I’ve been a habs fan for so long I’ve been all 4 of these types of fans
JonBellivo
A lot of the « Toxic Believers » poke their heads out during the off-season when it’s time to talk about prospects. The heated debates over players they’ve never watched even once, the affected-certainty over which player will make it and which will not, etc. All of it could be uplifting and optimistic if the discussions weren’t so toxic.
The best part is how delusional and angry we get when confronted by names like Tinordi, Leblanc, etc… apt reminders that none of us has a fucken clue what will happen in the future with any of these guys. But nobody wants to hear that.
dulljerk
I don’t believe in rebuilds (and kudos to the Boston Bruins, because they don’t either).
I don’t believe in the NHL being used for « development ». That’s why we we have the AHL and etcetera. The NHL is for the best « pros » in the world to play competitively.
I don’t believe you shower the front office with accolades until they actually provide a competitive team.
I don’t believe in drinking the corporate Kool-Aid when paying top prices for everything and seeing a bottom dweller.
Fundingforis6
You forgot the extreme optimists FUCK WE WILL WIN THE CUP KENT HUGHES W WW WWWWW FLEECEE, SLAF > EVERYONE ELSE
This is me
davefromgabe
depends on the day tbh
ahma-tti
im 100% skeptic/non-toxic, patiently watching from the sidelines and waiting for our time to come once again and terrorize the LNH!
MediumRare71
I am so much of a believer that I’m not toxic or non toxic, I will not accept reality and I will not blame anyone when expectations are not met.
AngryAssyrian
I feel like every fan goes through each of these phases
DieuEmpereurQc
All of them, depends of the day and the players
Sharks9
Non-toxic skeptic. I’ve just seen too many prospects bust or disappoint to be a believer
slymanjojo
Where’s my Norrislinder gang
WintertimeLivingEasy
“But can accept when an assets plateaus”
Yea there’s no non-toxic believers here.
Key-Surprise-9206
If you blame specific players you are top left
HanshinFan
Dude you should cross post this to every single sports subreddit and message board ever, crucially important work
meowpeh
Hmm I would put myself in the slightly toxic believer
realm_fury
It sure was fun times around here when Reinbacher was picked…LMAO.
We needed a Toxic/Toxic category then.
King_Frozen9
Welcome to Montreal !
Lavs1985
I’m a mostly non-toxic skeptic with a touch of believer optimism mixed in.
CocoKing02
Ive grown from a toxic believer->toxic skeptic->non-toxic believer and right now, I would say I’m a non-toxic skeptic
amm0ranth
calling players « assets » is so weird
AnxiousAstronaut
I am the negative spaces in the corner. I’m right about everything.
Vingt-Quatre
So, everyone who doesn’t agree with every decision the team makes is toxic?
imoneyswag
Was a toxic believer in playoff Dale weise, now i just pass the days as a non-toxic skeptic, nothing will be the same after dutch gretzky
cluelesshabsfan
Unrelated but the entire of r/DenverBroncos is top right. It’s insufferable
Don’t be like them
shadopup
I feel generally most of the fanbase has actually been pretty good and reasonable about the rebuild so far.
Yeah you have that vocal group who really narrow in on a scapegoat and when that scapegoat gets traded, they find another one but generally I feel like it hasn’t been bad.
I think the season after this one is when things will get dicey. Basically when the team is actually expected to start winning. If that doesn’t happen and various prospects disappoint (especially 1st rounders) then that’s when the shit will hit the fan.
________TVOD________
I’m a non toxic believer for the Habs, but a toxic skeptic for anything else in the world. go figure.
Eazy3006
I am firmly in the Non toxic Skeptic clan.
I don’t really like their drafting. It’s incredible to me that with 3 first including a 1st overall and and 5th overall and the 33rd overall pick in 2022, what we have is Slaf, Mesar, Reinbacher and Beck. I think some of those will be good players but non of those are gonna be game changers. At least they swung on Hutson.
On the other hand, I’m 50/50 on their trading. Petry’s trade, Chiarot’s trade and Dach’s trade were all good. They are also very good at assets management. But some trades like Lehky’s, Newhook’s and to a certain extent Toffoli’s were not great imo.
I’m not a big fan of the overall direction of the team. I think the rebuild is either going to be way longer than what it should’ve been or the team is being sent to mediocrity land where it will be getting into the playoffs every other year fighting for a wild card spot until the end of the season.
But even though I’m very skeptic, I respect everybody’s opinion and i don’t interact with people as if only my opinion had value.
Studly_Wonderballs
I’ve been through the trenches with Leblanc. I’ve crawled through the shit with Kristo. I went to bat for for Tinordi and Beaulieu. I believed in a better world with Galchenyuk. My faith was fractured with McCarron. I followed Scherbak to a new land, and walked hand-in-hand with Juulsen and Poehling. I’ve watched as Kotkaniemi betrayed us. But found a new hope in Cole Caufield.
… I’ve seen some shit.
There will always be prospects. Some will pan out, some will surprise, but most will never see the ice of the Molson Center. We can be disappointed, or we can manage expectations, provide support, and hope for the best.
ifTrueThenReturnTrue
Skeptic leaning more towards toxic every year. I’m pushing 40 and the best forward I’ve seen since Koivu and adult life is probably Suzuki, and both are bargain bin 1C if we are being honest. We draft like shit, we develop like shit, we do fine for small trades but never swing for the fences. UFAs avoid us more than freaking Winnipeg.
We just are fundamentally unable to draft, develop, trade or sign top talent. This has been true for decades.
Other teams constantly have PPG players, we have one per decade. Our identity always revolved around goalies, we are now bottom 5 if not bottom 3 in tandem rankings.
St-Louis is bright light and this time around there seems to be a general understanding that it’s fine to be bottom dwellers while the kids play. That makes the games worth watching…but deep inside I know we’ll end up with a collection of 3rd liners and 4th Ds and in 6 years we’ll be « rebuilding » again under a new GM and coach.
juliusceasarsalads
I like to think I’m non-toxic believer but I’m close to the line between believer and skeptic. Generally a pretty big fan of this management group and I like how they’ve handled assets so far. Player development seems to be improving, I love MSL as a coach (at least for the rebuild), lots of trades have either been outright wins or deals that have good potential to work out in the future, and I haven’t felt scared that we’re going to accelerate out of this rebuild too quickly or that we’re going to be rebuilding for longer than necessary (greater than 5 years). I like the direction we’re heading and I’m excited to see how it continues, it feels good to finally have a direction for this team after so many years of “make the playoffs and anything can happen”.
On the other hand, I’ve been asked two years in a row to believe that management made the right call with their top pick when they selected a player that I personally would not have taken and that I did not believe what the best available player at that position. Slafkovsky and Reinbacher are both Habs now and I love them both but neither of them are the near guaranteed PPG forward prospect that I and other still feel are missing from this rebuild and I’ll be a bit antsy until we add that forward (especially when we had a chance at Michkov). If we don’t walk out of the next draft with that player I do worry we won’t be able to find them through the draft without immense luck. I’m also not crazy about how some draft decisions like taking Mesar or Florian Xhekaj seem to be made to make other players (Slaf, Arber) happy. I think Hughes and co could be a bit more proactive in trading some more vets for future assets and to help clear out some of the dead weight on this team. Lastly, while I like Newhook and I’m excited to see how he develops I would have liked to have another year where we make two 1st round picks. It’s not that big of a deal, I just like the draft and having more than 1 pick is more fun lol.
TL;DR: I believe in this rebuild, but I’d believe a lot more if we had a can’t miss, high end forward prospect to project as a PPG NHLer
zionistmilly
Toxic skeptic and proud 😈
savi_GTA4
Im definitely a toxic believer and I hate it
xQuinchien
Reality is we bounced from zone to zone weekly
Lucky_Sparky
Toxic Believer Gang
antrage
Can this be pinned in perpetuity?
hockeynoticehockey
I find myself going through all 4 stages every game.
37 Comments
Who here /non-toxic believer/ gang
I’ve been a habs fan for so long I’ve been all 4 of these types of fans
A lot of the « Toxic Believers » poke their heads out during the off-season when it’s time to talk about prospects. The heated debates over players they’ve never watched even once, the affected-certainty over which player will make it and which will not, etc. All of it could be uplifting and optimistic if the discussions weren’t so toxic.
The best part is how delusional and angry we get when confronted by names like Tinordi, Leblanc, etc… apt reminders that none of us has a fucken clue what will happen in the future with any of these guys. But nobody wants to hear that.
I don’t believe in rebuilds (and kudos to the Boston Bruins, because they don’t either).
I don’t believe in the NHL being used for « development ». That’s why we we have the AHL and etcetera. The NHL is for the best « pros » in the world to play competitively.
I don’t believe you shower the front office with accolades until they actually provide a competitive team.
I don’t believe in drinking the corporate Kool-Aid when paying top prices for everything and seeing a bottom dweller.
You forgot the extreme optimists FUCK WE WILL WIN THE CUP KENT HUGHES W WW WWWWW FLEECEE, SLAF > EVERYONE ELSE
This is me
depends on the day tbh
im 100% skeptic/non-toxic, patiently watching from the sidelines and waiting for our time to come once again and terrorize the LNH!
I am so much of a believer that I’m not toxic or non toxic, I will not accept reality and I will not blame anyone when expectations are not met.
I feel like every fan goes through each of these phases
All of them, depends of the day and the players
Non-toxic skeptic. I’ve just seen too many prospects bust or disappoint to be a believer
Where’s my Norrislinder gang
“But can accept when an assets plateaus”
Yea there’s no non-toxic believers here.
If you blame specific players you are top left
Dude you should cross post this to every single sports subreddit and message board ever, crucially important work
Hmm I would put myself in the slightly toxic believer
It sure was fun times around here when Reinbacher was picked…LMAO.
We needed a Toxic/Toxic category then.
Welcome to Montreal !
I’m a mostly non-toxic skeptic with a touch of believer optimism mixed in.
Ive grown from a toxic believer->toxic skeptic->non-toxic believer and right now, I would say I’m a non-toxic skeptic
calling players « assets » is so weird
I am the negative spaces in the corner. I’m right about everything.
So, everyone who doesn’t agree with every decision the team makes is toxic?
Was a toxic believer in playoff Dale weise, now i just pass the days as a non-toxic skeptic, nothing will be the same after dutch gretzky
Unrelated but the entire of r/DenverBroncos is top right. It’s insufferable
Don’t be like them
I feel generally most of the fanbase has actually been pretty good and reasonable about the rebuild so far.
Yeah you have that vocal group who really narrow in on a scapegoat and when that scapegoat gets traded, they find another one but generally I feel like it hasn’t been bad.
I think the season after this one is when things will get dicey. Basically when the team is actually expected to start winning. If that doesn’t happen and various prospects disappoint (especially 1st rounders) then that’s when the shit will hit the fan.
I’m a non toxic believer for the Habs, but a toxic skeptic for anything else in the world. go figure.
I am firmly in the Non toxic Skeptic clan.
I don’t really like their drafting. It’s incredible to me that with 3 first including a 1st overall and and 5th overall and the 33rd overall pick in 2022, what we have is Slaf, Mesar, Reinbacher and Beck. I think some of those will be good players but non of those are gonna be game changers. At least they swung on Hutson.
On the other hand, I’m 50/50 on their trading. Petry’s trade, Chiarot’s trade and Dach’s trade were all good. They are also very good at assets management. But some trades like Lehky’s, Newhook’s and to a certain extent Toffoli’s were not great imo.
I’m not a big fan of the overall direction of the team. I think the rebuild is either going to be way longer than what it should’ve been or the team is being sent to mediocrity land where it will be getting into the playoffs every other year fighting for a wild card spot until the end of the season.
But even though I’m very skeptic, I respect everybody’s opinion and i don’t interact with people as if only my opinion had value.
I’ve been through the trenches with Leblanc. I’ve crawled through the shit with Kristo. I went to bat for for Tinordi and Beaulieu. I believed in a better world with Galchenyuk. My faith was fractured with McCarron. I followed Scherbak to a new land, and walked hand-in-hand with Juulsen and Poehling. I’ve watched as Kotkaniemi betrayed us. But found a new hope in Cole Caufield.
… I’ve seen some shit.
There will always be prospects. Some will pan out, some will surprise, but most will never see the ice of the Molson Center. We can be disappointed, or we can manage expectations, provide support, and hope for the best.
Skeptic leaning more towards toxic every year. I’m pushing 40 and the best forward I’ve seen since Koivu and adult life is probably Suzuki, and both are bargain bin 1C if we are being honest. We draft like shit, we develop like shit, we do fine for small trades but never swing for the fences. UFAs avoid us more than freaking Winnipeg.
We just are fundamentally unable to draft, develop, trade or sign top talent. This has been true for decades.
Other teams constantly have PPG players, we have one per decade. Our identity always revolved around goalies, we are now bottom 5 if not bottom 3 in tandem rankings.
St-Louis is bright light and this time around there seems to be a general understanding that it’s fine to be bottom dwellers while the kids play. That makes the games worth watching…but deep inside I know we’ll end up with a collection of 3rd liners and 4th Ds and in 6 years we’ll be « rebuilding » again under a new GM and coach.
I like to think I’m non-toxic believer but I’m close to the line between believer and skeptic. Generally a pretty big fan of this management group and I like how they’ve handled assets so far. Player development seems to be improving, I love MSL as a coach (at least for the rebuild), lots of trades have either been outright wins or deals that have good potential to work out in the future, and I haven’t felt scared that we’re going to accelerate out of this rebuild too quickly or that we’re going to be rebuilding for longer than necessary (greater than 5 years). I like the direction we’re heading and I’m excited to see how it continues, it feels good to finally have a direction for this team after so many years of “make the playoffs and anything can happen”.
On the other hand, I’ve been asked two years in a row to believe that management made the right call with their top pick when they selected a player that I personally would not have taken and that I did not believe what the best available player at that position. Slafkovsky and Reinbacher are both Habs now and I love them both but neither of them are the near guaranteed PPG forward prospect that I and other still feel are missing from this rebuild and I’ll be a bit antsy until we add that forward (especially when we had a chance at Michkov). If we don’t walk out of the next draft with that player I do worry we won’t be able to find them through the draft without immense luck. I’m also not crazy about how some draft decisions like taking Mesar or Florian Xhekaj seem to be made to make other players (Slaf, Arber) happy. I think Hughes and co could be a bit more proactive in trading some more vets for future assets and to help clear out some of the dead weight on this team. Lastly, while I like Newhook and I’m excited to see how he develops I would have liked to have another year where we make two 1st round picks. It’s not that big of a deal, I just like the draft and having more than 1 pick is more fun lol.
TL;DR: I believe in this rebuild, but I’d believe a lot more if we had a can’t miss, high end forward prospect to project as a PPG NHLer
Toxic skeptic and proud 😈
Im definitely a toxic believer and I hate it
Reality is we bounced from zone to zone weekly
Toxic Believer Gang
Can this be pinned in perpetuity?
I find myself going through all 4 stages every game.