Ryan Remiorz
Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday we ask the Globe's roster of hockey writers to answer a question on an issue from the world of puck.
Today we talk about the pressure-packed job of playing goal in Montreal.
Canadiens goalie Carey Price has gone from getting booed by fans who longed for Jaroslav Halak in the first preseason game to leading the all-star voting at his position as a write-in candidate. Are you surprised at his success so far this season?
ERIC DUHATSCHEK
As someone who owns Carey Price in the Globe And Mail's venerable Ice Box fantasy league, but had him mostly on the reserve list this year behind the Los Angeles Kings' Jonathan Quick and the Washington Capitals' Michal Neuvirth, I would have to answer truthfully yes, I am surprised at how quickly he's turned his career around.
I thought Price would be better than he was a year ago, when there seemed to be technical issues in his game (he was especially having trouble getting square to the shooter) but I thought there'd be some nights when he'd struggle too, the way young goaltenders often do.
But maybe there's the answer - that Price isn't all that young any more. He's 23. This is his fourth full NHL season. Except for the most precocious Steven Stamkos types, this is usually when developing players take a significant step forward, if they're going to at all. And that's what's made Price's emergence one of the more interesting stories of the first quarter: That he has four shutouts, and that he has been remarkably consistent from the start of the year until now, which is what coaches value most in their starting goaltenders. Considering the pressure he was under to replace last year's playoff hero, Jaroslav Halak, that represents quite a feat - and it is safe to safe that Price's steadiness is the primary reason the Canadiens are tops in the Northeast right now. Glad everyone took his advice back in September and just decided to chill out until the regular season began.
ROY MACGREGOR
Not so much surprised as...shocked. Given what he was up against -- perhaps the best playoff goaltending I personally have ever seen when Jaroslav Halak defeated the two best teams in the east, Washington Capitals and Pittsburgh Penguins, and a pre-season in which he was roundly booed by disenchanted Montreal fans and played as if boos were deserved. Yes, it's a shocker. But a pleasant one. His play is testimonial to a demeanour that is so cool, calm and collected he seems, at times, to lack a pulse. His play is also testimonial to a remarkable ability to shut out the most vocal, demanding and intense fan base in the game. Those who thought former general manager Bob Gainey stubborn for standing by his choice draft pick and who thought current GM Pierre Gauthier a fool for electing to let Halak go this past summer are all today wrong, wrong, wrong. Carey Price is the real thing. And his story is as nice a story as the east has to offer this early going.
SEAN GORDON
Would it be gloating to point out I predicted a great start from my boy Carey? Being solidly in the Price camp in the great Jaro/Carey debate has been a lonely place to be over the past year, but his ability and physical gifts have long hinted this type of performance was within his reach. That said, I don't think anyone who isn't named Carey Price or a blood relative would have expected him to be this good for this long a stretch.
He's owed a big apology (which hasn't received and won't) from the nattering nabobs of negativism in the Montreal hockey media, who said he doesn't have the work ethic, mental makeup or goolies to play nets here. Yes, he does. He always did.
It's not to say he won't have a few scruffy patches, but now he knows how to deal with them. What's most important is he's regained the unflappable attitude he had when he first came up, while shedding the cockiness that ran underneath it.
The Habs brain trust is not without faults, but they're not complete idiots, Price is a major talent and barring significant injury will be a better goalie at 25 than Halak is, which is why they made the choice to keep him. Good for the kid, I say, although he should probably find something more important to do on all-star weekend given what happened after he started the game in 2009.
MATTHEW SEKERES
As Montreal's French press is quick to point out, Sean Gordon is the best defenceman Carey Price ever had. Where, oh where, would poor Carey's confidence be if not for Gordon's encouragement, nurturing, and support in the pages of the country's national newspaper, and on the ever-popular French Immersion blog. So allow the man (Gordon, not Price) a few paragraphs to gloat. After all, this is his told-you-so moment.
As for Price's bounce back, not so surprising from here in his home province. Must admit, there's another Globe sports reporter with a soft spot for Carey (beyond Gordon's man-love and Eric's fantasy needs). NHL players from B.C. don't typically come from tiny native communities in the Interior. They don't typically need their bush-pilot fathers to fly them into games and practices. And they don't typically draw hundreds of children from their community for every morning skate at Rogers Arena, and spend hours after practice signing autographs and posing for pictures. But that's our boy Carey. Could hear his story a million times, and it never gets old. And as for his performance, the pedigree was always there. Make no mistake about that. From afar, sounds like he's curbed his off-ice activities. Good for him. Good for the Habs.
DAVID SHOALTS
Put me in the category of those people Sean Gordon is gloating about. But we all have a good excuse.
There is many a cautionary tale among players like Carey Price, those whose maturity and common sense lag far behind on the development scale than their talent. In some cases, immensely talented young athletes who have trouble making the grade once they get to the show figure it out. Sometimes it is simply a matter of dedicating yourself to getting into an acceptable level of physical conditioning. Sometimes it is that plus realizing you can't sample all of the nightly delights of a city like Montreal on a nightly basis if you want to make your living as an athlete.
Another example of this is Price's fellow goaltender Kari Lehtonen. He is finally having the kind of consistently great season predicted for him when he was taken second overall in the 2002 NHL entry draft by the Atlanta Thrashers. But he is doing this for a new employer, the Dallas Stars. Unfortunately for the Thrashers, Lehtonen did not figure out what he needed to do to elevate his game until the ripe old age of 27. This summer, for the first time, he worked hard on his fitness and he curbed his preference for junk food, one which brought him the nickname Hamburglar from his former teammates.
Luckily for the Habs, Price seems to have figured things out at the even more tender age of 23. He's also done it in the worst pressure-cooker in hockey so congratulations are in order. But that doesn't mean the nattering nabobs of negativity were wrong to think he might not make it.