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Seal the deal already! by Mike Boone at 17h35 EST on Jul 12
If Mats Sundin plays hockey this season it will be as a member of the Montreal Canadiens.
Why?
Because it makes sense.
And Sundin is a sensible guy from Sweden, a sensible social democracy where people drive Volvos and go to Ingmar Bergman movies and learn to play smart hockey.
Maybe as you read this Sundin is at the wheel of his XC90 (all hockey players drive big-ass SUVs) on his way to the DVD store to rent The Seventh Seal. And perhaps he's thinking of the three cities where he might play hockey in 2008-'09.
Toronto: Nah. After everything that's gone down? New coach. Long-term rebuilding program. Who needs the aggro?
Vancouver: The good news? They're $10 million under the cap.
The bad news? They're still the Vancouver Canucks.
Granted, Sundin would get to play with the Sedin sisters, Mattias Ohlund and Alexander Edler. But Swedish talent notwithstanding, this isn't exactly Detroit-by-the-Sea.
Mike Gillis is a rookie general manager. The coach, Alain Vigneault, was not his hire.That's never a good situation (as we shall see in Pittsburgh).
No matter what Gillis does, Vancouver has as much chance of winning the Stanley Cup in '09 as Adam Sandler has of starring in a remake of Wild Strawberries.
Besides, what kind of jive-ass name is "Canucks", anyway? In New England, the terms is a slur against Franco-Americans. Alleged use of it cost Edmund Muskie a run at the presidency.
Why would any sensible person rather be a Canuck than a Canadien?
This brings us to ...
Montreal: Sundin is the missing piece of a Cup contender puzzle. He knows it, we know it, everyone knows it.
Here are the wingers Sundin could centre: Alex Kovalev, Alex Tanguay, Andrei Kostitsyn, Christopher Higgins, Sergei Kostitsyn, Guillaume Latendresse.
Would he rather play with Pavol Demitra and Kyle Wellwood?
Twenty-one NHL teams had more goals than the Vancouver Canucks last season.
Do you remember how many teams outscored the Canadiens?
None.
Add Sundin to that attack and ...
Fuhgetaboutit!
But don't forget the intangibles. This will be the centennial season of hockey's greatest franchise. What player wouldn't want to be part of that?
Is there a more fitting valediction to Mats Sundin's brilliant career than a season playing for frenzied fans in the league's largest building?
Last but not least: Bob Gainey.
The Canadiens general manager has pursued the courtship with tact and class. Gainey has shown Sundin the love without being a jerk about it.
Canadiens can't pay as much as Vancouver. But as Guy Carbonneau said this week, Mats Sundin has enough money. If he's coming back, it's for rpide, love of the game and, just maybe, the desire to accomplish something he never managed to do in Quebec City and Toronto.
Wow I'm just so impressed by your oh so logical counter arguments.
Stop being an idiot and actually come up with something that makes sense.
But hes right, all JL posted was some guys deluded view of the Canadians and how great they are and how great Montreal is compared to the rest of canada and how we all suck.
Truthfully I don't think the Canadians will win the cup the next year or the year after.
But hes right, all JL posted was some guys deluded view of the Canadians and how great they are and how great Montreal is compared to the rest of canada and how we all suck.
Truthfully I don't think the Canadians will win the cup the next year or the year after.
I agree that the Canadians are not going to win the Cup anytime soon. However, the Canadiens are serious Cup contenders though.
__________________ "Too bad for Mats, he could have been playing here" ~ Robert Lang.
Today in Sundin...I am being told more and more that Mats is going to return to the NHL and a source this morning told me that, "He will be Canadien by week's end, and the Habs know it. It is being kept quiet so the team can make the needed moves to clear cap space without teams being able to completely take advantage"
Today in Sundin...I am being told more and more that Mats is going to return to the NHL and a source this morning told me that, "He will be Canadien by week's end, and the Habs know it. It is being kept quiet so the team can make the needed moves to clear cap space without teams being able to completely take advantage"
If you speculate enough crap eventually you will get something right.
I take what Eklund says with a truck load of salt.
Put it this way if you fire a dart at a dart board a thousand times eveuntually you will for all intense purposes hit the bulls eye, law of averages.
Eklund posts pretty much what your average 14 year message board poster posts. If we were to believe him then Sundin would have sigend with any of the 6 Cdn teams, and 5-8 North East teams.
Personally I think Mats should just stay in Sweden and open a bed and breakfast...............
The Mats Sundin watch...
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