This time the former Habs enforcer was arrested on shoplifting charges. He was arrested on Wednesday after stealing a  bathing suit from the  Lord & Taylor store in Quincy, Mass.

When he was confronted by the store security personnel outside the store,Nilan denied that he had stolen anything. He even tried to punch one of them.

When the police arrived at the scene, Nilan was battling the security guards on the ground. The police eventually cuffed him. He was wearing the stolen merchandise under his shorts.

What was Nilan’s excuse for stealing?

“I just wanted to save a few bucks,” Nilan, 51, told police.

The judge dismissed the case. Nilan was ordered to pay $100 in court cost and to stay away from the store.

The 2009-10 NHL schedule will be released tomorrow. If the game is held it will be in late November. The competition committee gave it’s approval for the game to be held at the Olympic Stadium three weeks ago,but the NHL schedule makers have to accommodate the request.

Players and jerseys

All the new players with the Habs have decided on their numbers.

• Jaroslav Spacekis keeping his number 6 jersey that he wore until now.
• Travis Moen chose number 32. He was wearing that number when he was with the Anaheim Ducks when they won the Stanley Cup
• Hal Gill chose the number 75 for his jersey. It’s represents his birth year
• Paul Mara chose number 22. Consedered a bad number with the Habs.Benoît Brunet and Steve Bégin wore that number in the past and were injured a lot.
• Brian Gionta took number 21.
• Mike Cammalleri has number 13
• Scott Gomez has number 91.

These fans always complain. No matter what Gainey does,they complain.  Why do they complain? Do they actually think that they  could’ve convinced Vincent Lecavalier, Francois Beauchemin or Marian Hossa to play with the Habs?

If you ask them,Gainey didn’t even try to get any of these superstars to sign with the Habs. For these fans, Montreal is the only team who can have top players and it’s the only team allowed to sign free agents.

Have you ever thought that maybe just maybe they don’t want to play here?

Grow up!

What’s going to change in your life that Beauchemin didn’t sign with Montreal? Or that Lecavalier won’t be wearing the Bleu,Blanc,Rouge?

Is it the end of the world that Gainey didn’t give a contract to Saku Koivu and Alex Kovalev?

So stop acting like you know everything that’s going on in the organization and for god’s sake stop complaining. The season hasn’t even started!

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A lot happened with the Montreal Canadiens since July 1st.  New players came in the organization,while other players to who we cheered night after night in front of our television sets or at the Bell Centre went to other teams.

Here are two players that will be missed the most by the fans of the Montreal Canadiens.

Saku Koivu, our beloved former team captain became a Duck. But the fans won’t be hunting him the next time the Ducks play in Montreal. Like one of my friends told me yesterday “I can’t believe I’m gonna say this..but I’m gonna miss him. Someone will be missing on opening night at the Bell Center…”

I’m sure he’ll be missed by many fans in Montreal. The media often criticized him for not speaking French,but Koivu held his head up high and gave it his best while playing in Montreal.

While with the Canadiens, Koivu suffered from Non-Hodgkin lymphoma and many injuries, but he always came back.

“The Artist” Alexei Kovalev became a Senator. No, you won’t see Kovalev at the Parliament in Ottawa in a heated debate with other politicians. But you’ll see him with the Ottawa Senators. Just like Koivu, fans in Montreal like him…Ok let me rephrase that. Some fans like him, but he won’t be booed the next time he comes at the Bell Centre that I can tell you.

Kovalev’s fans held a protest when Habs GM Bob Gainey refused to give Kovalev a new contract. There was even a petition going around online.

Gainey didn’t change his mind. He stated that Kovalev was offered a contract,but never heard from him. Kovalev on the other hand stated that the Habs didn’t give him enough time.

With a new head coach and new players in the team will the Montreal Canadiens be a better team?

We’ll soon find out!

On a personal note,I want to say thanks to Saku Koivu and Alex Kovalev for their many years with the Montreal Canadiens.

Drafted 21st overall by Montreal in the 1993 NHL Entry Draft, Koivu has played in 792 career regular-season games and has accumulated 191 goals and 450 assists for 641 points.

He even suggested that the team might not have a captain at the start of the season.

“You have to develop your own leadership,” Martin said after viewing the first day of the Canadiens development camp in Brossard. “If nobody emerges as a captain, that’s not an issue for me.”

Martin also noted that the Florida Panthers didn’t have a team captain last season and other teams, the Minnesota Wild and the Buffalo Sabres had rotating captains.

In my opinion, the important thing right now is  to have a united team.

Habs Assistant Coach Kirk Muller reported losing his cellphone late last week. Reached in person at his off-season home in Kingston, Muller was visibly distraught at the loss of his iPhone. He said “it was brand new, and I hadn’t backed up my contacts yet. All that time wasted.”

Muller was nervous and shaking as he described his lack of communication. “No one can get in touch with me. Who has a landline anymore? Do you think I missed any important calls?”

When informed about the firings of Hamilton head coach Don Lever and Habs assistant Doug Jarvis, Muller said “that’s hockey. I’ll miss them, but life goes on. Now where the fuck did I put that phone?”

After spending five years with the Montreal Canadiens Alex Kovalev signed a two-year contract with the Ottawa Senators.

No details on how much he signed for.

In 1151 career games, Kovalev has 394 goals and 547 assists. He played twice in the NHL All-Star game. He was named the game’s MVP this past year in Montreal.

Even with the protest that was held by Kovalev fans outside the Bell Centre, Gainey is not changing his mind.

This morning spoke to Montreal radio station CJAD on Monday where he restated the comments he made last week about Kovalev not coming back with the Montreal Canadiens.  They made him an offer last week but he took too long to consider the deal.

“We hadn’t agreed on the amount, but another player was willing to come and join our team,” Gainey told the radio station. “So the dollars that we had allotted there for a particular position were grabbed up by another player.”

Kovalev spent five years in Montreal. He was traded from the NY Rangers for for Josef Balej and a second round draft pick.

His best season with the Habs was  in 2007-08 when he scored 35 goals and 49 assists.

MONTREAL — The Montreal Canadiens’ greatest captain was surprised, and he wasn’t, when it became clear last week that Saku Koivu had played his final game wearing the “C” above his CH crest. Jean Beliveau has been around hockey a lifetime, long enough to expect the unexpected.

The massive overhaul of the club by general manager Bob Gainey added five players, requiring the departure of others. Atop the list of the outgoing would be Koivu, the team’s 27th captain and its leader for nine seasons – 10, including the lockout season of 2004-05.

Gainey, the Canadiens’ 20th captain from 1981-89, remains the most recent to retire with the C on his jersey. The seven since have been traded or released, four of them trapdoored during a 26-month period in the mid-1990s.

Koivu has represented uncommon stability. In the eyes of many, the hugely popular Finn has been the heart and soul of this franchise since teammates voted him captain in the autumn of 1999, a courageous and inspirational leader on and off the ice.

Which counts for nothing in this salary-cap era, lavishly paid imports bringing the payroll to within a few million dollars of the league ceiling.

“I’m like everybody else. I’m a little surprised by all the changes,” Beliveau said of the Canadiens, dramatically altered in one day with a trade and four free-agent signings.

“They say that things were not that great in the (dressing) room last season. Am I surprised that Saku won’t be back? Yes and no, I suppose.”

Not for a second was Beliveau suggesting that Koivu was responsible for the off-ice controversy that infected the club for much of the year.

Nor does he believe that his own style of leadership, an effort to maintain harmony both in the room and away from the rink, can travel four decades to the global game of Koivu’s very different generation.

Beliveau still was feeling the shock of his 1961 election as captain when he told his teammates, “At any hour, if there’s anything I can do, not only for your career but in your personal life, I’m at your disposal.”

Try to imagine a Canadien text-messaging Koivu from a nightclub, or elsewhere, at 3 a.m., in need of counsel or consoling.

Montreal would win five Stanley Cups during Beliveau’s captaincy from 1961-71. When Koivu played his 663rd NHL game on Nov. 3, 2007, he became the longest-serving Canadien not to win a single championship.

But don’t ladle this solely onto his plate; he never led a team with the talent that could hold a candle, much less a torch, to those guided by Beliveau, whose clubs included 18 future Hall of Famers.

“The fact the Canadiens didn’t win a Cup (during Koivu’s captaincy) might have made his position more difficult,” Beliveau said. “I suppose not winning one might reflect on your leadership. Honestly, I don’t really know.”

The Canadiens’ legendary No. 4 has watched Koivu the past 13 seasons from a few rows behind the Montreal bench, and he’s spoken often of the Turku native’s work ethic that is beyond reproach. But now the page has turned and Beliveau soon will see his team select its 12th captain since he retired in 1971.

“Do you give the C to an experienced player who’s just starting with the Canadiens?” he asked. “(Defenceman) Andrei Markov is the one who should have it, I think. But does he have the temperament to undertake all the responsibility?

“If Gainey brings back Alex Kovalev, it would be difficult not to make him captain.”

Sunday, a few hundred fans rallied outside the Bell Centre to show the GM their support for the mercurial Russian.

“Maybe,” Beliveau said, laughing softly, “Bob is out of town.”

There was no such rally for Koivu, whose departure might be one purely of the bottom line. Or it might have been, though unspoken, something more.

It had nothing to do with his exemplary community involvement, his most obvious legacy a foundation that raised millions to help the gravely ill and disadvantaged. His selflessness and compassion for others had been pioneered in this city by Beliveau a half-century ago.

On April 23, less than a day after the Canadiens had been swept from the Stanley Cup playoffs by Boston, Koivu stood on a box of 100 pucks at the Canadiens practice facility and for 20 minutes quietly critiqued a season that had been loudly criticized for months.

Through four post-season games, he was the only Canadien to physically challenge hulking Bruins captain Zdeno Chara, getting in the sternum of a beast 11 inches taller and 80 pounds heavier.

In 68 days, Koivu would leave the team that in 1993 drafted him into the NHL, and he sounded like a man who knew that divorce was near.

He admitted that the prospect of new ownership, general manager and head coach come free-agency on July 1 – he was right, two out of three – could change the landscape entirely. Which it has.

Koivu was a Canadien for 16 years and five days, from the date of his drafting at age 18. His final shot on goal for Montreal, a 19-foot backhand, came at 19:47 of the first period in Game 4 of the quarter-final playoff against the Bruins.

He leaves with 191 goals and 450 assists in 792 regular-season games since he arrived in 1995, adding 16 goals and 32 assists in 54 playoff games. Koivu captained the Canadiens for 563 games, No. 3 all-time behind Beliveau’s 712 and Gainey’s 663.

Montreal has given him a broad perspective on life. In Montreal he’s grown as a player, husband and father as he battled cancer and linguistic intolerance, underwent knee surgeries, tore up a shoulder, played on a broken foot and nearly lost an eye to a high stick.

“I’ve seen and experienced a lot,” Koivu said of his captaincy in the hours before last season’s opening faceoff. “When you’re 20 or 30 or 35, you look at life in a different perspective. In every stage, there’s something good and something you want to change.”

Eighty-six games later, during a dark April post-mortem, a final question was put to him as captain: if he were Bob Gainey, which Canadiens free-agent would he sign first?

“Good thing I’m not GM,” Koivu said through a tight smile.

And then he disappeared through a side door, into his future beyond Montreal.

Source: Montreal Gazette
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