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Cammalleri's Comments Reinforce his Image as a Selfish Player

January 12, 2012, 9:21 AM ET [2609 Comments]
Habs Talk
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Take it for what it's worth.

Mike Cammalleri came to the Canadiens with a reputation of being selfish. It preceded him in Calgary, as he came over from an L.A. Kings team that had had enough with him. And surely, it impacted the Flames' decision to let him walk to unrestricted free agency three summers ago.

But we welcomed him to Montreal with open arms. We were refreshed by his unique take in post-practice/post-game interviews, excited by the prospect of adding a shoot-first player to a team that hadn't had one in a decade, and his performance reinforced that excitement in year one.

If the 26 goals were a big step down from the 39 he had notched with Calgary the year prior, then surely the 13 he scored in 19 playoff games made up for it.

But last year, it was 19 goals in 67 games. And it became clear that it wasn't just the injuries he dealt with that hampered his success.

And we didn't need to sift through the scathing comments he uttered to Francois Gagnon and Arpon Basu, yesterday after practice, to know that Cammalleri's decline has been long-building in Montreal.

Cammalleri's assessment, in referring to the team's losing attitude amounting to more losses; in referring to the team's insistence on following the plan to the letter without giving an afterthought to playing and adapting as the situation requires may not have been intended to be shots at his teammates and coaches, but how else would you interpret it?

His accountability lacks despite his marginal attempt to own up to a poor personal performance against the Blues, and his lament over sparse ice-time under the new coaching staff is another case of finger pointing that doesn't wash well with Canadiens fans, nor should it in this season in which he's accounted for 8% of the team's 108 goals.

But the crux of the conversation comes at the very end, in which Cammalleri tells Gagnon and Basu to "read between the lines" regarding his commitment to the team, and hints at his willingness to accept a trade if he's approached by the general manager.

There are a lot of things you can say that cross the threshold of what's commonly acceptable, but that last one isn't just over the line, it's well past.

Last season, super agent Allan Walsh went to the newspapers to sing a Cammalleri cover song about how his client, Martin Havlat, was being looked to, to provide top-line scoring even if the Wild were unwilling to give him top-line minutes.

Here's what he said:
“When Chuck reached out to Marty Havlat two summers ago after he led Chicago to the conference finals while leading the team in points in the regular season and playoffs, he shared a vision of building an up-tempo offensive team with Marty as a pillar to this strategy,” Walsh said in an e-mail to the Star Tribune. “That’s why he signed with the Wild.

“Since that time, Marty has been used in a purely secondary role. Look at this season, he’s played four straight games at about 14 minutes of ice time, he’s used on the second power-play unit, he sits for long stretches, he’s not used in the shootouts. At a certain point in time, one has to ask, ‘Why is he here?’ One has to ask, ‘Why pay this guy $30 million to not play?’

“It’s like we are in a time warp and the coach has totally ignored or chooses to ignore what Marty has done offensively over the course of his entire career. People say the Wild don’t have a star player. The Wild have a dynamic offensive player right under their nose and yet choose not to use him to their advantage. Look around the league, what other team has a player like Marty Havlat wilting on the vine like this?”


After Walsh spoke up, Havlat started breaking the 20-minute mark regularly.

It was highly controversial for Havlat's agent to go straight to the papers instead of consulting the GM about his client's discontent, but it worked. Havlat became the top-used forward, and he also led the Wild in scoring from that point forward.

But it came as no surprise that Havlat was moved in the off-season.

We'll see if the Canadiens play to lose tonight.

We'll see if Cammalleri is part of the solution instead of being at the very heart of the problem.

We'll monitor his ice-time very closely, to see if he breaches the 20-minute mark, and if it amounts to goals.

We'll see if Cammalleri can boost his value between now and the deadline.

As for the notion that if a performer like Erik Cole had spoken in the same manner as Cammalleri did yesterday, it would've been interpreted as pride. He had that opportunity earlier in the year, when the Canadiens were losing and he wasn't even being used on the powerplay or for more than 14-minutes per game.

His response was to continue to work hard until he was adequately rewarded.

He played 27+ minutes in a game last week...

In worse news, Brian Gionta had successful surgery to repair something in one of his Biceps.

Naturally, without the insight a detailed report would provide, all we have are preliminary indications that he could be out for the remainder of the regular season.

We have no idea whether or not it was surgery to repair a torn Bicep muscle, or to re-attach torn tendons within the Bicep area. Both have serious implications, the latter of which could be career-threatening if nerves near the tendon are damaged during surgery.

Let's all hope that all is clear in Gionta's case.

Scott Gomez could be returning to action tonight. Yannick Weber will take a spot on the Canadiens top powerplay unit as well.
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