Wednesday, March 26, 2008

FHF True Confessions: I Have a Man-Crush on The Hamr

The Gazette's Pat Hickey has a nice little piece today on the Top 10 reasons for the Habs' unexpected success. The usual suspects are there (Kovy, lack of injuries [jinx again!], depth, Carbo[?!?]) and there is a mention of the new "Big 3" - Markov, DOOM, and The Hamr. I love Markov and DOOM. But I heart the Hamr.

I remember back in July when HF10 wrote the now classic headline "Gainey invents time travel, returns from 1996 with two free agents," in reference to Hamr and Slowinski. We all had a good laugh. But there was truth in them thar sarcasm. Hamrlik was old, his best years were behind him. We all thought that. We were wrong.

Markov may get the publicity for his talent, DOOM may get the notoriety for his shot blocking and hits, and these are well-deserved. But The Hamr is the rock of the defense. Don't believe me? Think back to when he was out with the flu. What were we all saying then? We were saying the D is falling apart without the Hamr. If I wasn't lazy and actually did some research and had stats, I'm sure they would say we lost alot of games when he was out. Those were dark days.

Playoff hockey means tight defense, good positional play, and 3-2 games. Hamr will be one of the big keys to making that happen. Our success in May depends on the best 1996 free agent signing Gainey could have come up with.

Roman Hamrlik - my vote for Habs unsung MVP of 2007-2008. And my man-crush.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Trudat and let's mention that Hamr loves being in Montreal, un-Souraylike for sure. Man am I a happy Habs fan when Hamr suits up.

~ moeman

Bryan Driscoll said...

here, i'll do your research for you.. pff lawyers. :P

he was out for 5 games in Feb.

won 4-3 over Ottawa
lost 4-2 to Toronto
lost 6-1 to Ottawa
lost 3-2 to Tampa Bay
won 2-1 over Florida in OT

2-3 record

out-scored 16 to 11

Young HF29 said...

thx bryan! i need a blogging stagiaire

Bryan Driscoll said...

i was trying to get the definition for that word in Zyzzyva -- my scrabble word learning software thingy -- and i was like.. wtf, why isn't it a word. then i googled it and realized c'est francais.. oui oui

Topham said...

Hear, hear.

Hamrlik does deserve a lot of recognition. He's very good. Gainey should also earn praise for targeting him over Souray.

He's the new number 11 on my top reasons why the Habs have improved (points totals) this year.

Surely he's not more valuable to the Habs than Claude Julien, though, who has done more for the Habs regular season than he ever did in Montreal.