Jaroslav Halak introduced to new fans
The St. Louis Blues formally introduced goaltender Jaroslav Halak to his new fans on Thursday. The Blues acquired the 25-year-old Slovak in a trade with the Montreal Canadiens in June and signed him to a four-year contract, after Halak’s heroic playoff performance where he carried the Canadiens to the Conference finals.
Halak helped the Canadiens knock-off Alexander Ovechkin and the Washington Capitals in the first round, and then followed that up by dispatching Sidney Crosby and the defending Stanley Cup champion Pittsburgh Penguins in the second round. The magical run came to an end after the Canadiens were eliminated by the Philadelphia Flyers in five games in the third round.
Halak commented that his success with Montreal was "a real nice memory," but part of the past. Halak is now looking forward to the future with his new team.
"It was a great run in the playoffs, it was a great experience, but that's the past. Everybody needs to do something similar like that in the future. You can't live on what happened in the past. Our goal is to make the playoffs and you never know what's going to happen then. You look at Philadelphia and us (last season), we ended up in the conference finals that no one really expected."
The St. Louis fans will be hoping that Halak will be able to bring over the same phenomenal success this season to the Blues. The Blues are a young and upcoming team and general manager Doug Armstrong admitted that Halak was the missing piece they were looking for.
"Back in June when our season ended and we were looking how to improve our team, we set out that we were looking for one more piece to our puzzle," Armstrong said. "Someone that could grow with this team, someone that had the pedigree, not only of the flash in the pan success that we saw him have in the playoffs and the season too. But when you look at his resume, he's a winner. He knows how to win, he's played great goal for a number of years."
Halak has a record of 56-34-7 in 101 career games, but it will mark the first time in his career that he will be the clear-cut No. 1 goaltender to begin the season.
"I'm looking forward to new fans, a new team and a new organization," Halak said. "It's going to be different for sure. But the sooner I get used to it, it's going to be better."
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