Goaltender of the Future

With Slovakia's tight win based on Jaroslav Halak's tight goaltending versus Russia, the goaltending debate for the Habs is picking up so much steam its beginning to scald. The problem is most armchair observers seem to be using logic reminiscent of a certain San Jose Sharks pro scout.

The Montreal Canadiens are currently in eighth place in the Eastern Conference, one point ahead of Tampa Bay (who have two games in hand) and two ahead of the New York Rangers who hold one game in hand. We may just make the playoffs this year, and if we do, we'd likely want the strong goalie we had for much of the season to try and keep us in against Washington, New Jersey, or whoever we get seeded against.
Reality however, states we'll likely make a first round exit unless we perform a miraculous upset. Our team has been too up and down to really be consistent - our longest winning streak all season is only three games. In that case we need to be focused as much on the future of the franchise, and which goaltender we hold on to. No matter what Pierre Gauthier thinks, both of our goalies are RFA at the end of the season and we really can't afford to have them both alongside a resigned Thomas Plekanec.

And this is why we need to resign Carey Price and trade Jaroslav Halak.
I'm sure right now there's coffee hitting your monitor not unlike a Jason Blake wrist shot to the chest of a goaltender on those words, but hear me out. Price has had certain flashes of brilliance this year, and is statistically better in save% than Olympian Marc-Andre Fleury, Ottawa savior Brian Elliot, LA starter Jonathan Quick, and most other hyped up underachievers (I'm looking at you, both Philedelphia goaltenders, all three goaltenders to suit up for the Maple Leafs this season, Nicklas Backstrom, and both Nashville goalies). Admitted Halak's .923 is nicer than Price's .911 but it's not like Price is making a huge gap of less saves - especially as he's generally been put in following a Halak loss, suggesting the team wasn't bringing much effort anyway (further proven by Price's GAA being higher than goaltenders with worse save percentages, though still a reasonable though not outstanding 2.81).
So Price can compete, he just isn't playing as well as Halak right now. But here's where the future comes in.

Halak is a positionally sound goalie, will be 25 at the end of the season, has calm emotions and fast reflexes. His weaknesses are controlling the puck, and his size ( 5'11 is short for a goaltender). While reflexes don't degrade quickly, it's unlikely they will ever improve noticeably, and as he's already positionally sound there's not a whole lot of upward motion. Halak can practice with the puck but he's never going to get four inches taller.

Price, 22, is excellent with the puck (can you name four goaltenders better than him with the puck?), 6'3, and has just as sharp reflexes. His biggest issues are a weak glove hand (that is nonetheless greatly overplayed), some positional awareness issues, and having some difficulty dealing with the emotional stress of working in the Montreal environment. In short he's immature. Funny thing is, in the league, there aren't a whole lot of mature 22 year old goaltenders - let alone 22 year old goaltenders to begin with. He calms down and works on his positioning, and he's got a clear advantage on Jaroslav, who has effectively reached his ceiling. Is it really a gamble to say that Price will be a different player at 24 than he is at 22?

Can we risk giving up that potential to try to hold on to our eighth place seed this season?
Can we risk not getting any return for our current hot goaltender?

Halak's Agent is an Incompetent Idiot.

I am a Carey Price fan. I've come near the point of being a Carey Price apologist. Sometimes I'm justified - the game against Boston was his 50th win, and it took him 102 games to do so. The only player to do better was Martin Broduer who did it in 93. The other player to do it in 102 was Patrick Roy.  He's had bad moments but he's shown the flashes of brilliance early in his career that he easily has potential to be a star, and we can't abuse this too much. I'm not saying he's the next Roy, but if he's the next [upper mid-tier goaltender] instead are we that bad off? Also, more than Halak, Price has been proven to have a game-stealing ability.

That said, I'm also a Jaroslav Halak fan. He's a hard working player who people had low expectations of, yet has been undeniably strong when given the call in most cases (though in his losses he has been terrible enough to make us briefly forget some of Price's high-glove-side embarrassments). I believe given time he is certainly starter quality. I'd rather him over Cristobal Huet, Vesa Toskala, or Chris Osgood certainly, and I'm sure he offers a better value proposition than say, Evengi Nabokov who's had a strong team hide his actual skill set. He's yet to walk in and steal a game, but I'm sure that will come with time and chances, just look at Atlanta's Pavelec.

The thing to remember though, is these players are teammates. While they would likely have a rivalry for position in starts, the fact is their main goal should be getting wins for the team, as that's the point of being on a team and why they're hockey players and not tennis players. The team -always- comes first. This is the same reason it's frustrating to see players raising their game in a contract year. This is also why it's completely unacceptable for an agent of one player to try to incense the fanbase against the other.

If you're one of the people who missed Hockey Night in Canada last night, here's the story.

Retweeted constantly on the twitter tubes last night:
"Interesting stat of the night....Price is 10W, 32L in last 42 starts. Hmm."

Much more interesting is the fact that the statistic came from Halak's agent, Allan Walsh.

We can't just jump and say "OH THESE STATS ARE WRONG" because, well, they aren't. But throwing that out there seems somewhat malicious for someone who's apparently a professional. Isn't his task supposed to be communicating issues with management and using his actual negotiating ability to turn things in favour for his client, not simply incensing a vocal fanbase against his agent's competitor?

All Habs called him out on twitter with "Not exactly an objective source. That stat came from Halak's agent. Advocacy like that leaves a bad taste in my mouth. @walsha" to which re responded "Sorry you don't like the stat, if the stat was wrong, you may have a point..I was pointing out an interesting stat for fans." which just strikes me as an irritating smear campaign, especially considering despite Halak's strong home stats, has been abysmal on the road during his career. Walsh also stated to All Habs "It's no secret who my client is....and very relevant stat as it relates to my client."; Everyone has pointed out how terrible this is, and how this will divide the fanbase, pit players and fans against each other, and potentially harm both players. But here's something no one seems to be bringing up - HALAK IS INJURED. Is Walsh so ignorant of his own client's status that he's implying that a time where having him play would be a risk to his health is the appropriate time to try and cause controversy? I mean, it's evident he wanted more backlash against Price, but at least pick a logical time to be an unprofessional scumbag.

What's funny is after Hockey Night in Canada spent their Coast-to-Coast segment ostracizing Captain Ignoramus (especially Jeff Marek and former goaltender Kelly Hrudy), Walsh twitted* to Marek "It was a tongue in cheek comment not meant to be taken seriously, forgot it was Montreal and everyone loses a sense of humor." Ignoring the fact that the HNIC staff are not specifically invested in Montreal specifically, wouldn't his prior statements to All Habs blatantly contradict that? Hell, even my attempts at being funny are better than that. And instead of apologizing for a failure at humour as he claims, he instead attacks the entire fanbase of the team. Could this possibly reflect well on his client at this point? This is almost a brazen effort to cause chaos in an already rather.. vocal.. fanbase. What gives?

Jaro, there's no way in hell you read my blog, but I wish you well. Please, for all of us, find better representation. 




* while 'tweeted' is apparently the correct term, twitted seems much more fitting of Allan Walsh