A Tale of Two Shitties

Let's look closer at the Habs' season so far. Carey Price has been going great guns, and so has Kostitsyn and Plekanec. But as soon as someone like Mike Cammalleri gets put on a line with Scott Gomez, his numbers go south like a duck in winter. And as soon as someone like Brian Gionta gets moved away from Gomez, he benefits from having decent line mates like Pleks and Big Tits.

Scott Gomez is the reason the Habs are not as good as they could be. Yes, there are two Czech defensemen who are largely to blame for Montreal's shallow defense, but let's look at offense, as well as why the Habs can't afford decent players.

Let's cast our sights through the vaulted aisles of memory, to the signing of Sergei Samsonov. Montreal signed him to a $7.05 million contract in the summer of 2006. He was supposed to provide offense and flash to the Montreal offense. What he brought instead was a chorus of boos from Montreal fans.

In 63 games in Montreal, Samsonov scored nine goals and 17 assists. Remember, he was being paid roughly 3.525 million for that season of 26 points.
Now let's look at Scott Gomez's number from last year: he played 78 games, with a total 12 goals and 47 assists (59 points). Most damningly, Gomez was meagre +1 Gomez was supposed to bring the sort of defensive responsibility that Samsonov lacked, but was basically even for the year. For that offensive explosion, Gomez was paid eight million dollars.

So let's look at ratios: Samsonov got paid $135,577 per point in what was objectively a terrible season.
Scott Gomez got paid 135,593 per point last year.

The numbers are nearly identical.

Scott Gomez is just as big a disappointment as Samsonov was. What's worse, he eats up more cap space, making it harder to find actually GOOD players to counteract his crappy offensive production, or to prevent pucks from getting shot at Carey Price.

When we look at Gomez's offensive output this season, the picture gets even worse.
In the past minute, I watched Scott Gomez score a goal against the Edmonton Oilers. That is his third goal of the season. He has five assists. We're at the quarter-pole for the season, so that puts Gomez on track for a 32-point season.
Folks, that means Scott Gomez is getting paid 250,000 per point this season.

Brian Gionta is on track to earn $83,333 per point. Tomas Plekanec, coming off a contract year (typically the post-contract hangover is severe) is on pace to earn $54,347 per point.

My point, my dear readers, is that Scott Gomez is an ape. We would be better served by having a monkey paid a million bucks a year to do nothing but fling poopy at the opposing team's bus as it pulls into the Bell Centre.

Gomez is a tool. A douchebag. An overrated, washed-up, waste of breathing air.
Until he is gone from this team, or starts pulling one-tenth of his own weight, this team will suffer as a result of having him around.

He makes everyone around him worse, and his very presence ensures that Montreal cannot be as good as it could be.