Blogging About The Montreal Canadiens and Canadiens Hockey

With both of our goalies, Halak and Price, playing so well it’s not a surprise that trade talks would be flaring up. Currently it’s being reported that Jaroslav Halak has been put on the trade block by the Montreal Canadiens in exchange for nothing less then a top-6 forward.

According to various reports, many teams have been keeping an eye on Halak, and why shouldn’t they? He’s an excellent backup goaltender. Which leads me to my next point. Can the Canadiens afford to lose him? Do the Canadiens believe that Curtis Sanford (8-4-2, .921 save percentage) or Cedrick Desjardins (7-4-1, .940 save percentage) are ready to pick up the lose ends?

Halak is an RFA at the end of the season so I’m sure the Canadiens are looking at what it’s going to cost to keep him, and what they can lose if they choose not to sign him and have him play out the season knowing he’s not going to be resigned.

The loss of Halak would be great in my opinion. Price is solid but has his bad games, just like Halak. Together they are an excellent tandem because when one struggles, the other is there to pick up the pieces. Leaving Price with Sanford or Desjardins may be the beginning of the end. I’m sure that Price feels, even just a little bit, of comfort knowing that Halak is there. Halak, a goalie who has already proven himself in this league.

A suggested trade involving Halak to the Detroit Red Wings could see Darren Helm making his way to Montreal, but at this point it’s just speculation. Another possibility that was mentioned at the beginning of the season was Halak + ??? for Patrick Sharp, which is not as feasible now that Plekanec is playing so well and I don’t believe that Gainey would part with him now.

Whatever happens, let’s hope it leads to someone or something that will make the difference.

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After the loss against the Lightning, Martin is going back to Halak at home in tonight’s match-up against the Calgary Flames. It’s hard to tell who’s the better goalie when we can’t seem to stream together a couple of wins in a row but since Halak has the better record at home I can see why this decision may have been pretty easy for Martin.

Jay Leach is also going to be in the lineup tonight in place of Mathieu Carle who will be taking a seat in the press box. Truthfully, I would have rather seen M.A. Bergeron site upstairs because he’s been one of the most inconsistent individuals that I have ever seen. Mathieu Carle has been excellent since he’s been called up and I think that I’d rather have him in the lineup over Bergeron.

Well, it looks like there may still be some hope left in Sergei. According to RDS he turned down a 2 year, $5 million contract in the KHL. That’s pretty interesting because a couple of months ago I would have bet every cent that I have that he would have taken it. Of course, their is always a catch. Apparently, Sergei refused the offer due to the fact that if he did accept it, the IIHF would have not allowed him to participate in the Olympics. At least he’s loyal to something .

And to finish things up, here is Sergei at his finest:

Lucky ladies….

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Well, according to several different sources(RDS, HabsInsideOut), it looks like Sergei Kostitsyn didn’t didn’t report to Hamilton after being sent down last Saturday, and has been suspended by the time.

It’s also reported that he’s refusing to report to Hamilton and is requesting a trade! This is absolutely huge!

This just shows to me his lack of commitment to the team. I think we messed up by bringing this kid into the NHL too early, but I also think he never really showed any improvement. Oh well.

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Over the last 30 minutes rumors have been swirling between guys like @Eklund and @NHLSourcesSay on twitter that the Montreal Canadiens might be close to signing Alexander Frolov of the Los Angeles Kings, but nothing can be confirmed.

@NHLSourcesSay believes that two names mentioned in the possible trade would be Guillaume Latendresse and Kostitsyn, which Kostitsyn, however, is yet to be determined, but my best guess would be Sergei because he’s an RFA at the end of this season and we still have Andrei for another year until he goes UFA for the 2011-2012 season.

This trade is “feasible”, and I quote that because it could happen in respect to the current cap space available for both teams. It does somewhat scare me to lose these two guys for Frolov, but his numbers over the last four seasons kind of speak for themselves. Averaging 75 games played and 63 points per season.

Not a bad pickup if he continues that type of play, and can you imagine Cammalleri and Frolov playing together once again…scary.

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This one is a little confusing because I yet to find any actual news story on this and you would think that we would see it on the Montreal Canadiens official website before I’d find out any other way, but according to capgeek.com, Gregory Stewart has signed a one-year, $500,000 deal with the Canadiens.

Stewart finished last season with on the Montreal Canadiens roster and notched just one assist in 20 games on the big club.

Hopefully we’ll see some confirmation on this soon, but if this is indeed a reality then my hat’s off to Bob Gainey. This is a great contract, and I’m excited to have Stewart back on the team. He’s may or may not start this year with the team but he’ll definitely fight for a sport on the fourth line. Stewart is a big, tough guy who isn’t afraid to drop the gloves, but lacks the scoring touch to get the big minutes.

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Yesterday brought on a whole new set of rumors for the Montreal Canadiens including an apparent 2-way contract offered to goaltender Manny Fernandez which leaves me to wonder, what about Halak? If their is any truth to this rumor then Halak won’t be with the team for much longer because Fernandez would be a good backup for Price.

Fernandez played 28 games last season for the Boston Bruins behind Vezina winner Tim Thomas. He finished the season with 16 wins, 9.10 save percentage and a 2.59 goals against average.

It’s also been said that Chicago is very interested in Halak which adds more to the rumor of offering Fernandez a contract. This is definitely one to keep an eye on because if it comes to fruition then you can expect to see Halak heading out of town shortly there after.

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How scandalous! Well, the rumor du jour that most of you have probably already heard about is that the San Jose Sharks have a lot of interest in picking up Dany Heatley, but the Sharks don’t have what the Ottawa Senators want which would mean a third team would need to be in the mix.

The original offer suggested was Cheechoo, Ehrhoff, and a first round pick for Heatley which Brian Murray obviously didn’t see was going to work. No offense, but if the Sharks expect to trade Cheechoo they are really going to have to under-value him due to his performance the last few years.

So with that trade proposal turned down it was thought that a third team would get involved, the Canadiens, and facilitate a trade with San Jose to get a player, or two, that the Ottawa Senators would take in return for Dany Heatley. It was actually suggested that Bob Gainey would make a trade that brought Jonathon Cheechoo to Montreal for unknown players which makes me cringe just thinking about it. We do not need another winger, and at 29 years-old you should be scoring more then 29 points a season when you’re playing for a team like San Jose.

If the Sharks are going to get Heatley and are going to use the Canadiens to do it, then they’re going to have to give up someone they don’t want to, like Patrick Marleau who many believe the Canadiens are after.

From my perspective, Gainey isn’t prepared to make another big trade unless it’s for some smaller guys, which will most likely hinder any possible trades in the near future.

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Some rumors have been noted that Roman Hamrlik may just be on his way out of Montreal. Nothing has been confirmed and no suggested trade proposals have been submitted but it’s out there.

The initial rumor posted by Eklund last night was that the Canadiens are attempting to free up some cap space, and Hamrlik was one move that they would be prepared to make with his $5 million contract.

$5 million is enough to get an impact guy in return. A team like Columbus for instance, who’s name was mentioned, would be a suitable fit for Hamrlik because a) they need a defenseman and b) they could easily afford him with their current $11 million in cap space left. Who would we get in return? No idea, but names like Klesla and Huselius were indeed thrown out there.

Personally, this seems like a cap dump so the return on a trade like this would be low, but looking at the bigger picture it gives us the room to pickup an impact player. Perhaps we could package Plekanec and Hamrlik and get a second line Center. Brassard anyone??…. A guy can dream

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Hendricks Hockey thinks so.

Jason Hendricks is suggesting that a trade may be developing that could involve Tomas Plekanec and Jaroslav Halak for Patrick Sharp, who is may be a piece in a San Jose trade. Marleau perhaps?

Chicago needs a goalie, so that makes sense. Halak would be a great fit to backup Huet, which also makes sense. Even if we don’t make a trade with San Jose, Patrick Sharp would be a perfect second line center.

The problem lies herein, Sanford would have to come up to backup Price, which seems a little scary to me. We would then have Cedrick Desjardins and ????? as our current goaltenders on the Bulldogs, unless one of our four goalie prospects is ready to fill a role on that team. Of course, this is all unless we get a goalie in the deal.

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Eklund suggests that this may just be the case, and it may be involving Plekanec and Halak, both of which the Sharks have great interest in. He is also suggesting that an “interesting” prospect could be heading to Montreal, which sounds to me like a three-way trade.

By dumping these two players we would free up about 3.5 million in cap space and would need to add a second line center in the deal, which just doesn’t seem feasible to me. Every possibility I can think of just doesn’t work out for not just our salary cap, but for our needs as well. Unless of course we pickup John Tavares out of the deal and then we would be all freakin’ set since he’s currently sitting at 3.75 million .

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