Trading Huet Comes Back to Bite Gainey

I understand what you are saying but carey price is an amazing goalie and he can and will get the job done, every goalies has bad games. For the round 2 draft pick… that was a terrible trade and i dont know what went through gainey’s mind cuz huet was worth way more then a 2nd pick. Carey price kept us in the first round and he kept us in the 2nd as much as he could but a goalie is as good as his team plays and montreal played really badly in the 2nd and third games of the 2nd round and carey price couldnt pull out miracles. I dont know if you watched the games in this serie but carey price played good even if he gave a few bad goals, the only reason the flyers won against washington and the only reason they are winning against montreal is Martin Biron, he played amazing since the playoff started, posts and glove save destroyed canadian hopes.

Gainey said at the time that he wasnt going to let Huet get away for free, meaning that he was not going to re-sign in Montreal. Also there was fear that Halak was going to bolt for Europe if he could not get some NHL playing time.
I can understand not wanting a player to get away for free and holding on to a quality prospect like Halak, but when it comes down to it, The Cup should be your only goal, business be damned.

Marc-

This is in no way a slam on Price. I think he can be great, but when you get close to the playoffs you need some experience. Expecting 2 rookie goalies to excel deep into the playoffs is a bit too much wishful thinking for me.

DSJ-

Good point about wanting to get something, rather than nothing for the Frenchman. But as you say, the quest for the Cup must be on higher priority than building your team for the future, especially with a 2nd rounder.

Look at it this way:

- In the minds of Montreal fans, Price is the number 1. They liked Huet, but they like Price more, and he is the future of the team.

- Huet has never won a playoff series, and STILL has never won a playoff series. Price has now.

- What Gainey did was ensure that his future number one goalie got some good playoff experience as a number one guy. The entire team is full of kids who are getting their first taste of extended playoff action. This is a smart move on Gainey’s part.

- Gainey’s job is completely safe, as fans are not upset at all about the decision to go with Price. Some people balked at the draft pick, but fans were very upset last year when some players, aka Souray were allowed to walk into free agency without any kind of compensation to the Habs. This is a big part of what drove that trade.

I agree that Gainey’s job is safe, and I am sure that there is something to be gained from Price getting experience.

But it’s not unusual to utilize 2 goalies, and what if Price got hurt? It seems to me that Gainey was playing with fire, all for the sake of getting a 2nd round draft pick.

Either that or maybe he didn’t think that his team had a legit shot at winning the Cup this year.

It’s not often that your team falls into the number one seed and I think that you should try to take advantage of it by beefing up, like most teams do.

I talked a bit more about this in the Round 3 Round-up post.

Cheers!