So Carey Price signed a two year deal yesterday. Contrary to the garbage and innuendo that has been brought up over the past few months in the media and amongst our fanbase about Price wanting out of Montreal or threatening a lengthy contract holdout, he signed on the dotted line ensuring that he will remain a Canadien for two more years. After those two seasons he will still be an RFA, although with arbitration rights.

The two sides never publicly wavered in their belief that a deal would be in place before the team started its pre-season training. Dave Stubbs, in an interview with Price’s agent Gerry Johannson, revealed that Price’s intentions had never changed throughout the process. All parties understood that it would take time to settle on the value of the contract. In fact these were things that many people within the situation – and close to it – were saying the entire summer.

Of course those weren’t the voices that Habs fans chose to listen to. The voice of reason is never popular among those who crave insanity. All summer we heard utter garbage about the player, the situation, and the team. We heard that Carey was demanding trades. We heard that he was going to hold-out. The truth of course was that often contract negotiations take time. The figure that was reached is reasonable given the host of circumstances that play into determining the value of a contract.

I was not shocked this morning when I began to read some of the comments on the plethora of Habs related sites that I visit each day. Unsurprisingly, many Habs fans are aghast at the value of Price’s deal. Frankly, there would be no pleasing a certain element of this fanbase who crave blood more than Cups. We’ve seen it time and time again with player-after-player who are forced out of town by the sensationalist element that holds far too much air-time when it comes to opining all things Canadien.

The truth is Price’s contract is exactly where it should be given the market conditions that exist in the NHL right now. Price makes slightly more than Dwayne Roloson, and $650,000 per year less than Pekka Rinne – who many pundits believe is just about the best value-for-player contract among NHL goalies. I invite everyone to go to capgeek.com and peruse goalie salaries themselves. The fact remains, that for all the griping about the “big money” of Carey’s contract, it is actually incredibly reasonable. Especially so, when you consider the tax burden for players signing in Quebec as compared to other players. It costs more to play here. Its a fact that everyone ignores, but is critical in understanding why the Habs have been on the “generous” side more often than not in contract negotiations.

Even so, consider the other goalies in the league right now. Pascal Leclaire makes $3.8M. Even if they were paid the same salary, would you rather have Leclaire or Price in net? How about JS Giguerre at $6M? The Wild are spending $7.2M on goaltending – where did that get them last year? Cam Ward had a fantastic rookie year that saw him win a cup. Since then he’s looked an awful lot like Carey Price. The only difference of course is that Carolina pays him $6M per season. The fact that the Canadiens have managed to trim their goaltending costs to $3.75M for next season is incredible. The Habs have the 11th lowest salary total for goalies in the NHL, which will allow Gauthier the necessary room to make a deal should one present itself.

Of course the element who propagate rumours and trouble surrounding the club won’t see this deal for what it is. This deal will now make Carey a lightning rod just like Theodore, Ribiero, the Kostitsyns, Kovalev and so on. They make a huge production over the perception that the Habs could have saved $250K-$500K on Price – their starting goaltender who they’d like to keep happy and in town for as long as possible. Its a joke. I’d like to bet that few of those who are chirping now about the contract have actually ever been through a contract negotiation. There is no guarantee that a guy like Niemi would have signed here for the same number as in California – especially since his arbitration was so late in the UFA season! Look no further than the $3.8M Ottawa is spending on Leclaire as evidence that it costs money to bring UFA goalies to Canada.

Price is signed for 2 years at a reasonable rate and will be an RFA under Montreal’s control when the contract is up. For me this is a great deal.

What do you guys think?

One thing is clear as the Canadiens head into a new NHL season this fall: in order for the Habs to make another deep post-season run, it is critical that the young players on the team emerge as capable support for the big-money earning foursome of Gomez, Gionta, Cammalleri, and Plekanec. While its entirely fair to expect that those who make the money produce, in order to win in the NHL – you need a contribution throughout your lineup. Last season those four players previously mentioned combined to lead the team in points – even though Gionta and Cammalleri played only 61 and 65 games respectively.

The big four were brought in to lead the team – but they’re going to need some help if the Canadiens are going to be anything more than a middle of the pack team. The question is: who among the forwards will be the guy to make the leap forward?

We’ve all waited in agony while Andrei Kostitsyn took 1 step forward and 2 steps back during the past couple of seasons. The enigmatic sniper can be very dangerous when his game is on – but exactly when that will happen – I’m not convinced even Andrei knows.  Everyone has heard about which players the Habs missed in order to select Andrei with the 10th over-all pick in 2003. I won’t get into that.. But I will say that since he signed his contract following the 07-08 season in which he amassed 53 points in 72 games , there has been a lot of waiting, and not much return. His 33 points in 59 games came in bunches, frustrating fans as he scored just often enough, to perpetuate the optimism that his break out was eminent.  We’ll see what happens this year. If he can stay healthy he has the tools to put up good numbers – but in the eyes of most Habs fans – he already has one foot out the door.

Benoit Pouliot was a revelation when he come over in a mid-season trade from the Minnesota Wild for fellow under-performer Guillaume Latendresse. In 39 regular season games with the Canadiens Benny scored 24 points (15 goals) which would have been a positive story going into his first full year with the club if he had not disappeared entirely in the playoffs – scoring only 2 points in 18 games. Pouliot has the size and skills to make an impact on the top 6. The question is, does he have the drive to do the things he has to do to be a top tier forward in the NHL?

Lars Eller came to the Canadiens via the Jaroslav Halak deal and while there is always an abundance of optimism for young players wearing Habs sweaters – there is an added sense of urgency surrounding Eller’s debut. The fact that he was the major cog in the trade that sent the Canadiens’ playoff hero packing makes for added pressure considering Eller has only a handful of games at the NHL level. He does have the tools to be a good NHLer though. The 21 year old Dane was drafted 13th overall by the Blues in 2007, scoring 57 points in 70 games in Peoria of the AHL. Those are good numbers for a young player, but the real test for Lars will come when he is called upon at some point during the season to fill into the top 6. At 6’1 200 he has the size to be effective. Still, for a guy who has played 7 NHL games, the Habs are asking a lot which will add a whole lot of pressure to his 2010-11 season.

Maxime Lapierre will never be confused with the upper-echelon of NHL goal scorers, but as a 25 year old with ample size, he does have a place on this team if he can play more like the Max from the playoffs and less like the Max from the regular season. His underwhelming 14 points in 76 games were not blown away by his 4 points in 19 playoff games, but Max re-found his abilities as a super-pest who will doggedly eat up minutes with an aggressive forcheck, win faceoffs when called upon and provide puck possession with his ability on the cycle game. I would never put Max in the top 6, but from a “this guy needs to step up” perspective – Lapierre fits the bill. He’s no longer a young guy. I love him when he’s playing big but the Habs have simply too many guys coming up to have passengers this year.

There is no doubt in my mind that PK Subban will be the biggest addition to the team this season. And while the spark he gives us should produce points, he will need one of his young brethren to make a similar jump in production. No doubt there are other guys who could potentially see time in the top 6: Alexander Avtsin, Max Pacioretti, Ryan White, David Desharnais, Matt Darche and Ben Maxwell could all get a look. Who is going to be the one to do it? Or are we doomed to another year of watching the “big 4″ create every single offensive chance?

You know you’re in the dog days of summer when things NOT happening are the main story lines in the NHL-related media. Lately the only NHL news is non-news: with Tomas Kaberle NOT being traded and Ilya Kovalchuk NOT being signed. These two non-stories have definitely made me think about the NHL and the slow changes that we are witnessing to the way teams approach free-agents and trades in the Salary Cap era.

What I’m getting at is this: Over the years we’ve witnessed a lot of ludicrous management by those desperate to land the big fish at any cost. I can think back to countless deadline days in which teams ponied up WAY more than a player is worth – setting precedent after, horrible precedent for how to land impact players. I think back to the deal for Marian Hossa in which the Penguins gave up young roster players (Colby Armstrong and Erik Christensen), a highly touted prospect (Angelo Espisito) and first round pick. While the Penguins were in a good spot, it had the potential to be a king’s ransom for the Thrashers – in return for a guy who signed with another team the very next year.

It was a sign that the hockey community had gone star-crazy. It was a sign that it was a seller’s market – which was terrible for teams who wanted to build responsibly – and trade on fair terms. While some could argue that Hossa – who is a perennial a top-level forward was worth the bounty given up, they cannot argue that other lesser talents did not reap the same sort of reward.

But something has seemingly changed recently. Maybe the Salary Cap has caused a renewal of fiscal conservativism among NHL general managers? Maybe the collective group is plain-tired of being fleeced in order to make a move? Clearly with the Kovalchuk contract the NHL has drawn a line in the sand. Have we seen NHL GM’s make a similar stand on Kaberle?

I’m not going to say that Tomas Kaberle isn’t a good offensive defenseman. He is. A guy that can put up points like he can is a valuable commodity. But just because you’re the best player on your team does not make you necessarily one of the best on every team. Tomas Kaberle can put up 30-60 points just about every year. He’s also as soft as it gets and has been a minus player consistently on an admittedly bad team. The important question then, is what is Kaberle’s worth in a trade – not in the eyes of Leafs fans – but the rest of the league.

Clearly the league has spoken. There was interest in a player who could make an offensive contribution on a contending team, but no one was willing to over-pay to the tune of Brian Burke’s lofty expectations. I for one could not be happier about it. We’ve come to a point in which mortgaging your team’s future by giving away prospects and draft picks for a year-long rental is no longer en vogue.  Don’t tell Brian Burke. And don’t tell Leaf fans who thought that Kaberle would somehow return one of the high-first round picks that Burke “pee’d” away in the Phil Kessel deal. Maybe that is not fair. I do not mean to dump on die-hard Laffers who over-value their players and prospects in exactly the same manner that we do here.  But there is no way that a team is going to give up a potential star to rent Kaberle.

The fact is that Kaberle’s value was MUCH higher with two years left on his contract. Burke missed the boat.  His highly-public media-infused negotiating tactics aside, Kaberle’s value simply isn’t where Leaf fans think it is. In past years he would have commanded a lot in return – but not these days. Not when GM’s are being so careful about their prospects because of the Salary Cap.  It gives new light to the kind of conditions that Pierre Gauthier was working with when he traded Halak. The current climate isn’t going to provide the same kind of bounty as in past days. Gauthier got a roster player (1st rounder) and a prospect for a young emerging goalie who was arguably the MVP of the playoffs for his club.

Something tells me Burke was looking for much more than that. The problem is that it is a buyers market. The only team that “needed” to make a deal was the Leafs. Now they have 8 defenseman, and Cap problems to boot. I’m sure they’ll be fine by the start of the season, but when you play these things out in public – you have to deal with the public backlash when they fall apart.

I thought I would post a place for discussion as we turn the 09/10 season over to the archives in preparation for 10/11. Things will fall into place over the course of the summer, and there will be no shortage of opinions on who stays, who goes, and for how much. What would you do? Lets hear about it.

One year when I was about 8 or 9 my Dad and I went down to the local used sports store to by me a practice jersey. I had thoroughly outgrown my tiny Mats Naslund jersey (all jokes aside about the actual size of Mats’ jersey in his playing days), and so it was time to upgrade. There was no way my old man was going to shell out the big bucks for a new Habs jersey knowing full well how I treated my practice equipment, so he directed me straight to the used rack. At first I tried to find a home jersey (white in those days) that would work. Of course, the only sizes they had with a Canadiens logo were adult. They were far too big for a kid who might have stood 4’8″ in skates. Then I started looking for an away jersey in red. It was then that I found the only used red jersey that could possibly fit my tiny frame. As I pulled it from the rack I quickly realized that it was not the bleu, blanc, rouge that I was searching for, but the away jersey for the Chicago Blackhawks. It was my own personal ‘The Hockey Sweater” moment. Inside I secretly prayed for a cloud of moths to come eat my sweater and somehow provide me with a new Habs jersey with ANY name on the back – it didn’t need to be Naslund. I was desperate… not Andre Racicot desperate – but you get my point. My father decided that this jersey would do just fine. I was a young, growing kid playing hockey 4 nights a week on 2 teams, and was bound to destroy whatever shirt was on my back. It might as well be a Blackhawks jersey… better than having to replace one that mattered.

And so the Blackhawks became my practice team for the next two years or so. Although my allegiances have never wavered from the Canadiens, sure enough, the Blackhawks became my second favorite team. Through the years I’ve followed them from afar, happy enough when they did well (although they never seemed to do all that well), and saddenned when (as they most often did), the ‘Leaf’d’ out in the end.

That said, let me congratulate the Chicago Blackhawks who went out and took a back-and-forth Game 6 to bring the Cup back to the Windy City  for the first time since 1961, saving all Habs fans the task of stewing over the summer about losing in the Conference Finals to the Champs. The Blackhawks are what every team in the league is trying to be right now: Big, Quick, Skilled, Fast. They were the better team in the series and the fact that an Original 6 franchise has won (in my mind) adds to the ‘collective capital’ of the NHL. I believe it is better for the NHL to see its Champions be able to fill their building from start-to-end of the season. Although hockey is only recently seeing its resurgence in Chicago – a city with literally everything else in America to offer – it is safe to say hockey is back.  I couldn’t be happier with the result. My ‘other’ team took the cup which has never happened in my lifetime, and one of my mortal enemies – a member of the axis of evil (consisting of course of the Broons, Laffs, and Flyers) was vanquished in 6.

While those revelers in Chicago no doubt celebrated long into the morning hours, the rest of the league will turn its attention to the impending draft and free agency window of July 1. We will have plenty of time between now and then to discuss all the will happen in the 10/11 season. For now I just want to say that the season was a fantastic one, if only for the unexpected twists and turns it took.

Have a safe summer. I’ll be back when news, and the mood strikes me. Here’s hoping for a fruitful offseason!

Go Habs Go!!

Well, if there was ever a more surprised group of fans than the ones who sat dumbfounded as their Canadiens defeated the Washington Capitals in game 7 of the quarterfinals, I’ve never seen it. I’ll remember that feeling for a long time. I happened to be in a pub in Toronto filled to the brim with Habs fans expecting to see the final game of our season, only to witness one of the truly shocking upsets in Habs history, and one of the greatest post-game celebrations in my history! The team that simply wasn’t supposed to be in the playoffs made it in. The team that was supposed to lose in four straight won in seven. It was unbelievable in every way given how poorly the Habs performed down the stretch of the regular season. And yet, they won.

After knocking off the first seed, pundits began the arduous task of re-writing the course of events. The Capitals went from Cup contenders to a team ‘not built for the playoffs’ overnight. The Habs were given almost no credit for the way that they defended in front of Jaroslav Halak. Pundits seemingly forgot that Montreal blocked 1 shot for every 1 allowed in game 7 showing the heart and determination that every successful playoff team needs. Montreal once again entered a series, this time against the Pittsburgh Penguins, in which they were afforded no chance. They had done well to get to that point but they had “no chance against a Pittsburgh team who will do everything that Washington couldn’t”. Or so the so-called experts thought. Montreal went to work against the Penguins, stifling Crosby, Malkin and Gonchar in the same manner they shut sown Ovechkin, Semin and Greene. Again Montreal took the Penguins to game 7, and again we watched in jubilation as the Canadiens emerged victorious.

With the Conference Finals came a weird sensation for Habs fans. Confidence. Slowly Habs fans began remembering the days of old. The swagger you feel in knowing your team is the team of champions. After the tumultuous few years that the Canadiens had endured, it was an uneasy feeling to think that the Habs actually had a great shot at making the Stanley Cup Finals. Unfortunately, the only thing standing in the way was the Philadelphia Flyers, the only other team in the playoffs who had experienced the kind of resiliency and determination that the Canadiens had shown. Their come-from-behind victory over the Bruins will go down as one of the great performances in NHL history. Only two teams had ever accomplished the same thing.

The Canadiens season had a somewhat anti-climactic ending. The Flyers were able to dispatch the Habs in five games, showing all of the qualities that got the Habs to the Conference finals. They blocked shots, they got saves and they were opportunistic in their goal-scoring. While the sting of defeat is still fresh in my own mind, I have to give the Flyers all the credit they deserve. They were simply much better in all of the areas that allow you to win in the playoffs. While most pundits are clamoring to choose a Chicago victory for the Cup Finals, I wouldn’t be so quick to discount what can happen when a properly motivated group of individuals set out to do their job efficiently.

As the Habs pack up their lockers many of us are wondering what the future looks like in Montreal. The playoffs have made a few off-season moves very easy, and some very difficult.

-Jaroslav Halak is the starting goaltender for the Montreal Canadiens. I’m not saying Price is going to be moved, but Halak isn’t going anywhere, unless some team out there makes it very worthwhile. Montreal can afford to take a wait and see approach with their goaltending situation.

-PK Subban is a Montreal Canadien. I simply cannot wait to watch him play with Andrei Markov next season. If people thought Streit was good with our beloved Russian, wait til they get a look at PK. The question is, who loses a spot next season? Montreal has some decisions to make on defense. You have to believe that Markov, Subban, Gill, and Gorges are locks.  Where does that leave the rest? Spacek, O’Byrne and Hamrlik are under contract next year. That makes 7 defensmen right there. Will the Habs let Bergeron and Mara walk, or will there be maneuvering in the offseason to shed some salary space?

-After his performance in this years run you have to think that Dominic Moore will be resigned with the Habs. Similarly, Tom Pyatt emerged as a legitimate defensive forward. So where does that leave players like Pouliot, Darche, Metropolit, Lapierre, and Sergei Kostitsyn? It is clear that Montreal needs to improve its supporting cast that surrounds Gionta and Cammalleri… the question is are any of these guys the ones to do it?

-The biggest off-season question will revolve around Tomas Plekanec. Before the playoffs started he was just about the only bright spot in a murky and tumultuous season.  The question is, was his regular season good enough to warrant the kind of contract that he is looking for? There is no doubt that Plex once again faded when the style of play switched to the more physical playoff style. If Montreal does let him walk away via free agency – where is the upgrade? The only reason to let Plex walk is if Montreal feels there is a more physical player that could compliment Michael Cammalerri. There is no doubt that Montreal still needs to upgrade size up front. They simply have no answer for players like Hartnell, Lucic or Asham.

Those are a few of the storylines that will begin once the Cup Champions are decided. The Canadiens have earned a summer of rest and recharging, because there is no doubt that expectations will once again be set high for next season. The dormant calls for the 25th cup will begin long before October. It was a fantastic run that was fun to watch. I want to thank everyone who posts on the site, and Habsblog for the opportunity to talk about the team we obsess over. I’m sure we’ll all be back on here when there are developments to talk about. Enjoy the Stanley Cup Finals, and the rest of your summer!

Go Habs Go!!

Its a tough task ahead of the Canadiens tonight. Yes they’ve done it before, but doing it in the first round is an entirely different cookie than the third. The Habs have come up dry offensively in three of four games thus far, and will desperately need some scoring help from someone not named Cammalleri, Gionta or Moore. Who knows what lies ahead. I can only say its been a crazy spring that I do not wish to see end. I expect some inspired play for both teams tonight, and with any luck Montreal can score the first one to get the ball rolling. All hands on deck – the season hangs in the balance.

It will be interesting to see what happens tonight as the Habs are at home for Game 3. A win tonight would definitely change the optics of this series which has been rough thus far for the Canadiens. If they squeak one out, most will still see the Flyers as a favorite, but many teams have come back from 2-0 leads in the past. In the playoffs its all about what you’ve done lately. Jaro knows all about this right now. One game in which Montreal can get to Leighton, and all the Bernie Parent talk will go flying out the window. Its all about getting players in position to collect rebounds and tip ins. Montreal will need to find a way to make things less predictable for the Flyers – especially on the powerplay where Philly is doing exactly what Montreal did for two rounds: pressure the puck to force turnovers, and collapse to the net. Montreal will need to get shots through the maze in order to have a chance.

I won’t say much more. Its all been said. Its do or die time again for your Habs.

Go Habs Go!!!