Here we sit on the edge of another season of Habs hockey. The anticipation this year is higher than it has been since 1993.
And why not? The club went farther last year in the playoffs than it had since that day Patrick Roy hoisted the Holy Grail overhead fully deserving of the praise that would be heaped upon him for a generation. That Stanley Cup victory was on the back of a great goalie who would not be beaten for 10 overtime games. The path to the third round for the Habs last year was paved with the same type of goaltending mastery, and that is why this season's anticipation is sadly - I am afraid for you Habs fans - misplaced.
A hero's been traded
The hero is in St. Louis, traded for two players who had you scrambling to Google before you could react. I know that was my first task upon hearing of the move. Who? A Dane? Isn't Denmark the only Scandinavian country that doesn't play hockey? Wasn't Hamlet a Dane? I've got his melancholy. Troubled was the reaction that most fans have had, and why not? You should get a name you don't have to look up in return for the first hero that Montreal has had wear the CH since Roy became the King.
And be not mistaken, Jaroslav Halak became a hero. Thousands lined a shopping mall spending hours of their Saturday, a day off from the grind of work, to stand patiently to earn just a word and an autograph from not even a player who remains a Canadien. My experience with players who are no longer wearing the bleu, blanc, rouge is they get booed. Even Alex Kovalev got the Bronx cheers when he returned last year in an Ottawa uniform. So there sat Halak, with a Blues jersey behind him, soaking in the love and telling everyone who asked - which incidentally was everyone - that hockey is a business.
Sadly, it is. It's a business with a salary cap, and the Habs were up against it. Someone had to be sacrificed and the Habs decided it would be their generational hero. Pierre Gauthier may have made the wrong call with this trade and he will take a lot of heat if it goes sour, but one thing you can not say is the new GM lacks courage. This trading of the hero is the most courageous one trade that I can remember. If Halak is a two-season wonder and his game falls exponentially in St. Louis, and at the same time the new Dane is unlike any other Dane before him and he's good, then 'GM genius' will be tagged on to the name of Gauthier.
However, if Halak plays at anything resembling the level that saw him in game six against Washington last year make 54 of 55 saves and in games 5, 6, and 7 of that Caps series last year claim an unheard save percentage of .980 and at the same time the Dane Eller struggles, then the GM will be devoured by the masses. And I think we all know that when it comes to the religion of hockey, that they can mass in this town.
Price will have to be hot
Pierre Gauthier needs Carey Price and Lars Eller to be everything that he believes they should be. If they are not, Gauthier's GM obituary has its title line already written.
The anticipation for this year is too high for this one simple reason: Last year the Habs could rely on strong goaltending every single night. If Price wasn't hot in the moment, then in came Halak. When Halak got tired, there was Price ready to find his best game again. Last season, the goalies simply did not cost the team any points - they stole points. Hockey is goalies. Baseball is pitchers. Football is quarterbacks. You can not win without a good goaltending performance every single game.
Let us then speculate on the pattern of the season in its most optimistic form. Carey Price gets 60 games in net and Alex Auld the other 22. Don't even mention an injury to Price here for your heart can't take it. Best-case scenario Price plays well in what number of games? 50 of 60. Ask yourself if he has it in him to be of the highest quality for all 60 starts that he has. Auld would have a percentage of excellent starts that would be lower than Price, of course. Let us for argument's sake give Auld 15 quality starts out of 22. Optimistically that is 65 quality starts out of 82. Compare that to last year when that number would have been 78, 80 out of 82 - that's an argument full of minutaie, but the point remains the same whatever number you attach. Bottom line: Goaltending will be weaker this season.
The Habs made the playoffs last season on the final weekend, thanks to a strong goaltending performance just about every game of the year. That will not happen this season even in the best-case scenario that the most optimistic fan can muster, so even if you feel Pouliot finds his form, Halpern wins his face-offs, Subban wins his Calder, it just doesn't matter. Goalies decide it. That tandem last year was collectively the best in the league. They made each other stronger. They thrived with each other. One always took the torch. When one arm carrying the torch got tired, the other was there to carry it. This year when Carey's arm gets tired, he'll have to keep carrying it, before finally relinquishing it to Alex who can not carry it like Jaro.
Carey. Jaro. Individually, both can stop the puck, but collectively Carey and Jaro were stronger still. Not together now weakens them both.
Life changes.
I can't have the same giddy anticipation that I meet on the street. The club will fall short of the playoffs by 7 to 10 points. 10 points that the excellent goaltending tandem of last year would have attained this year if they were allowed to continue what was working.
As Montreal's first hockey hero in 17 years said "Hockey is a business." Let's get down to it. Boston's in town Wednesday night.
