Well the end of June and the beginning of July are always the time to start holidays, wish Canada a Happy Birthday, move (if you live in Quebec) and of course, see how your hockey team changes after free agent frenzy.
This year, the Habs were not huge players in free agency and lost more players than we gained but the team is probably better than it was last year (and remember we went to overtime in game 7 against the Stanley Cup champs and should have won the series).
We lost Wisniewski who signed with Columbus, Roman Hamrlik and Jeff Halpern to Washington, Alex Auld to Ottawa and Benoit Pouliot to Boston (where the lovely and talented Jack Edwards on NESN, who proclaimed Pouliot the biggest gutless coward bust in NHL history during the playoffs, will proclaim him a character guy with toughness and integrity all next season).
In return, we signed Alexei Emelin, a 2004 draft choice who had remained in the KHL), reupped Markov who hopes to return from two injury plagued seasons, reupped Andrei Kostitsyn, Max Pacioretty who is healed from his Chara induced broken neck) and Hal Gill and then picked up Peter Budaj as backup goalie and Erik Cole as our new power forward.
Erik Cole who I hated when we played the Hurricanes brings us speed and size on the wing, something we desperately needed. We now have size on the top two lines and can move Kostitsyn to the third line with Lars Eller.
The team is still a work in progress, still needs more size and grit but the season does not start for three months. We should be fine.
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