Hi everyone! Well, another week has come and gone, and my Montreal Canadiens have taken yet another step towards total dismantlement, this time sending Max Pacioretty to the land of craps and gambling chaps for a mercurial forward, a prospect, and a draft pick. Could the Habs have done worse? Probably. Could they have done better. Absolutely, had they not dragged out the whole our-captain-is-soon-to-be-a-free-agent-so-let’s-trade-him-now-to-get-something-in-return-but-not-before-dragging-this-out-all-over-the-media-for-months-on-end fiasco. I’ve always had a wait and see attitude when it comes to trades and free agent signings, so I’ll reserve judgment until the season is at least half over, but in my experience, Montreal almost always comes out on the losing end of blockbuster trades. Need I remind anyone of Subban for Weber? Whatever happened to the days when they fleeced the Seals for first-round picks and got Hall of Famers to just fall into their laps? Anyway, the NHL is full of trades involving draft picks that turned into winners, so who knows where this here trade will end up on the list of greatest or worst trades. Remember when the Quebec Nordiques were criticized for letting Dale Hunter go to Washington for a first-round pick? I’m sure their general manager thought he would never hear the end of it. That is, until they drafted Joe Sakic shortly afterwards, and well, you all know how that went. Poor Joe. The kid just never stood a chance, really ;), so I’ll wait and see whether or not Tomas Tatar, Nick Suzuki, or the team’s future second-round pick materialize into something of substance for Montreal before passing judgment.

Same goes for the other big trade that happened in my neck of the woods. I’m of course talking about Erik Karlsson heading off to the Seals’ indirect descendants, the San Jose Sharks. Can’t say I disagree with San Jose’s logic with this one. Wow, is that going to be one scary offensive blue line with Karlsson and Brent Burns! What I do find baffling, however, is how the people of my current home town have reacted. For the most part, everyone seemed either shocked or offended, or both at the recent turn of events. Why? I don’t know. It’s not like this was a surprise; they were talking about trading Karlsson, or at least the possibility of him not resigning since January! And the return for Karlsson? What did you expect, Sidney Crosby? Everyone knew he was heading out of town, so they held Pierre Dorion’s head over a barrel and told him to accept a bunch of prospects and draft picks or else he would get nothing. Dorion chose the first option. I don’t want to get into the blame game over who caused Karlsson’s departure, but needless to say, after months of speculation and rumours, I wasn’t surprised in the least by what happened on Thursday.

Anyhow, back to the subject of this here website: the California Golden Seals. This week, I’ve got a great new article for y’all from November 1971, a great time in franchise history when everything seemed to be going right. The team started the year off horribly, going winless in their first seven games, but then they turned it around, thanks in part to a rookie goalie named Gilles Meloche, and by November, they were firmly in a playoff spot, even harboring thoughts of finishing as high as third place in the West Division. While that didn’t quite work out, 1971-72 was a fun season until about March when everything went to hell.

Also, I’ve added a few autograph photos to the photo section, so be sure to check them out as well.

Until next time, stay gold!