You have to start Peter Budaj for game two

I’m not saying the loss was entirely Carey Price’s fault. Of course it wasn’t. There are a few other Habs who could easily step up to accept responsibility for this 4-2 loss in game one to the Senators.

Michael Ryder for one. Was he dressed for tonight’s game? Max Pacioretty once again showed his reluctance to get his hands dirty, to get into Craig Anderson’s face. Markov, Diaz, Desharnais. All pretty unimpressive.

But the goalie is your key man. He’s your pitcher. Your quarterback. You don’t win the Cup without a great goalie. You don’t win many series without a great goalie. And Price was not great in game one. He wasn’t terrible. He was just middling. As usual.

He made some great saves late in the third – when the game was already out of reach. Michel Bergeron just said it on L’Antichambre and for once I agree with Le Tigre – ‘Il donne le mauvais but au mauvais moment!’

If Anderson outplays Price like this every night, this is going to be one short series. Fifty shots on net and the Habs lost.

“Anderson was the story of the game,” said kindly ol’ coach Michel Therrien.

I’m tired of people not willing to tell the truth about Price. He wasn’t good enough tonight.

I think we can all agree that Arpon Basu from nhl.com is one of our best hockey reporters so check out what he had to say about the game:

“At the other end of the ice, Montreal goaltender Carey Price gave up two goals he should have stopped in the opening 5:20 of the third period, turning a 2-1 Canadiens lead into a 3-2 deficit and seriously deflating a team that had been dominant to that point.

“Senators rookie Jakob Silfverberg scored his first career playoff goal at 3:27 of the third on a long slap shot that beat an unscreened Price through the legs to tie the game 2-2. Marc Methot followed with a slap shot from the blue line that Price attempted to glove but instead deflected behind him into the net at 5:20 to give Ottawa a 3-2 lead.”

Price stops those pucks and it’s an overtime game. Why blindly defend Price?

Therrien was asked to sum up Price’s play and he didn’t mince his words: “I would say Anderson was better than him.”

I agree. So take a stand. Get beyond the thoroughbred b.s. of the Gainey & Gauthier regime. Start Budaj and see what happens.

Habs goalie debate goes into overdrive with decision to bench Price

Wow. I have to say I’m pretty impressed. This really is a new-era Canadiens. Michel Therrien announced Tuesday that Peter Budaj will be getting the start Wednesday night against the best team in the East, the soaring Pittsburgh Penguins.

That’s right, they’re benching Carey Price after two fairly disastrous performances, against Toronto Saturday and Philadelphia Monday. Let’s make something crystal clear here – in the G&G/Gainey & Gauthier era, this would never have happened. Those managers always defended Price no matter what – remember Gainey’s infamous “thoroughbred” comment?

But this is just the latest example of the Marc Bergevin/Therrien philosophy. If you don’t play up to snuff, you sit. And now they’re applying the idea to the team’s franchise player.

And I think that’s great. I was having a rather animated chat in a cafe Tuesday – hey that’s how I spend my days – and one of the themes was this strange uncritical adulation of Price amongst so many Montreal fans. Price is treated like the re-incarnation of Plante, Dryden and Roy yet, oddly enough, he has neither the stats nor the Cup wins to justify that kind of adulation.

So I say give Budaj a shot in Pittsburgh. But it’s true the coach may be playing with fire here. What if Price goes into a funk over this and keeps letting those pucks slip between his legs? Do you then tear a page from 2010 and ride the Slovak back-up through the playoffs?

Well we’re still a long way from that. Let’s see what happens in Steel Town and then see how Price responds when he gets the starts Thursday in Montreal versus Tampa Bay.

Bottomline? You can’t just sit there and watch Price deliver sub-par performances. And I for one am happy new management has the cojones to make these tough decisions.

The Bergevin era has truly begun

Unlike Bernard Landry, I think my old friend Daniel Weinstock often has interesting things to say and he was right on the money with his question on Facebook after Thursday’s win against the sad-sack Buffalo Sabres clinched The Good Guys a playoff spot. Daniel wondered aloud when was the last time Les Boys clinched a playoff berth so early.

Excellent question. Montreal nabbed that playoff spot with eight games left to play. In recent years, the Habs have all-too-often gone right down to the wire, to that last game, invariably against the Leafs, to decide whether or not there will be any post-season action.

Now they’re in the post-season two weeks before that fun begins – and that my friends is the surest sign yet that the Marc Bergevin era has truly begun. This is great great news for Habs fans. The start of the Bergevin era also signals something else – the end of the Gainey era.

You may say – ‘Hey didn’t Bob Gainey quit a couple of years ago?’ And yes he did “officially” resign as GM on Feb. 8, 2010 – a out-of-nowhere decision that stunned the city’s hockey world and has never been properly explained by anyone since. But he didn’t really quit that day. He stayed on with the team as an “adviser” right up to the end of last season and was often seen in the Habs loge, hanging with Habs senior management. At the same time, his right-hand-man, Pierre ‘Mr. Personality’ Gauthier was “officially” running the show – or rather, running the team into the ground. Was Gainey still involved? Oh yeah. Was that a good thing? Oh no.

Anyhoo, back to this playoffs-berth thing. The Habs always used to get in on the last day – or not. The Gainey era – 2003 to 2012 – was all about striving for mediocrity. The goal was (hopefully) to get into the playoffs. Remember that year when right at start of season, Saku Koivu went off script, at the golf tournament I think, and said the team wasn’t a contender for the Cup that year. He was just speaking the truth. That was the Gainey philosophy – let’s be happy just being mediocre.

That’s not Bergevin’s way of thinking. He wants to build a Cup contender and that’s exactly what he’s doing. He’s not working to make it through one round of the playoffs. You know he wants to win it all. And that’s how organizations work – the top guy’s ideas filter down and have an impact on how everyone works.

We’ve all worked in places with mediocre bosses. If there’s no fight in the bosses, there’ll be no fight amongst us workers toiling on the shop floor. This season, for the first time in ages, there’s been a notion of accountability with the team.

It started on the first day of training camp when, 15 minutes after Les Boys hit the ice, Bergevin assembled the media wretches to tell them he’d sent Scott Gomez home. Gomer had been pulling the team down for a couple of seasons and under the tired old management, the reaction had been to force the coaching staff to play him more in a futile effort to prove that Gainey had made a good trade by taking Gomez off Glen Sather’s hands. In one foul swoop, Bergevin solved one of the team’s biggest problems.

Then Bergevin hired a coach, Michel Therrien, who has a simple philosophy. You do the work, you get rewarded. You don’t, you get punished. Lars Eller is sucking? He gets benched. Eller comes back and plays a solid game? He gets more ice-time. Thomas Kaberle is as effective as a novice kid on the blue-line? He sits – for the entire season.

The Gainey/Gauthier Habs was a deeply neurotic hockey club – some might even say psychotic. The players didn’t know what to do. They were getting conflicting messages from their bosses. When you see Gomez out on the power play even though he hasn’t scored since the Internet was invented, you feel demoralized.

But Bergevin gave the team some radical therapy. I can’t resist the Ramones shout-out – he gave them Shock Treatment. Bergevin and Therrien made it crystal-clear with everyone in the organization – it’s only about one thing, winning hockey games. It’s not about making mediocre managers look good. It’s not about personal vendettas. It’s about the team.

And if you don’t buy into it, you can go hang out with Pat Hickey in the press box. That’s what therapy is all about – making you feel better about yourself, getting rid of needless internal conflicts. Look at the post-game interviews, these guys love playing for the Habs this year.

And they go to the wall for each other. You want to try to put Brendan Gallagher’s head through the glass? Hey I’m gonna punch your lights out! (Eds. note: Did Don Cherry just sneak in and start writing this post?) I don’t like fighting but until the league out-laws it, you have to do what the other teams do. And once again, in the G&G era, teams routinely came in and ran over Carey Price because they knew this neurotic Habs squad wouldn’t raise a finger to defend their most important player.

Those days are over. The neurosis is in remission. So bring on those playoffs right now pal!

- Brendan

 

Frankie Bouillon fight defining moment for new-look Habs

It wasn’t the most exciting game Thursday night. The sagging Buffalo Sabres didn’t come out to play and the Canadiens easily cruised to a 5-1 win. Though perhaps lacking in real competition, it was still nice to see the Habs whacking Buffalo in such definitive fashion given all the trouble the Sabres have caused for the Canadiens this year. Also mighty nice to see P.K. Subban score his 11th goal of the season – the most for any D-man in the league – with that blast of his from the blueline.

Oh and the win did snare the Habs a place in the playoffs – which is, come to think of it, a cause for major-league celebration. But we all knew that was coming.

But the most significant moment came when Steve Ott layed on a ferocious hit on wee Brendan Gallagher. Our pesky rookie winger of course just bounced back up with that big loopy grin of his and was no worse for the wear-and-tear. But Francis Bouillon – another excellent Marc Bergevin pick-up – was having none of this. He was only too happy to drop the gloves and this was not one of those goofy staged NHL fights.

Frankie Bouillon was lashing out with some downright angry punches. This is the new-look Habs. Bouillon Cube was saying – if you touch Gallagher, you’ll pay the price.

And this is a new thing. For years, the Habs have played soft, encouraged by management – hello Mr. Gainey – who insisted you don’t need to be tough to win. (It remains one of the mysteries of recent Habs history how one of the toughest players ever became the poster-boy for small wimpy Habs teams. But I digress.)

In recent years, players would run over Carey Price and Pricey’s team-mates would stand around pretending not to notice. Zdeno Chara nearly kills Max Pacioretty? Hmmm let’s go have another sip from the water bottle.

All of a sudden Montreal has a real TEAM. These guys stand up for each other. Guys like Bouillon and Brandon Prust, neither of whom is huge, don’t put up with any crap. And that lets the skill guys play their game.

Seems to work. Last time I checked, Les Boys are in sole possession of first place in the Northeast.

http://www.rds.ca/vid%C3%A9os/du-brasse-camarade-1.608316

The Habs in the midst of a good old-fashioned goalie debate

As I write this, I’m listening to François Gagnon on with René Homier-Roy on C’est bien meilleur le matin and Gagnon is saying that this whole Carey Price debate underlines the bi-polarity of Canadiens fans.

Typical Montreal hockey columnist! Their fall-back position is to laugh at the fans. They’re always telling us – hey you, listen to us, we’re the experts, you guys have no right to weigh in on any Habs debates. Reminds me of the way doctors and dentists talk to us. But at least those guys need a university degree to get all snooty on us.

Hey Francois, Price let in 12 goals in two games. This is downright terrible. Yes of course they weren’t all his fault, but some of them were, particularly in that bizarre 7-6 Penguins game Saturday. That overtime winner Saturday? ‘Weak’ is not the word to describe Price on that one.

So there’s a problem and they’d be talking about it in any other hockey town worth the name. There’s nothing psychotic about the debate at all.

And we’re not the only ones upset. So is Price. Pat Hickey reports in The Gazette Thursday that after being beaten a bunch of times in a shootout drill during practice Wednesday, Price broke his stick on his goalposts in frustration.

Then he gave the journalists the usual hockey cliches – “The bounces aren’t going my way”, “I’m here today to work on a few things”.

At this point – Thursday morning – it’s not known who’s starting Thursday in Raleigh.

I at the very least remain consistent on Price. My point is that he has yet to really prove himself to be a great goalie at the NHL level. He’s done well but he hasn’t had one truly amazing regular season and his playoff record is totally horrific.

When I said all this in the Daybreak studio Wednesday, my pal Andie Bennett quite rightly pointed out that he’s hardly had great teams in front of him while racking up these less-than-Hall-of-Fame-level stats. And she’s right (just this one time!).

But it just underlines my point – the jury’s out on whether or not Price is the “thoroughbred” Bob Gainey thought he was. In the NHL – or any other professional league – all that matters is the playoffs and Price has never risen to the occasion in the post-season. In the ’08 playoffs, he led Habs to first-round victory against the Bruins (in seven games) but he was hardly impressive in the second-round loss to the Flyers that year.

The following year the Bruins swept the Habs in the first-round and Price was just terrible for the most part. Then came the Canadiens’ improbable playoff run in 2010 in which Price hardly even played a supporting role, not registering a single win. That was the #Halak spring. Price was quite good in the 2011 playoffs but his team still lost in the first-round to the dreaded Bs, who went on to win the Cup. (Yup the Habs were one Subban slapper away from the second round. It still kills me.)

It’s simple really – Price needs to deliver some A+ level playoff play to merit some serious adulation. Until then, many of us will continue to have our doubts.

Do I think he’ll get our adulation? 50-50 I’d say.

- Brendan

Two great stories from Saturday night….Jonathan Huberdeau and Jaromir Jagr

There was more to Saturday night than that depressing Habs game.

How about Quebecer Jonathan Huberdeau’s debut with the Florida Panthers, with the rookie scoring on his first-ever shot in the NHL and going on to notch one goal and two assists in his debut in the League. His line-mate Alex Kovalev – you remember him, don’t you? – also nabbed a goal and two assists in his first game with the Panthers. Will they be working the same magic together Tuesday night at the Bell Centre? You know L’Artiste is gonna wanna impress his many Montreal fans.

Here’s the video of Huberdeau’s first goal, set up with a little help from Kovie.

The other cool story Saturday was another debut, that of Jaromir “Mullet” Jagr with Bob Gainey’s Dallas Stars. Jags said he wanted to play in Montreal but management here has made it clear they don’t want or need his old-school firepower. So he scored twice and added two assists in his first game with the Stars.

Here’s his first goal in a Stars jersey. He does not like all that old and creaky.

A sad end to Scott Gomez’s career; Canadiens send him home

My Daybreak pal Shawn Apel tweeted me just minutes into Sunday morning’s Marc Bergevin press conference to ask – Happy now? He asked this shortly after Bergevin announced that the Montreal Canadiens had told Scott Gomez to go home and that they would be buying him out next season. It’s impossible for me not to mention that that’s just exactly what I suggested in this very space on Friday.

And I understand where Shawn’s question was coming from. I have been raging against the pathetic play of Gomez with the Habs for a couple of seasons now.

But I’m not celebrating this morning. I just feel bad for a guy whose career is grinding to a halt in such brutal fashion. Gomez was once a very good player. I remember Hockey Night in Canada running a highlight reel a couple of years back during a Habs playoff series and I was dumbfounded watching clips of him in a Devils jersey, scoring, crashing the net, playing with remarkable intensity.

But he never played like that with Montreal. He was kind of alright that first season – 12 goals, 47 assists – but then it went south fast. The next season he had seven goals and 38 points – and a minus-15 plus/minus – and last year was even more brutal, two goals and nine assists in 38 games. If he’d been costing the team a million or two, it would’ve been no biggie. But he comes with a $7.4 million cap hit – thanks Glen Sather! – and you just can’t pay that kind of money for that kind of production.

So he had to go. The fact the previous managers didn’t have the balls to make that move is just the latest evidence of how ill-equipped they were to run a major-league sports franchise. Gomez has been a distraction for two years and it has hurt the Habs.

But right now I don’t feel any joy. The Habs had to do this and hats off to Bergevin and Geoff Molson for having the cojones to step up to the plate and take a real, tough decision. But this is gotta be terrible for Gomez, even if he’s still gonna pull in $5.5 million while sitting at home in Alaska twiddling his thumbs.

The other thing that has me seeing red this morning is that – as my Twitter pal Rich Thorpe pointed out – the incompetent managers that orchestrated this deal are now sitting in executive suites with other teams poised and ready to work their magic elsewhere. I have a good friend who’s maybe Montreal’s biggest Chicago Blackhawks fan and just imagine how she feels about the idea that Pierre ‘Chuckles’ Gauthier is in charge of player development for the Hawks.

That’s the worst part of this story. Most of us knew from day-one that this Gomez deal smelled like a full dumpster behind a fish restaurant on a steamy day in July in Montreal. It was a panic move on Gainey’s part, just the perfect example of the paranoid, thoughtless management style of the Gainey/Gauthier era. It’s a legacy the team will be paying for for at least a couple of years to come.

But at least Habs fans this morning have the first clear sign that there’s a new sheriff in town.

Chris Nilan wasn’t just a gladiator…he was also a fine hockey player

I have some major issues with the new Chris Nilan documentary The Last Gladiators, grumbling that you can read in all its glory in my review of the Alex Gibney-directed film in The Gazette Friday. The short version? I think it’s irresponsible that Gibney didn’t go deeper into the whole issue of why the NHL encourages the goon mentality and how this impacts so negatively on these guys’ off-ice behaviour.

But one of the most interesting parts of the documentary is the discussion of how this guy who made it into the Big Leagues by punching the biggest, toughest guys he could find rather miraculously became a pretty darn good hockey player somewhere along the way.

Nilan talks of how Habs coach Claude Ruel – who ran the bench from 1979-1981, just when Nilan was starting out in the National Hockey League – worked so hard with him to develop his skills and Jacques Lemaire, who took over from Ruel, was even more engaged in making Knuckles Nilan a better player. In the film, Nilan marvels at how Lemaire would put him on the ice when the team needed a goal and there are some beautiful Nilan goals shown here, including one on a penalty shot!

Nilan also underlines that he learned from his team-mates, who just happened to be some of the greatest players ever to lace-up in the League, including Larry Robinson and Bob Gainey. At one point, someone says of Nilan, ‘it’s his drive” and that’s so true. Think of so many ultra-skilled players who under-perform because they don have 1/100th of the heart of Chris Nilan.

Here’s a fighter – who also happened to be one of the best fighters of the era – who scored 21 goals one year and 19 another year. Compare that to the Habs’ last enforcer, Georges Laraque, who couldn’t score if his life depended on it…..and in fact, by the time he made his way to the Canadiens (in just another horrible Gainey move), wasn’t even willing to fight any more.

Nilan was the real thing, the kind of player you just don’t see in today’s NHL chock-full-of spoiled-brat players. He talks of how devastated he was after the Canadiens traded him to the Rangers, a trade that came after Nilan told coach Jean Perron where to stuff it. Today players change teams like they change underwear. It’s all about the pay-cheque.

Not Nilan.

“It broke me,” he says of the trade from the Habs.

He cared. Now there’s a novel concept. Try explaining that to Tomas Kaberle.

 

It’s July….and we’re talking Habs

Really. It’s a gorgeous summer Saturday afternoon in Montreal, the sort of day that has normal folks’ thoughts turning to the quest for the closest swimming pool, hitting the bike path or quaffing a chilly pint on the local bar’s terrace.

So there I am deep in discussion with my pal about – wait for it! – hockey. I know, it’s kind of sad. But you know what? I’m convinced I’m not the only one suffering from these Habs withdrawal symptoms.

I hear the Olympics are coming up shortly in London, the Als are playing the Tiger-Cats Saturday night and rumour has that the Impact are still playing soccer. But that’s not what me and Tony were talking about.

Like most self-respecting Montrealers, I’m not really a sports fan or even a hockey fan. I’m a Habs fan. This isn’t just a one-sport town. It’s a one-team town.

So there we were wondering if there will be even be a hockey season and wondering if our beloved Canadiens can scrape their way up to 13th place in the East. Our prognosis? I figure we could make 13th place. Tony – who’s an eternal optimist – says Les Boys are making the playoffs.

We both like recent Habs pick-ups Brandon ‘ELO’ Prust and Francis ‘The Cube’ Bouillon, we both would’ve liked to see Jaromir ‘Yes I Tuck My Sweater In, Want To Make Something Of It?’ Jagr playing alongside his pal Tomas ‘What Have You Done For Us Lately’ Plekanec on the Canadiens’ currently mucked-up second line, and we are still big Marc Bergevin fans. Did I mention that we’re both happy that Bob ‘Elvis Has Left the Building’ Gainey and Pierre ‘Major Major’ Gauthier are now working far from Montreal?

So we’re both pretty happy. We like the summer in Montreal. We like that you can finally see all the beautiful people that were hiding under big winter coats for eight months. I’ll have a barbecue tonight and hoist a few like any normal fellow. But I will still be thinking about the Habs and after a couple of Molson Canadians – just kidding, make that Red Stripes – I might just venture an opinion or two on Nos Habs’ chances come October. Ah summer in Montreal!

- Brendan

 

Bob Gainey headed to Dallas Stars to consult

Wow, Elvis really has left the building. Bob ‘What About Bob’ Gainey has been hired as a consultant to Dallas Stars general manager Joe Nieuwendyk. Dallas is, of course, the place where Mr. Gainey actually had success as a GM, winning the Stanley Cup in 1999 with a little help from Nieuwendyk, who won the Conn Smythe Trophy as playoff MVP that year.

The only hiccup is Gainey’s track record since. Obviously Nieuwendyk has fond memories of his old boss – it was Gainey who traded with Calgary to bring Joe down to Texas – but didn’t he notice how What About Bob and his sidekick Pierre ‘Major Major’ Gauthier drove the Canadiens into the ground? Apparently not.

When Gainey abruptly resigned as Habs GM in February, 2010, the team was, to be polite, struggling. Sure it had some limited success on his watch but he was the chief architect of the misguided (eds note: downright pathetic!) strive-for-mediocrity philosophy that came close to destroying the Habs. Making 8th place was always good enough for Bob.

And his fly-by-the-seat-of-his-pants remake/remodel (eds. note: Isn’t that a Roxy Music album track?) of the team in July, 2009 was an absolute failure. The result of that little bit of electroshock therapy? Last place in the east this season. He made one of the three worst trades in franchise history – right up there with the Patrick Roy and Chris Chelios brain farts – by sending Chris Higgins and defence prospect Ryan McDonagh to the Rangers in return for taking Scott Gomez and his psychotic contract off of Glen Sather’s hands. That one worked out pretty well eh?

Gomez scored……ah forget it, I don’t even wanna go back down that nightmare on La Gauchetiere (eds. note: Ave. les Canadiens!). But the real killer is McDonagh. Have you been watching the terrific Rangers-Capitals series? McDonagh is on the ice whenever something’s on the line. Can you imagine how good he would’ve looked in the Habs line-up this season?

Cammie? He became Rene Bourque. Yeah that worked out well too. And the other big summer 09 pick-up Brian Gionta has been okay but no more.

Then there was the matter of Gainey refusing to vacate his Bell Centre office. He leaves in if not disgrace at least not with his head held high yet he keeps showing up for work every day. How do you spell ‘dysfunctional’? And was he still pulling the strings, the puppet-meister for Ghost Gauthier? Who knows.

Anyway, I’m happy to see Gainey getting some work in Texas. Richard Labbe from La Presse tweeted me to suggest maybe Gainey would try to get Gomez back – a brilliant idea Richard! Then  someone else on Twitter weighed in to say Chatterbox Gainey might also try to trade for Kaberle and, why not, Rene Bourque. Then we all came to the conclusion that he could also bring Pierre ‘Chuckles’ Gauthier, whoopee cushion in hand, down to Dallas to provide a little levity in the Stars’ executive suites. He could be put in charge of handing out one cookie a-piece to the media hacks before games.

I like it. Clearly it’s just a matter of months before the Cup makes its triumphant return to Dallas.