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Who is Cristobal Huet exactly? A relative unknown 31 year old backstop from France two years ago, but after coming into his own midway through 2005-06, he led the Canadiens to a play-off berth after the Habs traded away our #1 goalie Jose Theodore to Colorado for David Aebischer. Huet was nothing short of phenomenal last season and with a little luck he could have led the Habs into the 2nd or 3rd round of the play-offs last season. Huet was in the top 3 in G.A.A, and save percentage last season and with his stellar netminding he almost led the Habs past the eventual Stanley Cup winners, the Carolina Hurricanes.

So where did it all go wrong? I would have thought that Huet’s impressive performance last season would have assured him the starting job in Montreal this year, but cue Carbonneau and his seemingly bizarre desire to turn his “sure thing” into a goaltender controversy in the pre-season and we’re left with a script that has failure written all over it. Still confused? Well that makes two of us.

But before I throw Carbonneau to the wolves let’s take a look at G.M. Bob Gainey and his role in this debacle. You have a former vezina winner in goal in 2005-06 and it was clear half way through last season that Jose Theodore had fallen from grace and become consistently awful at best. Trading him was the correct move, and when you have a goaltender with Theodore’s resume to move, you are putting yourself in position to pick up some quality players for you playoff run. Theodore was sitting on the bench and Huet had come in as his replacement and became an instant superstar in Montreal. Furthermore let’s not overlook the fact that we have Carey Price and Jan Halek as the future of Montreal goaltending. It seems to me that the last thing the Habs needed to do was trade Theodore to the Avalanche for another goalie. However that is exactly what Gainey did. Did they need another top line forward on a team that has been without a bonfide sniper since Stephane Richer? Yes. Could we have used the Theodore trade to pick up another solid defensemen to take the pressure off Rivet and Souray whose defensive play stopped improving since they left Pee-wee? Sure. Perhaps they could have picked up some solid draft picks from the Aves to help them out in the future? Yes, he could have done that too. Actually those moves would have been the right moves but instead we picked up a marginal goaltender in exchange when we already had an emerging superstar in nets and two more future stars waiting in the wings for their chance to shine. As soon as that happenned it became clear to me what Gainey was thinking. At best he never truly believed Huet could be a solid #1 goaltender in Montreal and they could instead start up the “2 man system.” At worst, Huet would completely fall apart and Abby would become our new #1 goalie. Did anyone in Montreal ever here the phrase if it ain’t broke don’t fix it? If you don’t understand Gainey’s logic here, then you are not alone.

So what did happen when Abby arrived? It wasn’t hard to predict but I would like to reinforce the facts in case anyone forgot. Huet who was arguably the hottest goalie in the NHL for the second half of last season, started seeing his starts reduced and Gainey made it perfectly clear that he wanted Abby to start as many games as humanly possible before the play-offs started in order to get himself ready to emerge as the new #1 goalie. That’s right, the Habs starting sitting one of the best goalies in the NHL. The man who single handedly turned their season around and got them into playoff position with some of the best stats in the league, was going to start giving up his place in nets so that Gainey could prove to everyone that we didn’t trade away Theodore for absolutely nothing. So what happenned? Abby came in starting every second game and did exactly what he did in Colorado. He played awful, his G.A.A was well over 3 and the Canadiens dropped most of the games he started until the pressure from the fans made it clear they weren’t going to tolerate it anymore.

After suffering through the agony of watching this experiment gone wrong, Gainey finally succombed to the fan’s wishes and Huet earned his #1 job back to start the play-offs. No harm done right? Wrong. What he did was show that the Canadiens coaching staff and management had little or no appreciation for what Huet did for their team and demonstrated that they had little or no confidence in him as their #1 goalie. In addition when you lose your starting job for no reason at all and start getting pulled if you let in as little as 3 goals in a game you start feeling the pressure as you realize that any goal you let in could be the one that leaves you sitting on the bench. This is the reality of being a goalie in Montreal. Remember Patrick Roy and Mathieu Garon, and of course what happenned to Theodore? These goalies were all excellent goaltenders but over time they’re ability to perform at peak level declined in Montreal until they were traded. We always hear what a difficult city Montreal is to play in because of the media attention, but this is the icing on the cake. Icing that shouldn’t be there. Goaltenders falling apart while playing for Montreal is no coincidence. Thankfully Patrick Roy was smart enough to see this coming in time to leave on his own terms and it saved his career.

Let’s move on to 2006/07. After Huet earned his job back and played brilliantly in the 1st round of the play-offs against the Hurricanes, the Habs were smart enough to lock him up for the next 2 years. Very smart move and even I thought that Gainey and Carbonneau saw the light and learned from their mistakes. Of course that would mean that they also realized that they gave Theodore away for nothing and instead of having a back up sit on the bench they could have used him to pick a a talented player to help out their lacklustre offense. But at least our #1 goalie Huet was solidified as the man who would carry this team for the next two seasons right? Wrong.

It’s the 2006 pre-season and here I am watching sportscentre and as the regular season opener draws closer, all I hear about is the “goaltender controversy” in Montreal and who would get the start? What controversy? But sadly it was true. Even after yanking Huet out of his #1 role last season and pushing Abby to play as much as possible and seeing that experiment go up in smoke, the Canadiens decided it would be a good idea to start over and do the exact same thing this season. Enter the 2-man goalie system ,which if you didn’t already know is notorious for never producing a Stanley Cup winner.

So once again the Habs fans had to sit through the first half of this season watching Huet shine in the early part putting up some of the best stats in the NHL and then mysteriously gettting benched so that Abby would get his fair share of starts. If you compare the 2 goalies side by side on stats alone there is no comparison at all. Huet was #5 in G.AA and #2 in save percentage in the whole league heading into the allstar break, yet he was starting 10-15 fewer games than other #1 goaltenders in the league such as Roberto Luongo, Mikka Kiprusoff and Andrew Raycroft. The funny thing is, Montreal had a better record than all these teams and it still wasn’t enough to give Huet the #1 job. Huet would absolutely steal games for the Habs while they got terribly outshot and performed horribly in front of him and when the Habs’ awful play finally caught up to them and they started losing games 4-0 or 4-1, Huet was pulled immediately in favour of Abby. To make things worse, Huet would not start the next game following Canadiens losses. If this wasn’t bad enough, Huet would not get to start another game until Abby proved he was still terrible and lost as well. Get something straight. The Montreal Canadiens great record in the first half of the season was the result of overachieving, a lot of luck and a goaltender who seemed better than human many nights.

I am not just a Huet fan who is fighting his case because I favour him over Abby for no good reason. Although getting little or no respect or appreciation over the last two years from his own team, the NHL was not blind despite the fact that he was not even a #1 goaltender on his own team and spent nearly half of the games as a back-up. Huet was chosen by the NHL as an All-star because of his stats. That’s right an Allstar. There is only 6 goalies in the entire league who had the honour of being selected an NHL All-star and you can bet your life on it, that every one of them was the #1 goaltender on their teams and their coaches were proud to point this out after each and every game in front of the media.

Perhaps the most striking example is Andrew Raycroft. The Maple Leafs record is awful compared to the Habs and Huet blows Raycroft out of the water in head to head stats and win loss records, so why is it that as badly as Raycroft played, head coach Paul Maurice never ever lost faith in him? Raycroft remained the number one goalie in Toronto bar none. It didn’t matter how many games the Leaf’s lost or how many time he let in 6 or 7 goals. His teammates and coach came to his defense time and time again because they knew the truth. The Maple Leafs are an average team at best and it was not his fault that they were losing. The result of all this is that Andrew Raycroft had the confidence of his team and as they enter in the second half of the season, he is getting better and better because he does not have to worry about any extra pressure. He knows he only has to go out there and play his best and he won’t be punished and forced to ride the pine if his team fails to play hard in front of him.

The same can be said for Roberto Luongo. For the better part of the season, the Canucks have played average and their record shows it but not once did Alain Vigneault lose faith in Luongo or blame him for their marginal record. Once again if you look at the Canucks now, they are starting to turn the corner and Luongo is playing better than ever. Marc-Andre Fleury in Pittsburgh has been #1 all season despite having a worse record than Montreal in the first half of the season and the same can be said about Mikke Kiprusoff in Calgary. Both of these clubs are heating up too. Once again, no coincidence here, this is the result of clubs who are fully aware of their strengths and weaknesses and are consistent in their gameplan. If you remember Dwayne Rolson when he showed up in Edmonton last year he had a rocky start and had a difficult time proving himself but despite all the criticism, Craig Mactavish and the Oilers made it perfectly clear that “Rollie” was the man for their team and we all know how that story ended.

So here I am on Superbowl Sunday getting ready for the Montreal Pittsburgh matinee on CBC and was just informed that once again Abby is getting the start at home because Montreal lost to the Islanders on Saturday 4-1 with Huet in nets. Maybe Abby will get the win and play great which will ensure him the Number one job at least for the next week, which he certainly did not earn over the couse of this year, or maybe the Habs will lose again because they certainly have not played with any heart or desire in the last couple months. I think we can all agree that Montreal is inconsistent at best and this results from the inconsisent decisions made by the coaching staff in regards to their goaltending controversy which should not exist.

How is Huet ever going to get into a consistent groove and get his confidence up when Guy Carbonneau and Bob Gainey won’t allow him the chance to do so? Sadly, I forsee Huet becoming filed in the “what could have been” category alongside Doug Flutie because sometimes it doesn’t matter how good you play if the people you are playing for have their eyes closed

Pretty observant , and I would have to agree with 95% of what you said…But I don’t believe that Higgins is still hurt… The entire first line are LOST they have absolutely 0 in the way of confidence..and each one is playing more for themselves then for each other.
1: Ryder , all this guy tries to do is score..and he couldn’t hit the side af a barn with an airplane right now!!! Higgins: This guy so badly needs to score a goal that his hands hurt from holding on to the stick so tight…Koivu: This is where I am having a problem…Koivu’s play is ( to me ) an indication that there is something wrong in “the room”… Can you believe that after he got slammed into the boards on thursday, that Ryder and Higgs both just skated away, like they didn’t even see it happen! Just that in itself tells you this team somewhere between the 15th and 31st of december lost something very important! They lost that Heart and “team ethic”…I have to start questioning not only the players at this point…but the coach as well! for some reason their not playing for him!!!
2: LaPierre…Will not be traded…he’s one of the guttsiest hard-working fast skating players the habs have, that can and will win them games…(in a few years) therefore…LaPierre = part of our future…

Just a quick note…You have to assume that the deal Bob wants and is working on is the Forsberg deal…because it’s the only explination as to what the hell is taking so long..(His Injury) all I know is something NEEDS to happen…And soon…Even if they win today and Blow pittsburgh out of the rink by a score of 27-1 ( that would be too awesome! ) This team has serious problems that NEED to be addressed..or the golf season will be fast approaching!!!

Go Habs!