Carey Price beginning to prove the Montreal Canadiens made the right move
A lot Montreal Canadiens fans were scratching their heads during the off-season when general manager Pierre Gauthier opted to re-sign goaltender Carey Price and pass on Jaroslav Halak who was traded to the St. Louis Blues. But nobody is questioning the decision
at the moment as the Canadiens have won seven of their last ten games, and are currently in first place in the Northeast Division, due in large part to the strong play of Price.
Price has made more starts than any other goalie in the NHL getting the nod in 16 of the team's 17 games, and is in the top ten in save percentage and goals against average. Price also has two shutouts on the season – more than he had in the last two seasons
combined. Price was recently awarded the team's Molson Cup as the Canadiens' most valuable player for the month of October, and was just recently named the NHL's first star of the week earning three wins and a shutout along the way.
Many in Montreal had believed that letting go of Halak had been a huge mistake. Halak had been the man largely, if not solely, responsible in leading the Montreal Canadiens to their improbable play-off run all the way to the Eastern Conference final.
Halak had won the job after posting several strong performances during the regular season while Price struggled. Halak's performances weren't enough to convince team management that he was their goalie of the future, and Price, drafted fifth overall in 2005,
was passed the torch going into the 2010-2011 season.
It seemed as though Price had been anointed as the team's savior long before getting the chance to prove himself. He put together an impressive rookie campaign leading Bob Gainey, then general manager, to give Price the job going into the play-offs by trading
away Cristobal Huet who had been the starter for much of Price's rookie season.
The Habs were eventually eliminated from the play-offs and since then Price's tenure in Montreal had been mired in mediocrity. There were also reports swirling around the Montreal media that Price had grown a little too fond of the Montreal nightlife and
it was affecting his performance on the ice.
It was no wonder, then, that choosing Price over Halak seemed like such a strange move at the time. But the one word that continually spread out of Montreal while he was riding the pine in the shadow of Halak, was how well the 23-year-old was coping with
having such an understated role, and what maturity he had shown along the way.
"If you go back to last season, he didn't get the results, but you could tell the progress he made, in terms of maturity and his work ethic," Canadiens head coach Jacques Martin said to reporters recently about his starting goalie.
Lars Eller, the young Danish-born prospect brought in from St. Louis as the major component of the Halak trade, has posted only a single assist this season. But no one in Montreal is concerned about the play of the man they got for Halak as all that matters
is how Price performs in comparison to Halak.
Early in the season and it looked like Halak was going to post Vezina worthy numbers, but his hot streak has cooled recently after a series of lopsided losses bridging the gap between him and Price.
Nearly a quarter of the way into the season and a new kind of personal rivalry is developing – probably one that fans are more concerned with than the players are – where Price and Halak are involved in a numbers battle. As Halak supporters in Montreal continue
to argue the heresy of sending their savior away to the enemy, while scrutinizing every minute played between the pipes by Price, it is time which will pass official judgment on whether or not the decision made by Canadiens management was the right one.
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