Once a whiner ...

Players of Ribeiro's nature (gifted goal scorers) can't play in Montreal, the second they have a slip-up, the media pounces on them and never lets go...Theres just too many hockey reporters in Montreal.

It's far from certain, however, that Riibeiro would have blossomed had he stayed in Montreal.

I'll speculate that it was a certainty simply because, in the context of playing for the Canadiens, his character is flawed. It is mostly a maturity issue with him. This is not to say he is immature, generally speaking. It's because of the pressure. He couldn't deal with it.

Mike is very talented. He went on to display it with relative ease in the confines of Dallas. No PRESS(ure), that's why. Kids today are what they used to be, the Beliveau's are all gone now.

Ribeiro's exeptional creativity and playmaking skills have always been what they were ..... exceptional by any standard.

With some compatible linemates but not necessarelly exceptional ( Morrow 32 goals, Lethinen 15 goals, ) Ribeiro has finished the season 12th most points in the league ( 27 goals, 56 assists ) and is presently leading in points the series after having faced 2 of the best and toughest teams in the league,.. ( ANA, San Jose ).

Gainey and Claude Julien failed to properly evaluated our roster and use them to the new advantages made avalaible in the first post lock-out newNHL....... Julien was fired and the roster looked better finishing off the season.... yet nothing had changed and under Carbo the following season the CH was dysfonctional again.

Lack of vision again.... how can you give Ribeiro away and not harm the scoring depth of the team.... the only tangible element that could have made the difference that year was our scoring depth made possible by 3 talented centers that would have been Koivu, Ribeiro and Plek..... Ribeiro was send away and we failled.

A panic move to bring in Niinima ? Who would have need D replacement if Gainey had not previously blundered with our D prospects that were Beauchemin and Hainsey.

For once that we had some results from our previous organizations drafts picks Gainey blew them away.... Beauchemin with ANA, Hainsey with Columbus then Ribeiro with DAL.

Under the new CBA you just cant waste youth the way it happened here.... and all for nothing in return.... come on.

A team make strides when it bring in expensive parts (UFA) to built on top of what it already has but here Gainey's forays in the UFA market has been to try to replace what we had.. but lost under him..... Harmlik to replace Beauchemin,.. Briere to replace Ribeiro.....

Our team is mostly the result of the good drafting initiated by Andre Savard in 2001 and the subsequent works of Timmins hired by him in 2002........ I wish I had better things to say about Gainey's work,.. I like the man but I am not impressed by his work.

i must have been baked, oops! it is twenty twenty. and whats wrong with beets?

It is good Mike Ribeiro is enjoying his time somewhere else. At the end of his stay in Montreal I said that he wasn't going to achieve anything unless he changed his enviroment. Et voila. I heard a lot about Ribeiro partying habit. It was clear that without cutting the connections he wasn't going to be anyone.

As someone said before, it really says a lot about him. Why in the world should he suddenly bash his old team? What is he going to gain by that? I think he felt too much confidence in Dallas. In December he was still shy - now he's a guy after an All-Star Game, playing in the conference finals (no matter how) and his old team is sooooo out. So he acts like a 40-year-old guy dumped in high school by his fiancee who tells in public how hopeless she was in bed.

Ho hum!!! Must be a boring sports day when this article appears. He was so so in Montreal, hot and cold and was never going to be the number one centre in Habville. His talents were limited to no contact one way hockey, and was never one to play even a modicum of two way hockey. the greats may be able to get away with being one dimensional but not a 70 point scorer ( on a good day). Then when you add to it his " suppossed" off ice habits then it is time to send him off for the proverbial bucket of chicken. And please, do not even attempt to put him and Chelios in the same sentence. You do Chelios a huge disservice!!!

And another thing....good and skilled players do not need to be on the first line or the first power play wave to produce...upon reading his statement again, it almost appears as if he chose not to exploit his talents because of the above reasons...

Mr Riberio has talent, but I'm not sure I would want him around. Mike's example of him saying one thing in December (when things are going really good in Dallas) and now another, (when things haven't been going really good for him personally in the last four games) is typical Riberio.

I liked the talent he showed, and I liked the talent Theo showed, but long before they were gone I was sick of them both. Hype, agent hype, fan hype, press hype, after awhile all it does is draw attention to their shortcomings.

Good luck to them both. Look at this Habs team today and tell me you'd let Koivu and Pleks go for Riberio, or Price and Halek for Theo.

Yes I know there will be someone who would, it is not necessary for you to so state.

Can't compare Ribeiro to Chelios. Not in the same class.

Chelios, party years aside, was and is a great hockey player and leader who will one day be inducted into the hockey hall of fame.

Ribeiro will have some good seasons, depending upon who he's paired up with and what team he plays for. I'm happy things are working out for him. But, you won't ever hear me say "I miss Ribs" unless it's the Bar-B kind.

Besides, will any of us ever forget the drama of the fake injury? Didn't think so.

Trading Ribiero may have been a mistake, but it's one that I won't hold against our GM. As this point Ribiero can get away with not getting dirty because his line mate is, as of right now, doing the dirty work of ten guys. Morrow is as valuable as any player in the playoffs up to this point. A lot of soft players with some creativity would look good with him. How would Ribiero fare with someone less gritty and more skilled? Terribly, I think. Morrow creates all Ribieros space out there. Just watch them together. If Ribiero puts up big numbers for three or four more years I might change my mind but I'm still not sold on the idea that it was a colossal blunder on Gaineys part.
I still remember him squirming on the ice faking an injury a few years back and to tell you the truth, as a Habs fan, it made me squirm.
Right now he's playing with a guy who has every player on the opposition keeping their minds on everything except Ribiero.

GO HABS.

I was mixed on Mickey Ribs. On the one hand, he was able to pull off some very impressive playmaking that led me to think he was the next Adam Oates and we were lucky to have him. On the other, his immaturity and soft play made me wish he would wake up and get a clue.

Here's what happened, I think: In Montreal, he was a hometown hero with scoring flash and it went to his head, with a concomitant drop in work ethic due to immaturity. Dryden writes in his book about how Lafleur would take a bucket of pucks and work out the nuances of the boards in different arenas. Would Ribs do that? No.

The trade to Dallas was his wake-up call. Traded for a #6 defenseman and in a town where hockey was just another sport, he had to grow up fast and had no one around him to coddle his bad habits. Plus, he's with a team that is more complete than the Canadiens were when he was with us. I'm still not sure he's a real two-way player that you want on your side in the playoffs, but I don't begrudge him his success either. If he's grown up, good for him.

This is one of the reasons why I was happy to see the whiner traded:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNw8ZZT8tOU

Is there a site with all the ufa's and rfa's?

as the old cliche goes,"hindsight is fifty fifty". Ribs did not fit well into the organization.Next year he will pop fifteen and we will remember why we wouldn't have him back here for samsonov's jock strap.

Mike Ribiero...

""I could never exploit my talent to the fullest in Montreal,"" Ribeiro told Durocher. "I wasn't centring the first line, a role that Saku Koivu held, and I wasn't part of the first wave on the power play."

This statement says it all about Ribiero. It is, and always was about him, not the team. It remains to be seen how long Ribiero will stay in such good graces with Dallas management. Don't bet the farm on a longlasting relationship there.

Ribiero did not display such great talent in Montreal. He skated the periphery, shying away from the corners and the wall. In his last days as a Hab I got the chance to see him live and up close in Buffalo. I watched him closely every time he was on the ice and it turned my stomach to see such a pussy on skates. Montreal went on to win that game 3-2 in overtime, with Kovalev potting the winner and Huet shutting down a darn good Sabre attack. Ribiero was one of the biggest non-factors in the game.

The Gainey bashers will like to point to this line in Boone's article---> "The year before the lockout, Ribeiro led the Canadiens in scoring with 20 goals and 45 assists." .....now really, led the team with 65 freakin' points! WOW, huge achievement there, eh?

So what has changed for Ribiero? Why the sudden turnaround? I don't have that answer, but I will say this...with the $25 million Dallas will pay him in salary over the next 5 years, Dallas should cross their fingers in hopes of Ribiero not having any relapse.

Every GM makes mistakes. Find me one who hasn't.

As HabsProf and Lafrich so aptly noted, the problem wasn't trading Ribiero. The problem was what we got in return. Gainey is man enough to admit that. Let's hope he does make a repeat of that trade. Hopefully our Pro-scouting will be as effective as our Amateur scouting is.

Sometimes players have to go because the are disruptive in the lockeroom or to the team. Names like Ribiero, Lemieux and Nilan come to mind. If we really go back, some could argue Peter Mahovlich or even Doug Harvey.

Each productive players in their own right but it just wasn't a fit at a certain point.

The greatest write-up about our friend Mickey Ribs comes from the hilarious guys at FHF:
http://fourhabsfans.blogspot.com/2008/01/hf10s-all-star-rant-fuck-you-mi...

Seriously, you should all read it. Um, except anyone who's offended by gratuitous use of the f-word. Or if you're at work.

The lack of work ethic, the attitude and the horrible faux-injury/laugh on the bench routine, the non-stop partying, and the refusal to take his job as a professional athlete, well, professionally, are all reasons I was glad to see him gone.

It took the kick in the pants of being traded to someplace like Dallas for Mickey to realize not everything was going to be handed to him just 'cause he whined about it. He got his head on straight and has actually started acting like hockey is his job and not just his hobby, and yes, there's been improvement. Meh, I still wouldn't want him on this team.