OT: Halak to the Blues? Interesting Move
http://www.nhl.com/ice/news.htm?id=531923
I'm guessing because of the salary cap that Halak is going to St. Louis but I'm actually very suprised by this move because this guy kept the Canadiens in the playoffs all the way up to the conference finals with Philadelphia. Wonder what Canadiens fans think of this?
the first paragraph is
St. Louis Blues President John Davidson announced Thursday the club has acquired goaltender Jaroslav Halak from the Montreal Canadiens in exchange for forwards Lars Ellerand Ian Schultz.
It's not "possible." it happened.
...he was expressing surprise -- (i.e. this is a weird move by the Candiens, what gives?).
I'm sure a million fans bought Halak jerseys and fell in love with the guy- its worth at least to keep him till the draft and shop him or price then. I think this is a horrible trade for Montreal
I thought Halak played like a man possessed during the Penguins series and just frustrated the hell out of Crosby and Malkin. He made some incredible saves and was really the reason why Montreal went as far as they did. Although I thought that Subban kid was amazing too. He stepped up big time for the Habs. I rooted for the Canadiens when Detroit was knocked out by the Sharks. Hearing Bell Centre play "The Victors" in the background when Cammalleri scored was awesome!
Did you even watch the Pittsburgh-Montreal series? Or the Washington-Montreal series? It wasn't about Halak. It was about the system that they played. The vast (and I mean VAST) majority of his saves were easy perimeter shots and his defense cleaned up his rebounds like crazy.
That the Canadiens defense did a good job of shutting down Crosby.
That's what I meant by "the system".
(Slow motion dong punch at the one minute mark as well.)
I agree with that truth but he can be a real dick during a game and paint a very large target on his back. Remember earlier on in the year when he went after Zetterberg then Howard came after him? I'm sick of hearing about him and team Canada. It is getting really old and thank god that video of him raising the cup from 09 will finally be replaced with Towes's cup lift from this year. I'm sick of seeing that too.
I understand your point of view and I will agree mostly on Pitt but I will strongly disagree on the Washington series. Many of Halak's saves were point blank and off rebounds against Wash. Yes, a number of the shots were from the outside but I would guess that in the last 3 games there were about 20 quality chances per night and that was against the NHL's highest scoring team.
Yes, I feel he lived off of those performances for the rest of the playoffs but IMO the first round WAS spectacular goaltending.
Great move by Montreal. Huge return in exchange for a player whose value was never going to be higher than it is right now.
As evidence by the Cup Finals, teams no longer need premiere goalies to win games. Playoff teams these days can easily make a run with an average goalie that doesn't lose them any games. I'll dub this the "Trent Dilfer NHL corollary."
There is no doubting Halak is a talent, but his stock is out of this universe right now. Any NHL goalie is capable of standing on their head for a week or so, and while Halak did it against two offensive juggernauts, I'm still not convinced he's a top tier goalie.
This will be a good trade to revisit in 2-3 years.
This is why Montreal hasn't been back to the top. And another downer is that the Wings will now have to deal with Halak regularly.
This makes no sense because Montreal has enough cap room left to sign Halak to a huge deal and resign a few other players. They really didn't have that many players up to resign. Especially with the way that Price played during the regular season, you'd think they were committed to Halak, not to mention that Halak single handedly got the team to the conference finals.
What a steal for St. Louis on the other hand. They have a ton of cap space, are out of Chris Mason and Paul Kariya's contracts, and need a solid goaltender. This might make the central division slightly more interesting, but St. Louis has a way to go still.
"not to mention that Halak single handedly got the team to the conference finals."
It makes a lot more sense when you realize that this statement isn't true.
As a very dedicated Habs fan, I'll try to describe it in terms of Michigan football.
Imagine Halak and Price as Forcier and Dilithium. Those who observe as a distance would see that Forcier started and assume that he is better than DRob. However, those who obsess know that DRob has a greater upside, and is arguably as good as Forcier today.
This is what the situation is in Montreal. Halak is barely better than Price, and Price has the raw talent, which has only recently been supported by a strong work ethic. Both are very, very good, future top 10 goalies.
They would love to keep both, but the salary cap, and playing time, dictates that they ship one off for as much return as possible. They have been considering all possibile trades for both goalies and pulled the trigger on the best return.
I'll miss Halak, I'll cheer for him even now, but this was inevitable.
Seriously, thank you for posting this.
The problem with Price is he seems to have a attitude problem, and I don't know if they can get it under control. They haven't done it yet, and I don't know if they will. I believe this is going to be a mistake, unless they have something else up there sleeve.
Not to troll this thread, but I care very much about fellow mgobloggers opinion on the Habs.
Carey Price did have an attitude problem; he even stated so himself. In an interview (I'll paraphrase) he said that before he was in the NHL his goal was to get there as quickly as possible ( and start ). When he achieved this goal, his next was to become an All-Star, and he did so ( in his rookie year ).
At this point in his career he had played ~20 games in '08 season and half of the '09 season. He was widely anticipated to be the third goalie on team Canada in the now passed Olympics. He was one of the best in the world, and only 21.
Unfortunately, he now lacked goals, he lacked direction, and began to party. Over the last half of that year he steadily declined. At the start of this season he was equally disinteresed. This parlayed into Halk becoming the starter, and Price being somewhat of a bitch.
Fortuantly, he had a change of heart half way through this year. In practice, Andrei Markov ( who is as stoic and quiet as anyone) chewed Price out for his attitude, work-ethic, etc. The lightbulb clicked inside the now 23 year old Price. He radically shifted his demeanor; he didn't sulk any longer; he just worked hard and supported the team.
As someone who watches many games, I can honestly say that he was playing very well toward the end of the year. He stopped being so erractic, emotional an undependable. He started to grow up.
I appreciate that this is tl:dr, but I try to defend the team as best I can, and I know that my fellow mgobloggers are intelligent enough to not jump to rash decisions.