Hey Hey! Ho Ho! Scotty G Has Got To Go!

I'll preface this by saying I don't believe Scott Gomez is a bad person. He's not a terrible hockey player either. On the contrary, he's an exceptionally good passer and has some nice speed through the neutral zone that allows him to carry the puck into the other team's end with great success. He's also pleasant to the media and patient with the fans, by most accounts. The biggest problem with Gomez is his price tag. His contract is killing the Habs.

If the Canadiens are going to improve as a team, they can't have Scott Gomez, making what he does, as the number-one centre. Many of us recognized that fact when Gainey traded for him last June. The guy had one career season in New Jersey and that morphed into the present ridiculous contract Glen Sather lavished upon him. Now that he's returned to his usual fifteen-goal seasons, the 7.357-million dollar cap hit he brings is too high for his on-ice contributions. With his eleven points in twenty games this year, he's being roundly out-performed by Tomas Plekanec, and even Glen Metropolit, at his own position. And that's with the best wingers on the team, a spot on the top PP unit and nearly 21 minutes of icetime a game. Gomez is a 4-million dollar a year player, at the most. If he were making that kind of money, Habs fans could have patience to wait for him to produce his usual 40+ assists. But since he's making the money he's worth, as well as that of another strong top-six forward, he's going to have to go.

The CBA ensures no contract can be renegotiated, so Gainey has four choices. He can try to trade Gomez, he can buy him out or he can waive him and hope someone claims him on re-entry waivers, or he can deep-six him and his contract down to Hamilton.

Option one: trade. If the rumours of last season had any credence, Gomez was on the block in New York for the better part of a year before Gainey bit on him. And the only reason Gainey did so was because he'd struck out on every other option he'd tried in his quest to attain a top centre. Unless another team with tons of cap space and in need of a .55 point-per-game smallish centre suddenly starts sniffing around Gomez' doghouse, I'd think a trade involving him (unless sweetened with a player with a small hit and of greater value to a team, like Gorges or Halak, or by the addition of draft picks which the team can't afford to give up) is extremely unlikely to happen.

Option two: buyout. This is economically not feasible for the Habs. There are four years remaining on Gomez' deal right now. The buyout rules say two-thirds of that salary counts against the Habs' cap, spread over double the remaining years on the contract. That means the Habs would be on the hook for 2.43 million bucks in each of the next eight years. With the cap projected to drop next year and no real clear picture of what will happen with it after that, that's way too much to pay for a player to NOT play for you.

Option three: waivers. Once again, finances come into play. If the Habs waive Gomez, it's unlikely any team would claim the salary without waiting for re-entry waivers. And if the Canadiens place Gomez on re-entry, he'd likely be claimed, but it would leave the Habs paying him 3.68-million dollars in each of the next four years while he's playing elsewhere. They can't afford to do that.

Option four: dumping Gomez to Hamilton for good. Since options two and three are completely financially impossible for the Canadiens, and if some kind of trade can't be arranged, this might be the only thing the Habs can do to rid themselves of Gomez. It's not something I can imagine Gainey doing, as it would be both an admission of a fairly massive mistake on his part, as well as a devastating blow to a proud, not unskilled player. Unfortunately, Gainey or whoever his successor will be, might have no choice. It would require the cooperation of the Molsons, who'd essentially be dumping nearly thirty million dollars on a minor-league player. That is, of course, unless Gomez refused to go to Hamilton and instead went to play in Europe, which is not an impossible hope.

But, looking at the other contracts to which the team is bound, and the players that will have to either be retained or replaced, there just isn't room for a luxury like Gomez. One of the Habs' biggest weaknesses with the current roster is a complete lack of secondary scoring. In order to address that, the team will have to retain Tomas Plekanec, who's playing himself into a raise. It will also have to acquire a couple of wingers to play with him, unless Andrei Kostitsyn finds his game. Gomez' removal from the roster would allow the GM to sign a decent centre to replace him as well as a supporting winger for Plekanec. If Kostitsyn doesn't wake up, he could be traded for another second-line winger. The only way any of this happens, however, is if Gomez' hit is removed from the team's cap. Keeping that salary while the cap goes down means Plekanec and possibly Metropolit and Mara, who've both been steady acquisitions, will be lost. That would make the team poorer in talent than it is now, and Gomez would continue to put up his fifteen goals while raking in the biggest payday in Habs history. Considering how craptacular the Habs look right now, it's hard to imagine what they'd be like with even less talent in the lineup.

There might be another way to bring in the pieces the Canadiens need to improve that I haven't thought about. But honestly, I don't see it. If Gainey's lucky enough to get rid of Laraque, the savings would only go towards raises for the goalies or Plekanec. The other big contracts: Cammalleri, Hamrlik and Gionta, are earning their money this year. Markov is worth more than he makes, AND will have to be extended during the Gomez contract period. Gomez makes the most and contributes the least of the highest-paid guys on the team, so it seems to me he's the logical choice to go if a salary dump is requried. It only remains to be seen whether management has the courage to do it for the good of the team.

Give 'Em A Break!

As the Habs' fortunes spiral ever lower this season, I think we're being a little too hard on the players. They're not gods. They're not even superheroes. The time has come for us to take a moment and think about the fact that these are just young men trying to earn a living like everybody else.

These guys play hockey...one of the roughest pro sports on the plant...at the highest level. That means they have to spend an hour of their lives on the ice nearly every single day, six months of the year. Then they probably have to spend another hour in the gym to make sure their bodies remain in tip-top shape. That's two entire hours of physical exertion just about every single day. Add another hour for physical therapy if they've got an injury, and they're at risk of pushing lunch back. That's not healthy when you're talking about a job that requires regular sustenence in order to remain in peak condition. Adding to their burden are the obligatory team-mandated public appearances, which often interfere with their afternoon naps. There's also the serious risk of carpal tunnel syndrome and/or bordom from the repetitive signing of autographs.

So, considering the physical stress NHL players must endure, it's unconscionable that just because they didn't have their best night in Nashville they should lose their precious, necessary day off. How can Jacques Martin expect his players to perform when he's forcing them to practice on a day when they had planned to sleep in? Not to mention making them skate hard for a full eight minutes at the end of practice. Eight minutes! Is he trying to kill them? Thank heavens they got today off instead, or who knows what we could expect to see from them against Carolina. Nothing good, you can be sure.

Look at poor, young, exhausted Guillaume Latendresse as an example of how physically demanding an NHL job can be. The guy is so wrung out, he was probably secretly glad to be scratched from the Nashville game. Unfortunately for him, when Brian Gionta went down with an injury just before puck-drop, Latendresse had to be rooted up from his well-deserved sleep back at the hotel. To add insult to injury, he was then expected to suit up and play a full 7:54 of hockey while still groggy. Who can blame him if he didn't register in the boxscore? You wouldn't perform well either, if people expected you to interrupt your after-supper nap for a shift at work.

People point to the money the players make as justification for unrealistic expectations. But it's just money. It can't buy extra talent or energy. Think about it. Would you be able to perform better at your job if you made seven figures instead of five? Would you be more dedicated or feel like you needed to work harder to earn all that dirty old money? I mean, come on! That's the coach's job. He's the guy who's supposed to push the right buttons and motivate the players to want to earn the millions. If he can't do his job, we can't blame the players for sucking. It's not their fault nobody's prodding them to play better.

Then you have to look at the pressure they face. Careers are short in hockey. The players have to make sure they set themselves up for life in just a few years. It's unrealistic to expect a man, probably almost forty when he retires from hockey, to go out and get a soft job like regular people after he's been used to the hard life of pro sports.

So it's time we fans think a little bit about that hard life. The hours of training every week. The stress of first class travel. The buckets of dirty old money and the pressure that comes with it. And as we think about that, we should have a little more compassion for the players. We need to stop expecting them to perform at the top of their game when sometimes they don't even get the day off when they were promised they would. We have to remember they're constantly dealing with the near-harrassment of pretty women wanting to bed them and business people insisting on giving them free stuff. Then there's the embarrassment of having to answer some very personal questions posed by the voracious media every single day. Questions like why they keep losing and why they can't score goals or keep the puck out of their net. They just can't escape the scrutiny that comes with being an elite athlete, so we need to give them a break.

After all, we're the ones who'll lose out if we're not kinder to the players. If the fans' displeasure becomes too stressful, they might start dogging it during games. They'll tune out the coach and stop playing his system. Then they'll start quitting on the goalies during games and losing more than they win. And we wouldn't want that to happen.

The Gellin' Point

Okay, Habs fans, here we are. The quarter pole. The point we've all been waiting for before passing judgement on the latest bunch of recruits wearing our beloved CH; the moment when we're supposed to have a clue what kind of season these guys can deliver. It'll take twenty games, we said, for the team to gel after the summer's gutting. So, what do you think?

I admit that's a rhetorical question, for no true bleu (blanc et rouge) fan can be happy with the absolute suckage we're seeing on the ice right now. The team's record is 9-11, which is a call for emergency help if I've ever heard one. Right at the moment, we're looking at a decimated defence corps struggling to move the puck effectively. Of all the stats the NHL keeps, Habs are in the top five in only one: giveaways. Number one in the league is Roman Hamrlik. Scott Gomez is number two. Jaroslav Spacek is number four and Hal Gill has dropped to sixth place because he's only had a chance to give the puck away in fourteen games rather than the twenty the rest of them have had. Those stats might possibly be affected by whoever counts giveaways in the Bell Centre. Perhaps that person's perception of what constitutes a giveaway is somewhat more scrupulous than those of the giveaway-counters in other rinks. Maybe, but I don't think so, since takeaways (presumably giveaways by the other team) would also be high. The Habs have 190 giveaways and only 90 takeaways (good for ninth in the league.) We see it ourselves on the ice every game. The defence struggles under pressure and throws the puck out of trouble in any way possible...over the glass, the length of the ice or onto an opponent's stick. We might make some allowances for this, because of all the injuries on D. But if the team's defensive core is so crippled by the loss of the as-yet unproven Ryan O'Byrne and 6/7 man Hal Gill, it's much more handicapped than we think. Markov, of course, can never be replaced. But attempting to do so by signing Bergeron and claiming Leach isn't solving the problem.

The forwards are another horror story. Cammalleri makes the top ten in one NHL category: shots on goal, coming in in eighth place. It's no surprise he's leading the team in points. You can't score if you don't shoot, which is proven among the league leaders. The top point scorers in the NHL have similar shooting percentages to Cammalleri's, but they just take more shots. The Canadiens, on the other hand, don't shoot the puck. Alexander Ovechkin is the league leader, with 86 shots in 14 games, or an average of 6.1 shots per game. Compare that with Andrei Kostitsyn, supposedly one of the Habs' snipers, who has 38 shots in 20 games for an average of 1.9 shots per game. To make it worse, Ovechkin has a 16.3% shooting average, while Kostitsyn's is 2.6%. In other words, the only way he's going to put up points is to shoot much, much more often. Tomas Plekanec is doing fine points-wise, but could be doing better if he'd shoot more. He's only taking 2.4 shots a game. So is Scott Gomez. That's still better than Guillaume Latendresse's 1.25, Matt D'Agostini's 1.45 and Maxim Lapierre's 1.65. When the secondary scorers you're relying on to put points on the board don't shoot the puck, there's not going to be a lot of scoring happening. Then again, it's hard to shoot the puck when you're constantly giving it away.

The goalies struggled for many of the twenty games so far, no surprise considering the hard-pressed D. They, at least, seem to have found some consistency. Both of them have turned in some very strong performances in the last five games. Unfortunately, they've found their grooves just when the slow trickle of Habs goalscoring has dried up like a puddle in the Sahara.

The coaches are unimpressive, having failed either to get the team playing a discernable system or to adjust the system to the players' weaknesses.

So, at the quarter point of the season, we have to conclude this is really a pretty bad team. Andrei Markov's return will help the D, and it will lend the forwards a hand in moving the puck up ice better. But Markov won't be returning until another two quarters of the season have passed. At that point, there's only so much one man can do. And we still haven't seen the Canadiens play New Jersey, Philly, Detroit or most of the really strong teams in the league.

Last season, we were frustrated because the Habs so often declined to show up for games against weak opponents and ended up blowing points because of it. Then, they'd turn around and beat a good team like San Jose the next night, just to prove they could elevate their game when they tried. This year, the team tries its best most nights and still loses. When it doesn't show up at all, we get a butt-kicking like the one in Nashville last night.

I don't like what I'm seeing with this team, mostly because it doesn't end here. The same core of players, with the possible subtractions of Tomas Plekanec, Paul Mara and Glen Metropolit will be around for the foreseeable future. If that's not enough to put the fear of God in you as a Habs fan, you're a better fan than I am. Honestly? The thing I'm most dreading (aside from Boston landing the first-overall pick...thanks Burkie, you moron) is that Markov's return will give the team a late-season push up to ninth place. There'll be no playoffs, no players will be either traded or re-signed during the stretch drive and the draft pick will be another mid-tier third liner. I hope the Habs manage to pull it together somehow in the next twenty games, but if they don't...if they're going to miss the playoffs anyway...I hope they miss big and finally land themselves a solid top-five pick that will make a real difference. Other than that, Gainey's going to have to 'fess up to some mistakes and fix them if the mess we see on the ice now is going to improve at all in the next five years. I see only one way to do that...and I'll say more about that later.

So, are we gellin' yet?

Notes From the Yotes

Unfortunately, I had to go to bed before the best part of last night's Habs/Yotes matchup. But in the two periods I saw, I have come to some unalterable conclusions, including:

-Carey Price MUST wear a neck protector. I've always had a problem watching that long expanse of exposed throat sticking out of his sweater. Those too young to remember Clint Malarchuk's brush with death in the '80s, courtesy of a slashed corotid artery, might recall Richard Zednik's horrible encounter with Olli Jokinen's skate blade two years ago. I think all players should wear throat protection, but goalies especially. They're constantly exposed not only to flying pucks, but sticks and skates hacking and slashing at random during crease scrums. And nine times out of ten, the goalie is down at skate level while those scrums are taking place. If Price was wearing a throat protector last night, Paul Mara's stick wouldn't have dropped him like a cannon and the first Coyotes goal wouldn't have gone in. He should take the incident as a warning and realize it could have been a skate. He practices with the guard on, anyway, so it's not like he's completely unused to it.

-Bob Gainey MUST re-sign Tomas Plekanec in January, before he heads into free agency. The man is currently the first-line centre on the team, without any wingers. He's a no-quit worker with the wheels of an F-1 car and the hands of a brain surgeon. If he leaves via free agency without Gainey doing his damnedest to keep him, I will lose all faith in the GM.

-Tom Pyatt is surprisingly good. His acquisition is making the Gomez trade almost palatable.

-If Glen Metropolit doesn't win the team's unsung hero award, there is no justice. I love everything about the guy, from his gap-toothed, incredulous grin when he scores to his dogged work on the PK. He's got to be one of the best waiver pickups in Habs history. It's hard to believe he's as good as he's been when you remember the first shift he took as a Canadien last season. Remember? He gave the puck away and the Flyers immediately scored. Then he took a boneheaded penalty right after. Boy, was THAT game misleading! Too bad he's not five years younger.

-If Spacek is seriously hurt, the team's patchwork D will not be able to compete with most teams. It's going to be a very tough stretch if he's out.

The Naked Draft

Remember that story from your childhood? The one about the emperor? He believed the shifty tailor who claimed the clothes he'd made were so fine they were invisible to the naked eye, and he ended up parading around the city, starkers. The only one with the courage to point out the emperor had been shafted and was actually in the altogether was a naive little girl.

Unfortunately, I think I have to play the role of the little girl in the story of the Canadiens' recent draft history. After the atrocious legacy of first-rounders to the Habs' (dis)credit throughout the nineties, we've been cutting Trevor Timmins a lot of slack because he's actually picking guys who are able to play in the NHL. However, it may be time to finally admit the head scout isn't doing such a great job. His responsibility to the team is to pick players who make the it better, not just guys who can play in the NHL. And so far, not one player Trevor Timmins has picked has really made the Habs a better team.

Seriously, the most recent Habs draftee that's actually making an impact on the big team is Tomas Plekanec. He was picked in the third round in 2001. Eight years ago. Eight. That's a huge number of years in a league in which a team's window to win typically amounts to five years or less. Trevor Timmins has been drafting for the Habs since 2003. In that time he's picked guys like Andrei Kostitsyn, Guillaume Latendresse, Maxim Lapierre, Kyle Chipchura, Ryan White, Matt D'Agostini, Greg Stewart, Ryan O'Byrne, Carey Price, Jaro Halak, Mathieu Carle and Max Pacioretty. Disregarding the players he might have picked instead of any of those guys (although Carter, Richards, Getzlaf, Parise, Lucic, Kopitar, Perron et al are enough to make you cry) the fact remains none of the Timmins draftees on the team right now are difference-makers. And that's what drafting is all about. In the end, the only thing that matters is that the player you pick helps your team win. Nobody cares at this point that Datsyuk was drafted in the seventy-ninth round of his draft. What matters is that he's helping his team win games.

The first rounders are particularly grievous. If we look at all the other teams in the East, we see at least one player drafted in the first round by most of those teams that have become important, if not franchise players. In the northeast, Ottawa has Spezza. Buffalo has Vanek and Stafford. Boston had Kessel, and has now turned him into TWO first rounders. Only the leafs' draft record is worse than the Habs', with no first rounders of their own choosing on the roster in important roles. The other teams in the East also have first-rounders who make a difference. Pittsburgh? Okay...let's not talk about them. Philly has Carter and Richards, Gagne, Giroux and Van Riemsdyk. Caps? Again, an embarrassment of riches. Atlanta has Kovalchuk and Little, Isles have Okposo and Tavares, Devils have Parise, Zajak and Brodeur, Florida has Olecz, Horton, Weiss and Frolik, Tampa has Stamkos and Hedman, Carolina has Staal and Ward and the Rangers have Staal and Del Zotto. So, every team in the East, bar the Habs and leafs has a first-round pick contributing significantly to its success.

Looking at the Habs' first rounders, it's too early to judge Leblanc from 2009. Their first rounder in 2008 went to Calgary for Tanguay. The 2007 picks were Pacioretty, who's struggling to score at the NHL level and McDonagh, who's now a Ranger. In 2006, the Habs picked David Fischer, who's in his fourth year of college hockey and still considered a "prospect." The year 2005 saw the selection of Carey Price at number five overall, which was a risky pick at the time and still hasn't been justified by the player's performance. (Don't think about Kopitar...don't think about Kopitar...) In 2004, the Habs picked Kyle Chipchura who's been fighting and failing to nail down a fourth-line role on the team for three years now. And Timmins' first draft year with the Habs, the 2003 Super Draft, brought us Andre Kostitsyn. He of the five points in 18 games. So, yes, the first round under Timmins has been less than stellar, to put it kindly.

I have another issue with Timmins' picks though, and that's their similarity. When the team picked Lapierre, it was picking a good defensive centre with heart and great leadership qualities. Fine. But then, Timmins went out and drafted Chipchura, Olivier Fortier, Ryan White and Mathieu Aubin. Description? All good defensive centres with great leadership qualities. So then Timmins picked defencemen to address the organization's deficiency in that department. He chose Ryan O'Byrne, a big guy with mobility, if not a lot of offence, who was headed to college. Then he picked Joe Stejkal, Fischer and Mcdonagh...all mobile guys with some size and not a lot of offence. To offset that, he picked an offensive D with a great shot and not stellar in his own end in Mark Streit. Then he picked Yannick Weber, Mathieu Carle and PK Subban who all fit the exact same bill. You can't fill a roster with those kinds of players without sacrificing something.

Timmins gets a lot of credit because of the sheer number of his picks who have made the NHL. But if you look at the number of his picks who actually make a significant contribution to the team, you begin to realize he's possibly overhyped. That's because for a team like Montreal, which has been middle-of-the-pack for more than a decade, drafting is vital. It's the only opportunity a team has to get really good players for free. If they can't draft well, they have to fill important roles on the team through trades or free agency. Trades are tough when you don't have assets you've drafted to send to your trading partner. Free agency costs money and eats cap space which keeps you from filling other holes on your roster. Drafting well gives you a leg up on the opposition because you can use your assets and money to ADD to the team you've built, rather than use them to build from scratch.

I guess we can ignore the fact that many of the successful picks on other teams have managed to make an impact at an early age, and accept that most of the Timmins picks are 25 or under. But at some point we're going to have to stop using youth as an excuse for lack of talent.

So, I have to say, right now...Trevor Timmins has no clothes. And neither do the Habs.

The Great Debate

Sheldon Souray. David Booth. Matt D'Agostini. Darcy Tucker. Andreas Lilja. Robert Nilsson. Pierre-Marc Bouchard. Petr Sykora. Chris Drury. Ole-Kristian Tollefsen. Kurt Sauer. Victor Hedman.

As NHL general managers meet in Toronto to discuss the head shot issue, that's the list of NHLers currently out of their team's lineup with concussions. Jonathan Toews would have been on the list as well, but he returned to play this week. Many others have had concussions of varying degrees of seriousness this season. Many others will have them before the year is out. And still others will have them and try to cover it up and keep playing, because they think the team needs them or because they're barely hanging on to an NHL job and they can't afford to take time off that might give a rival a chance at their spots.

I've accused the NHL before of turning a blind eye to the dramatically rising problem of head injury in the league. It's comfortable for the managers to leave things as they are, even though it's been proven that the after-effects of concussion can negatively impact a player's health for the rest of his life, and despite studies showing early-onset dementia and premature death in some athletes who've had repeated head injuries. So, it should be a good thing that the GMs are finally seriously discussing the issue.

Unfortunately, these men won't be able to really change anything. For one thing, they're too divided a group. As Rob Ray pointed out on TSN's Off the Record this evening, GMs will fight to protect the type of team they're building. A manager with a small, speedy team will be more interested in rule changes that reduce obstruction and rough play, while a guy who's building a big, tough, hard-hitting team will strive to protect his own interests. Any rule change that happens as the result of an agreement within that group will inevitably be a half-hearted compromise. They may say a player who hits another on his blind side will be penalized. Then they'll spend forever negotiating to determine what constitutes a blind side.

The problem is so deep-rooted in the game at this point that a meeting of GMs and a carefully-worded rule change won't fix it. Almost every player you hear discussing the issue mentions the word "respect." And that's the crux of it. If a player respects another, he'll not nail a guy who doesn't have the puck so hard he knocks him out. Or hit him from behind, or head him off while he's cutting around the net, or while his head is turned in the neutral zone. But when players are taught to hit and hit hard, preferably to hurt, from the first day they're allowed to body check in minor hockey, you can't put those kinds of brakes on him when he reaches the pro level.

Respect is something that comes from good parenting in childhood, solid friends, good coaches who emphasize sportsmanship and upstanding examples among the pros kids worship. Too few kids get those kinds of influences in their formative years in the game, and it shows when they treat their opponents like targets when they become professionals themselves. That's a grassroots problem, and not one a meeting of GMs can fix overnight.

Violence isn't a new thing in hockey. There have always been crazy-ass players who'll lose it and try to hurt someone. But the almost cavalier damage more and more players are inflicting on opponents is a relatively new development. Some blame the equipment that's like hitting a rock wall. Some say it's because the players are bigger and faster and have more power to hurt when flying at full speed in an enclosed space. Everyone brings up the respect issue.

Of those issues, equipment can be changed. Mark Messier is helping develop a new a helmet to help reduce the damage of impact on the brain. Other manufacturers are working on shoulder and elbow pads with padding on the outside, protecting the players from direct contact with the molded plastic underneath. Respect is going to be tougher. It's going to have to start with education for coaches and parents, and strict rules of conduct starting at the earliest levels of hockey with serious consequences for breaking them. The issue of increasing size and speed among player who play in rinks that are not increasing in size can't be fixed. It could have been, fifteen years ago when nearly NHL team built a new, state-of-the-art rink. But every one of them built around the traditional-sized ice surface and now can't change without great difficulty and expense.

So, in an effort to reduce impact on players' heads and make the game both cleaner and more exciting, I think the most effective solution would be to make the game four-on-four. You have to admit some of the most exciting hockey we've seen this year has been during coincidental minor penalties, and in OT. That's because the players have room to be creative and to move. They do not, on the other hand, have time to think about rushing across the ice to nail an opponent in the head. With more ice to cover, a player just can't take the chance of taking himself out of the play like that.

I know it would be a radical change to the game we know. But there is a precedent. In the early days of hockey, six skaters, including a rover, played on each side. As the skills and speed of the players increased, however, the rover had less and less to do. By 1923 every pro league had decided the extra skater just crowded the ice, and the rover position was eliminated. And other changes have come into the game in more recent years, like the institution of the two-referee system.

Four-on-four sounds like it's pushing things too far, but really, what would be lost? Not speed or skill. Certainly not dramatic goaltending or solid defence. Maybe a reduction in rosters would mean fewer jobs for the fringe players, but many of those tend to be goons or the guilty parties in dangerous hits in the first place. The NHL wants more goals. Four-on-four would provide that. It would open the ice up for the skilled players and let them really shine. It would also be easier for the refs to be more consistent, with fewer players to watch.

Anyway, that's my suggestion. I suspect it's at least an effective solution to the head shot problem as the GMs will come up with at their meetings. In the end, though, someone is going to have to do something to protect these guys from themselves, and it might have to be something radical.

In the meantime, while NHL general managers talk, the list of damaged brains in hockey grows longer.

On the Controversy

Does anyone else find it funny that, of all the problems with the Canadiens, ranging from a severe lack of second-line wingers, injuries to key defencemen and underachieving young players, so many people are focussing on the play of the goalies as a reason for the uninspiring sub-.500 record the team is currently sporting?

I like Jaro Halak. I like the fact that he's had to fight and scratch for every opportunity he's ever been given, and most of the time he justifies any faith shown in him. I also like Carey Price. He's a talented young guy who has every possibility of fulfilling his great promise. Neither of these young goalies is perfect, but neither are they terrible. Halak was great in the loss to Calgary last night. Price has stolen outright two of the team's measly eight wins. At this point, the goalies are the least of this team's worries.

That said, though, I think there's justification in giving Halak a little more playing time than he's used to having. As Ken Dryden wrote in "The Game," there are good "good team" goalies and there are good "bad team" goalies. He said, in essence, that a good "good team" goalie needs to be able to stop the pucks he's supposed to stop and be ready for that occasional moment when his team needs him to come up with a big save. A good "bad team" goalie can give up a bad goal, but then redeem himself with inspired play and improbable saves after that. Based on his definitions, I think Price is a good "good team" goalie. Halak is a good "bad team" goalie, and right now, the Habs are a bad team.

Price is a very good technical goalie, and is at his best when he's able to get set and predict the pattern of the play. Behind a good team defence, he's great. If his D is helping him out by keeping the shots to the outside, most of the time he'll stop them. It's when it gets scrambly, when the puck is in his feet and nobody can clear it that he's got problems. That's why, when the Habs score and the opponent responds by pushing back hard, when the defence starts to struggle, Price so often gives up the next goal fairly quickly. Halak on the other hand, is less technically perfect, but more reflexive. His more unorthodox style helps him in those crease battles, when he somehow manages to find a way to smother the puck or clear it out himself. When the defence is as unpredictable as the Canadiens' is right now, you need a good "bad team" goalie.

But even more important than individual style, Dryden says the most important skill a goalie needs is the ability to put mental hang-ups out of his head. Here's what he writes:

"Because the demands on a goalie are mostly mental, it means that for a goalie, the biggest enemy is himself. Not a puck, not an opponent, not a quirk of size or style. Him. The stress and anxiety he feels when he plays, the fear of failing, the fear of being embarrassed, the fear of being physically hurt, all are symptoms of his position, in constant ebb and flow, but never disappearing. The successful goalie understands these neuroses, accepts them and puts them under control. The unsuccessful goalie is distracted by them, his mind in knots, his body quickly following. It is why Vachon was superb in Los Angeles and as a high-priced free agent messiah, poor in Detroit. It is why Dan Bouchard, Tretiak-sized, athletic, technically flawless, lurches annoyingly in and out of mediocrity."

We have to admit, no matter how much we're rooting for him or admire him, Carey Price has yet to discover the ability to control his neuroses. From the crying after losses to the Royesque salute in the final game last year, and on to the wall-punching and dropping the f-bomb on live TV after losses this season, the kid is not in great control of his own emotions. And, until he gets that part of his game together, he looks more like the inconsistent Bouchard than the steely-minded Dryden. Maybe it's because he's still so young and he cares so much about winning. Maybe it'll turn out to be a fatal flaw in his ability to fulfill his promise. Either way, right now, the Canadiens aren't helping him out much in learning to deal with the ups and downs that come with playing goal for a very middle-of-the road kind of team.

Playing Halak, who does seem to have a better handle on his own reactions, a little more often might help a bad team win a few more games. It would also relieve some of the organization-imposed pressure on Price to be the undisputed number-one guy. It would give Price a chance to deal with his emotions and learn how to keep them out of his game. And, I believe, if he can accomplish that, he can become a great goalie.

The point here is, the goalie on whom the team has pinned its greatest hopes isn't ready for the role. He, and the team, are fortunate to have a second good, young goalie on the team who can carry a good part of the netminding load and give his partner time and space to develop into the goalie we hope he can be. Halak is there to help the team win, but also to help support his partner, Price. In light of that point of view, I don't see a goaltending controversy in Montreal at all.

It's time to stop worrying about the goalies. I mean, come on! Look at the rest of the team and check out the problems. NOW you can worry.