Benedict Arnold. Johnny Damon. Hal Gill.

Last week, the Habs signed ex-Bruin, ex-Penguin Hal “Skills” Gill. This Bruins fan remembers Gill not for his shut-down performances against Jaromir Jagr, but rather for his suckass performance in the playoffs against Montreal a few years back, where his lack of quickness and mobility was exploited by the smaller, quicker Montreal forwards. If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. I hope when Gill brings the Cup to Concord, MA this summer, he is chided accordingly by the locals for his traitorous choice. And speaking of which - Bob Gainey - “who won’t make it to Xmas” according to Section 311 prognosticators – has opened up Montreal’s pocketbook and signed on Michael Cammalleri ($6M), Brian Gionta ($5M), and Jaroslav Spacek ($3.8M). Quick analysis/prediction: Spacek will get hurt within 2 weeks, Gionta will do okay, Cammalleri will do okay. I think the Cammalleri signing is an attempt to shore up their power play (same with Spacek, but since Spacek will only play 28 games this year...), but we all know that MTL’s #1 power play left town long ago when Mark Streit went to the Isle. However, the biggest gaffe…if I was a Hab fan, I’d douse myself in lighter fluid, scream “Tabarnac!”, and self-immolate over the trade for Scott Gomez ($8M). It’s just an awful move. But I’m glad to see Chris Higgins go. So let’s just watch Montreal implode next season. Schadenfreude will have never felt so good. I will say, also, they have about $10M left against the cap, and since I need additional reasons to hate them, I hope they re-sign Alexei “Louganis” Kovalev.

Bruins re-signed the brass-balled Mark Recchi. Surely, Cload wanted him back on the team to show the players what dedication is – we all know the story of Recchi getting his blood switched out, Keith Richards-style, before one of the games vs. Carolina a few months ago. I used to hate Recchi due to his presence on the good Penguins teams of the early 90’s that beat the B’s, and for his presence on the Habs teams of the late 90’s, and it took me awhile to warm to the concept…but as usual, winning changes everything.

Final note. Komisarek is a good player. If there was anyone on the Habs that is worthy of wearing the spoked-B, it’s Komisarek. If you thought he was the biggest chump on the Habs last year, recall that he often had to stick up for his wimpass team, and he was usually the only one. He was probably more upset that he had the Kostitsyns on his team than for anything else.