Tuesday, January 13, 2009

41-Game Reviews All Round

Having checked Google Analytics recently, I could see not many of the readers were reading the top post, but not the second. I don't want to flog a dead horse: if you don't want to read it, that's fine. However, this post is my moving it up to sit at the top of the page again:

Midway Evaluations: The Habs And Their Half Seasons

And instead of simply moving the initial post, I thought the keenest among you might also want to look at someone else's opinion on this matter – to remember why you visit this site (or why this site isn't your only stop of the day).

When you commit to a player grade as you do when you write one of these things, reading other posts stirs up all kinds of emotions and arguments. So forgive me for posting these, but to me they were fun to read: ranging from light, fun and informative to downright polar opposite at times.

First up: RDS's Gaston Therrien
No marks here, just a fairly innocuous take on the season so far. The players he chooses to highlight: Lapierre (predictably), as well as Kostopoulos and Brisebois (huh?) are interesting...

Next: Arpon Basu at the Daily Hab-it
Actually makes the effort to list every player, and even commits to some hard-line opinions of his. Clearly we don't like the same players or brand of hockey, but LIW admires his conviction.

Third: Fred at En Route Pour La Coupe
We discussed his Tanguay rank before. His rankings are thorough and thoughtful.

Finally: Habsworld season averages of weekly marks and Habsworld Report Cards
For a site with such a great URL, you might expect a little better. The averages by their own legend mean we are a team of stars who under-perform with some good players who play at expectation. Every player on the team seems to range from 7.0-7.75. What's more, Guillaume Latendresse is the highest ranked forward – that kinda speaks for itself really...

Their report cards are not of a much higher standard. The article rightly gives the Canadiens as a team an A, but then gives a single player an A+ (Gorges), and a few As (Tanguay among the top of the class again – for those who use stats as cheat sheets). Hamrlik gets the second lowest mark on defence, behind Brisebois, Bouillon and even Dandenault!

It's a shame they don't post comments as there'd be some doozies there for sure...



Anyway, great first half. Even us fans must be congratulated for being rather more mature about winning this year. Here's to an even better end to the campaign.

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