Some still think Samuel Montembeault will play for Canadiens
I just don’t get it.
Fans and pundits are still talking about Samuel Montembeault starting the season as the Montreal Canadiens’ backup goalie. It is just nuts. Did these folks see any of Monty’s games last season? He wasn’t bad. He was terrible. He looked like someone who simply forgot how to tend goal in the National Hockey League.
But the crazy talk was right back front-and-centre Monday after Kent Hughes said at the Canadiens’ annual golf tournament, effectively the PR kick-off for the Habs’ season, that he was comfortable starting training camp with three goalies but that he doesn’t see starting the season with three netminders.
Immediately people starting talking about the idea that Jacob Fowler would be sent down to Laval and that Montembeault would be the second goalie on the big team, backing up Jakub Dobes. I thought this issue had been resolved but clearly it hasn’t.
I’ll keep it simple. If Habs management actually follows what these Montembeault apologists suggest, the team will lose a bunch of points in what is shaping up as a mighty tight race in the Atlantic division. The reason Montembeault is still on the roster is that Hughes clearly spent the summer trying to trade the Québécois goalie and not one other team had the slightest interest for the very good reason that they watched his games last season and they know he is no longer an NHL-calibre goalie.
Veteran analyst and former NHL coach Pierre McGuire nailed it on The Sick Podcast a couple of days ago, telling it like it is rather than sugar-coating it with Monty the way so many do ’round these parts.
“At one point, in order to send Montembeault down to the American Hockey League, he has to go on waivers,” said McGuire. “I don’t think he would clear and that would open more cap room for Montreal. I don’t know how much that’s been talked about, but without taking a player back, you’re getting much more cap room for a player who is probably not going to play for you. So his value even though he’s a good person and a good teammate, which he showed last spring by the way, he was outstanding, his value is truly the cap space.”
BOOM! His value is the cap space you save. You’re not getting a player in return. You’re not getting a draft pick, even a late-round one. You’re just saving on the cap to the tune of US$3.15 million and that’s worth a lot.
The other thing to be worried about with Montembeault in a Habs sweater is the combination of Monty and coach Martin St. Louis, who just signed a four-year contract extension. St. Louis showed way too much leniency with Montembeault last season, giving him too many chances to redeem himself. You don’t want that to happen again. The team will lose points and it plays tricks with Dobes’s mind, which is exactly what happened last year.
For the first time ever in the Jeff Gorton/Hughes/St. Louis era, this is an all-in season. The rebuild is over, even if the “reality” TV show The Rebuild is still on the air. The years of handing out participation badges to the kids are over. If anyone is still saying it’s okay to take a step back, they’re not paying attention.
This team made the conference final last season and so they have to be among the elite in the league. Well you don’t get into that rarified space by playing a sub-par goalie. It ain’t rocket science.
Knee-jerk reactions to Kreider signing
Far and away the funniest moment at the Canadiens golf tournament Monday was when a journalist asked the newest Canadien, Chris Kreider, if he had had any contact with Carey Price since Kreider slammed into him in the Eastern Conference final in the 2014 playoffs, ending Price’s season and effectively dashing the Habs’ Cup dream that year.
“You ever bump into him?” the journalist asked.
“No I haven’t bumped into him,” said Kreider.
Then everyone erupted into laughter when Kreider and the journalists realized that of course he had bumped into him in one infamous occasion.
I spent the past couple of days reading comments on social media from Habs fans screaming about how terrible it is that the guy who ran Price is now a Canadien. My message to these fans: Get over yourselves. This is big-boy stuff. He’s big, fast and stands in front of the other team’s net. The team doesn’t have anyone else who does this. So it’s a good deal period. In playoff hockey, spit happens.
St. Louis is under pressure
The Canadiens announced Monday that St. Louis has a new four-year contract extension, though he had one year remaining on his previous deal. So it adds three years and obviously ups his salary. This is also a good deal.
But — and it’s a huge “but” — MSL now has to prove that he wasn’t just a good player’s coach to get the lads through the development. Now it’s time to compete. The team needs to be in the contention conversation. Yes St. Louis guided them to the conference final, but in next season’s playoffs, there’s no question of dropping the puck, freezing, and watching your team crumble, as he did in that series against the Carolina Hurricanes. Big contract = big pressure. Also a good thing.
