season with the Canadiens.

He will receive an average of $5.75 million per season, Brian McCabe type numbers, a hefty raise from his 2007 $1.5 million salary.

The priority now remains Sheldon Souray according to GM Bob Gainey, with the cap going up and salary being cleared, thinks that the Habs have enough room to retain Souray as well:
"The question is whether he thinks we have enough", said Gainey.

Gainey also indicated to the press yesterday that the Habs will begin talks with Souray shortly and hope to get a deal done before July 1st.

Look for today's SOURAY vs GAINEY battle, and Souray will be a Hab for 5 more seasons tomorrow as well.

Habs Inside/Out
Current Habs History and Opinion

--BBR

Which Hab...only one Hab...money Hab...

And the soap opera begins, here's your cast for ''Money Habs vs. Which Hab?''

MONEY HABS----------------------------------------- WHICH HAB?
starring:----------------------------------------------- directed by:

Andrei Markov---------------------------------------Montreal Canadiens
Sheldon Souray------------------versus------------ Bob Gainey
Don Meehan------------------------------------------Well-being of team
113 points-------------------------------------------- Salary Cap
$$$$$$$$$$--------------------------------------------$$$$$$$$$$

It's no secret the Montreal Canadiens can do only so much, as a team on the ice, as buiseness men off the ice and as regular but slightly more rich people in general.

And they can only sign one of their current impending UFA defencemen, unless they want to devote a quarter of their cap total to 2 players and not bring in a guy that can help this TEAM SCORE GOALS.

I have devisted a little battle/movie premiere for you, I hope you enjoy it, especially those who aren't aware of this situation (oh brother...)



1) Andrei Markov vs Montreal Canadiens
The Star: Andrei Markov
The 28-year old Russian-born defenceman is by far one of the most underrated and best defencemen of the NHL.
He is an excellent skater, plays a sound and solid defensive game while providing a more than average offensive touch.

The Stat: Markov had 6 goals and 43 assists last season in a total of 77 games played, averaged 25 minutes of ice-time and was a +2 on a team whose defence featured a -28 by the other star, Sheldon Souray.
He set career highs in assists (43), points (49), and powerplay assists (27).


The Director: Montreal Canadiens
The Canadiens' up-and-down season was full of surprises and some unwanted twists and turns.
But it became clear after the season ended in dismay, after we realized that Andrei Markov would become a UFA that we needed him more than everyone originally thought. He is such a good player and guy to have around your team, he excels defensively and is improving year-by-year offensively.
He is a Paul Coffey of the new NHL, and only God knows how much this guy's been underrated in 29 GM's minds.
The Canadiens world was in shock once Zdeno Chara was named to the new NHL's first ever NHL all-star game while Andrei Markov can all but sit and watch from his television screen.
The point above also illustrates how Markov is underrated and underlooked in this case in many, many people's minds.
Chara had a decent season but was nothing compared to the powerhouse monster he used to be in Ottawa.
Only Montreal Canadiens fans understand Markov's value, more than any other team or fanbase in the entire country, and it is imperative that Bob Gainey make him his no. 1 priority, and not Sheldon Souray.

The $$$$$$: Andrei Markov put a little more than $2 million in his bank account last year and he'll be looking to double and almost triple that come this summer.
Rumours are flying around media sources like RDS and La Presse that suggest Markov has been offered a 4 year/$20 million contract by Bob Gainey, and that Don Meehan (his agent) and co. will evaluate this offer carefully.

The deal-breaker: Markov recently blew his knee out on a knee-on-knee hit at the World Championships in Moscow, his knee was examined by Montreal and Russian doctors and both have come to the same conclusion: no surgery needed, and thank God!
It is not expected to have an impact on his potential deal, but nevertheless, doctors can be wrong too.

The Skinny: Markov will be retained by the Canadiens, for a duration of 4-5 years and he will net between $5 and $5.5 million.
I am almost certain he will be in the Bleu, Blanc et Rouge and a topic on this blog for the years to come.
(more to come)

Among other tidbits...Francis Bouillon next one out?

Can Francis Bouillon's time in Montreal be over?

Got this off of Spector, it's very interesting to say the least (corrected the spelling and grammar)

"Daniel" recently sent in the following on the Canadiens

This is probably not possible to check if it's true or not but former referee Ron Fournier said yesterday on popular radio show "Les amateurs de sports" that Gainey's plan is to have Huet as a starter next season and have Halak or young Carey Price as a backup. On defence, the 7 starters planned are Dandenault, Markov, Streit, Komisarek, Gorges with young Jean-Philippe Côté and Ryan O'Byrne leading to the speculation that Sheldon Souray and Janne Niinimaa won't be signed and Francis Bouillon will be traded somewhere this summer. He also said that Gainey wants to pursue a big UFA name such as Bill Guerin, Daniel Brière and Chris Phillips. Fournier said that there's some big surprise for the forwards and doesn't want to reveal it until the Habs season ends. He also said that he has a source from
the Habs management but don't want to say who it is.

This was broadcast on CKAC 730AM around 5PM Tuesday.

Well, Ron Fournier is definitely a good journalist and radio host and I'm sure this isn't far off.

Sheldon Souray will probably command around $6-$6.5 million per season, and I doubt the Canadiens can give him that(I had a post earlier in February on how the Habs could re-sign Souray, but the price has risen now.)
And besides, Souray's only asset is his booming slap shot, besides that, he's not a very good defenceman (he's hovering around -20 these days), and his 5-on-5 play is just plain ordinary.

I know he'll get that kind of money elsewhere, but seriously, it's not the end of the world if the Canadiens let Sheldon Souray walk and invest that money in bringing in a prime-UFA scorer this offseason.
Ok, ok, the powerplay will likely suffer without him, but, look at the bright side, a Daniel Briere, Bill Guerin or Chris Drury would be an even better addition.

Francis Bouillon is having a mediocre season by his standards.
After having an oustanding 2005-2006 campaign, Bouillon's play has declined sharply this season.
The problems start in his own end, despite being able to put up that bone-crushing check often, where he coughs up the puck way too much and shoots the puck up the middle instead of around the boards.
He looks like Sheldon Souray on defence and is nothing close to him on offence.
His offensive input has been miminal this season (3 G, 11 A in 61 games), but an injury he suffered late last season, could be the reason for his inconsistency.
He had 22 points last year, not much off from this year, but it looks like he felt more into it last year. He had 3 powerplay goals and 20 more shots on goal than so far this season.
I wouldn't be sad to see him go, he was a scratch once or twice this season and he has only himself to blame for that.
He's making close to $2 million this season, and if this keeps up, I'd rather have a guy like Ryan O'Byrne or Josh Gorges out there.

Janne Niinimaa...I've already said it, he's having a horrible year all-around, but his play has picked up recently.
He's making a push to get a contract offer from Bob Gainey this summer, to remain as the possible 7th defenceman, but no way for the price he's getting now ($2.5 million).
With that said, I'd rather have him that (blech) Jean-Phillipe Cote up here.

And again, everyone wants these Brieres, Drurys, Guerins, Shanahans to come and put on the Montreal Canadiens jersey, but, every year we get dissapointed.

And if the defence looks like that next season, we're in for a long one.

With respect to O'Byrne, Dandenault and Gorges, that's a pretty crappy defensive back.

Maybe that "surprise" is that a guy like Alex Kovalev, Michael Ryder or even (shudder) Saku Koivu are on the move?

God, I hope not.

A city in mourning...Thrashers 6, Canadiens 2

CANADIENS 2, THRASHERS 6

I had posted an article saying how huge this game was for the Canadiens and how badly they needed to win this one.

Guess Guy Carbonneau didn't take out the Sharpie pen like I said and didn't scrawl out the standings on his board for each player to see where their so-called "team" has sunk.

In the first five minutes of the game, I had some hope, the forecheck was aggressive, we were causing turnovers like crazy from a somewhat inconsistent Thrashers defence.
Chris Higgins fired the puck 4 times on Kari Lehtonen in the first period alone.

Sound good so far? I hope this is the image you keep of the game...the first 5 minutes, and forget the rest.

The "rest" consists of Andrei Markov paying for teammates' lousy backchecking by taking a kind of chronic hooking penalty.
With Markov in the box, the Thrashers took control of the game from there.

Newly acquired Alexei Zhtinik, who's been a nice fit for Bob Hartley, faked a slap shot from the right point and threw the puck to teammate Ilja Kovalchuk, playing the high left point who blasted it towards rookie Jaroslav Halak.

Halak was in position to make a left pad save, however he misread the shot as it was coming towards the blocker side. By consequence, the puck hit off the inside of his left pad, bounced off the right, and trickled into the net to give Ilja Kovalchuk his 36th goal of the season, and the Thrashers a one goal lead.
This goal completely demoralized the Canadiens, as they continued for the next couple minutes playing boring, shoddy defensive and a limited offensive style.

Then it was enough.
Things went from bad to worse as the Canadiens just couldn't clear the puck out of their zone, giving the Thrashers glorious chances on which Halak was superb.
Then as you guessed it, exactly two minutes after the first goal, they would pay for this...the unreliable delinquent, Sergei Samsonov didn't help his cause by picking the puck up, skating through centre ice just before he hit the Canadiens blue line giving the puck to Eric Belanger who fired a pass to the front of the goal where Jonathan Sim was all alone! With no one there to stop him, Sim simply tapped the puck through the legs of the exasperated Jaroslav Halak.

2-0 Thrashers and I had enough.

I turned off the television screen and decided to go play hockey myself, during the outdoor game, one of my buddies picked his cell and called to ask the score.

"Please" I was asking myself, "Please God, let them score a goal, " since God is the only thing that can save Montreal now.

My friend shut his phone off and looked me in the eye, I could see it coming.

"It's 6-0 Thrashers", he said.

Those words were like a dagger to the throat, I started yelling like a mad man.
What else could I do? There was no hope for a comeback, not even a small chance.

What did I care? I forgot about the game and played the wonderful game of hockey which was not so wonderful for 23 individuals now dropping even lower in the standings.

And to make my night even more miserable, the Rangers beat the Islanders 2-1 to move up ahead of us in the Standings.

My dad called me and told me Sergei Samsonov was benched the entire 3rd period.
He finished the night at -3 with 1 shot on goal. What a waste of $3.5 million out of George Gillett's pocket.

And to add insult to injury, Francis Bouillon decided to drop 'em against Keith Tkachuk...

God...please, save this team, obviously nobody on this Earth can.

Fournier speculates on Souray and Markov

Per Ron Fournier on CKAC radio in Montreal.
Ron's a decent reporter, very respected in Montreal; however he's not always very accurate.

The Canadiens will re-sign Andrei Markov and not Sheldon Souray.

Boy, who didn't think of that; although a recent article from Pat Hickey in the Montreal Gazette suggests Bob Gainey will re-sign Souray as well.
All this is just pure speculation and Ron's got no hard-core facts here.

All we can do now, is wait...