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For Better or Worse: This is Your Team! (Update) Gainey Speaks... |
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There’s no downplaying the fact that the Canadiens have disappointed their fanbase with their inactivity at this year’s deadline. Cristobal Huet was traded for a second round pick, in
2009, and it’s hard not to feel that Gainey was underpaid on this deal. Hal Gill went to Pittsburgh for a 2nd, and 5th round pick…
It’s yet to be determined what will happen with Michael Ryder, as he’s set to be unrestricted this summer. Higgins has not been dealt, which I’m sure everyone will agree was a wise decision. Carey Price, and Jaroslav Halak have been given the keys to Montreal’s net.
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Now that all of that is out of the way let’s discuss what happened this afternoon:
-Marian Hossa, and Pascal Dupuis were traded to Pittsburgh for Colby Armstrong, Erik Christensen, Angelo Esposito, and a first round pick. That is a monster price to pay for a guy who may not even resign there. Pittsburgh has dealt from their core, and anything short of a Stanley Cup makes it hard to justify.
- Go back earlier in the day, Mike Smith, Jussi Jokinen, and Jeff Halpern go for Brad Richards, and Johan Holmqvist.
- Mikhail Grabovski and Jaroslav Halak were recalled from Hamilton.
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As we await Bob Gainey’s word on things, here’s what you need to consider.
-It sucks that the Canadiens openly stated they wanted an impact player and didn’t land one. But when you consider what Pittsburgh threw in for Hossa, you have to realize that the Canadiens, without the inclusion of Chris Higgins or Andrei Kostitsyn, or Tomas Plekanec, couldn’t have made a deal for him. We discovered earlier that Olli Jokinen would not be traded, and as I told you all earlier this month, Martin Havlat is a hit away from losing his season (and with the price of attaining Hossa or Richards, Havlat’s price was obviously two high—no one took him). If you wanted to give up either Higgins, or Kostitsyn, or Plekanec for a UFA, plus a guy like Emelin, and a first round pick, then I suppose you can be even more furious than you probably are. The Richards deal clearly bumped the price up on Hossa.
-Trading Cristobal Huet has major impact on this team; whether that impact is positive, or negative, is yet to be determined.
-Carey Price thrives under pressure, and the pressure is certainly on. Perhaps he needs that type of pressure to be the best he can be, and with 19 games left on the schedule, we’ll have a good idea of what this kid can handle. There are two sides to every story; yes he could bomb, or he could excel, but we’re going to find out what the players in front of him are made of, either way.
-Memo to Michael Ryder and Chris Higgins: You’re Montreal Canadiens! Higgins was quoted earlier in the week as saying “We’re excited for the deadline to be over. You look around the room after and realize these are the guys we’re going to battle with, and that’s exciting”.
Take a look around the room boys, cause this is who you’re going to battle with.
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For those of you who forgot, the Canadiens are playing the Atlanta Thrashers tonight. We’ve gone from Stanley Cup talk, to playoff doubt. It’s perfect in a sense…The Canadiens started this season with everyone expecting them to miss the playoffs, and 63 games later they face the very same doubts; from the fans, from the press, and anyone else who has an opinion on hockey.
The Thrashers will play without Marian Hossa tonight. The Canadiens are coming off losses to Blue Jackets and Pens. The Thrashers were limited to ten shots on goal, by the Islanders before losing 3-1 to the Maple Leafs on Saturday.
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I have no doubt that people will want to torch Gainey after what transpired today. All I know is that the price for Hossa was astronomical, and because the Canadiens didn’t pay it, they will continue to build for the future, and be pleasantly surprised by the present.
Bob Gainey will address that media at 5:30 pm, EST…
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Gainey presser:
Paraphrased, as I typed out his answers (English and French) to get it out as quick as possible:
"We're dissapointed, we had a chance to get Hossa, but we will continue towards our primary goal: Making the Playoffs".
"I think between Price and Halak, there's a risk, their not experienced, but they are quality players. There's only one net, and only so much time you can spend in that net. There's a risk/reward I've decided to take with Price...
"We have spent a lot of this year evaluating Huet longterm, we were looking for something from him from his play that would've enabled us to keep him longterm, the decision today is a reflection based on that evaluation process...
"There were a number of teams interested in a goalie...but this was the only deal we had on the table for Huet, and we made the decision yesterday, if anything was going to be offered, we were going to go with Halak and Price"
"The prices throughout the day changed, if we could've gotten a 5th or 6th rd pick as well it wouldn't have made much of a difference"
"Basically just to shape it for you, at a point today we spoke to Atlanta and they asked us for four elements and 3 of them were skating in our lineup tongiht, when we added it up we wouldn't give them what they were asking for, we countered with an offer that was less than what was involved and they made a decision"
"We added the two best players in the AHL to our roster tonight. Grabovski will play, he's played great...what else can he do? Halak is the best goalie in the AHL, we decided to go with our young players"
"We've spoken with Atlanta for the last 3 days. Today they changed their demands."
"Guy doesn't explain all his decisions to me, he's in charge of who plays how many minutes. We do see our future in goal being in one of these two young goalies...we could've made trades for both of these kids, and believe me teams wanted them!"
"We had chances to trade Ryder over the last two months, and we felt it was a sideways move for another underacheiver. We wanted an impact player..."
"I don't know how anyone can talk about what they'll do next year. Today we can speculate on who won and who lost at the deadline, but in 4 weeks it's a whole new season. Our young players will learn, and I felt it was best to keep everyone in place for the experience together..."
"We'll try to add in ufa season, as we have the cap space"
"We had discussions for other impact players, but not today."
"This hasn't been an easy year for Ryder. He's an excellent offensive player, with specific talents that are hard to find. We're trying to get Ryder working on all cylinders...it's nothing but win-win with him, and better for us if he plays better, and better for him."
"Finally, I think with our 3rd and 4th line, and our 5th 6th and 7th dmen, we're comfortable with what we have...we weren't trying to do small things to adapt...we aren't weak in most areas, we wanted to try to improve with an impact player, but short of that..."
"You always think your offer is better than someone else's...Marian Hossa will certainly help them, and we'll all see how the rest of the season and the playoffs will go..."
"We never had the option to negotiate with Hossa. Wadell never wanted to include that in the negotiations"
"We got a second round pick offered for Huet, because they had two second round picks in '09."
"I'm dissapointed and i'm not. The guys here are smart, and understand the difference, we have a complete team, they didn't have one in Atlanta where Hossa was an individual without much around him..."
"Surely, finally, we thought it was necessary for us to grab an impact player, and it didn't happen."
Montreal Canadiens Blogger • 
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