Travis Moen is the newest Canadien, bringing his six foot, two inch, 215 pound frame to the left wing, thereby making Montreal even better, and tougher. Moen was in San Jose, so he and Saku, who is on his way to Anaheim, may pass each other somewhere around Des Moines.

More and more, the team is shaping up, and more and more, I like what I see.

Here’s the CBC report:

MONTREAL (AP) — The Montreal Canadiens have signed forward Travis Moen to a three-year contract on Friday.

Moen started last season in Anaheim, but was traded to San Jose where he had three goals and two assists in 19 games.

He had four goals, seven assists and 77 penalty minutes with the Ducks.

“Travis Moen is a character player,” Canadiens general manager Bob Gainey said in a statement. “He is versatile, and he plays hard. His size and style will contribute to adding physicality to our team.”

The 6-foot-2, 215-pound left wing blocked 78 shots and had 171 hits in 82 games last season.

In five NHL seasons, the 27-year-old has 56 points (29 goals, 27 assists) and 487 penalty minutes with the Chicago Blackhawks, Anaheim and San Jose.

The Canadiens have added a real nice defenceman by signing big, strong ten-year veteran Paul Mara to the lineup. The 6′4′, 212 lb. Mara comes from the Rangers, and has also played previously with Tampa Bay, Phoenix, and Boston.

It’s nice to see some good size added (along with Hal Gill), and Mara’s the perfect age at 29; not too young, not too old. It’s only a one-year contract, but maybe he’ll turn into a rock on defence and live happily ever after as a proud Hab.

The defence now stands at this: Andrei Markov, Jaroslav Spacek, Hal Gill, Josh Gorges, Roman Hamrlik, Paul Mara, and Ryan O’Byrne, with question marks remaining around Mathieu Dandenault, Patrice Brisebois, and Francis Bouillon, although the team recently said Bouillon, at least, won’t be offered another contract. And young whippersnapper P.K. Subban probably isn’t ready yet.

Montreal’s defence is now a big defence, which is a nice surprise considering all the small forwards. O’Byrne and Gill especially will be ducking to avoid the retired sweaters up in the rafters. And Gill will be able to grab Red Fisher’s coffee as he skates by the press box.

The signing of Mara came out of nowhere, and if Bob Gainey can surprise us now with a couple more good forwards, maybe even over six feet tall, he might almost get out of many fans’ doghouse.

Here’s a brief rundown of Paul Mara’s career so far

This beautiful piece of art measuring more than two feet by three feet, was originally in a Quebec school in the 1940’s. It was used, along with other outdoor scenes, as part of student essays or copying or whatever it was they did with it in class. It’s now framed and sits proudly in my living room, and it brings back many memories of playing on an outdoor rink growing up in Orillia.                                                                          

What’s funny about it is the Montreal player on the left, handling the puck.                                                                                                                                         

I would say there’s a distinct resemblance to Leafs star Charlie Conacher.

Would it be wrong to suggest that the twelve best hockey players to come out of Quebec are, in no particular order, Maurice Richard, Jean Beliveau, Mike Bossy, Patrick Roy, Doug Harvey, Henri Richard, Jacques Plante, Guy Lafleur, Ray Bourque, Marcel Dionne, Mario Lemieux…..

 And of course, Gaston LeBois?

Saku Koivu has signed with the Anaheim Ducks for one year, $3.25 million clams.

That’s it, the curtain has fallen. Now can we get down to business with the team we have now?

Time to move on. We’ve got a cup to win.

Everything’s been written about Alex Kovalev now. It’s pretty well all been said. But Kovalev going to the Senators is still big news and I can’t just drop the subject and move on. So I have to resort to pulling out an old Russian hockey card.

And what about Saku? No one wants him to go, folks are sad, and again, everything’s been said and left nothing for me to add. So I have to dig out a picture in a Russian magazine and now you know what the name ”Saku Koivu” looks like in Russian. Does it get any better than that?

Sacre bleu du buildings du Parliament, merde, tabernac. Alex Kovalev is now an Ottawa Senator, signing for a paltry ten million for two years.

What does this mean?

It means we’re going to see Kovy within our division. And it means we’re going to see Kovy lose often. And it’s kind of like seeing your daughter marry the local wino.

Will he help the Senators? Of course he will. It’s the rest of the Senators who won’t help the Senators.

It hurts to see this, and it’s going to hurt when Kaptain Koivu joins an enemy too.

Fourteen years ago, Montreal defenceman Bryan Fogarty was in the doghouse of coach Jacques Demers for failing to notify team officials until the morning of a game in Hartford that he had the flu, leaving the Canadiens with only five defencemen. Then, during a team meeting, he was caught reading a newspaper.

Something like this could be considered funny if the player involved wasn’t Bryan Fogarty. Because Bryan Fogarty was a hard-core alcoholic. Had been since his teen years. 

Fogarty was one of those players in junior who only come along once every blue moon. A big-time, record-breaking star who broke defencemen marks by eclipsing Bobby Orr’s goal scoring record of 38  with 47, and Denis Potvin’s point total with 155.  He won all the hardware  in his final season in junior, 1988-99, taking home CHL Player of the Year, CHL Defenceman of the Year, and first team all-star.

Naturally scouts drooled, and Fogarty was drafted ninth overall by the Quebec Nordiques. But things didn’t quite work out the way everyone thought. In Quebec, he played parts of only three seasons before being dealt to Pittsburgh and was promptly sent to the minors. Then it was on to Montreal, where he played 34 games over two seasons with the Habs. From there it was again the minors, different teams in Europe, and various minor leagues throughout North America. All the while, his hockey career could be labelled surprising and mediocre. This was not the star from junior people were now seeing.

All in all, the guy everyone thought was going to tear it up on NHL ice played for 21 different pro hockey teams (mostly minors) between 1989 and 2001. Newspaper reports from the time say 17 teams, but I count 21. It was too many teams, too little time, too few points, and not much impact at all. He was just another ordinary player, only with a big problem. Other things had got in the way.

Bryan Fogarty died in Myrtle Beach in 2002 from cardiac arrest. He was only 32. It’s all very sad, very tragic.

(From stardom in junior to life in a suitcase, Bryan Fogarty played for these professional teams after ripping it up in junior: Quebec Nordiques, Halifax Citadels, New Haven Nighthawks, Muskegon Lumberjacks, Pittsburgh Penguins, Cleveland Lumberjacks, Atlanta Knights, Las Vegas Thunder, Kansas City Blades, Montreal Canadiens, Minnesota Moose, Detroit Vipers, HC Davos, HC Milano, Hannover Scorpions, Indianapolis Ice, Baton Rouge Kingfish, St. John’s Maple Leafs, Knoxville Speed, Huntsville Tornato, and Elmira Jackals.)

Fogarty’s NHL numbers: 156 games, 22 goals, 52 assists, 119 penalty minutes.

These are Russian lapel pins. Russians love their pins, and there’s millions of them floating around. This little display I have at home are hockey and 1980 Olympics pins, and of course, there’s a story here.

In 1991, I told my friends, a Russian couple living in Leningrad, which shortly after became St. Petersburg, to start sending me pins and I’ll sell them (three for five bucks) and raise enough money to bring them to Canada to see some hockey. I raised $4000, they came, and we saw two games in Calgary, one in Edmonton, and were invited to a closed practice in Calgary where this husband and wife met all the players, got their picture taken with Theoren Fleury, and at the practice, GM Doug Risebrough came up to our seats to say hello.

Now this is where I hope you keep reading. Just a week before this couple had even landed in Canada, after all the pin selling, after all the preparation, my first wife informed me she wanted a divorce. So the whole month the Russian couple were with us, my wife and I pretended all was well so we wouldn’t ruin their holiday. But I was a hurtin puppy, and when everyone went to bed, I stayed up and drank myself into oblivion.

Now, I hope you’re still reading, because the story takes another twist. Not long after the couple went back to Russia, a letter came saying that they were also getting a divorce.

Ten years later, I married this Russian woman.