Rocket:
Game #6 can’t come soon enough. For the past two days, Montrealers have been ‘treated’ to a non-stop parade of Carey Price bashing. This parade comes complete with a grand marshall (Red Fisher), a clown (P.J. Stock), and a crowd of fair-weather Habs fans who have jumped off the Canadiens float (band wagon).
On Thursday night, the Canadiens, with a chance to end the series and a lead after the first period, stopped skating. The high-flying, aggressively forechecking Habs left the ice after the first period and the New Jersey Devils/Minnesota Wild appeared to take their place after the intermission. The Canadiens/Devils/Wild hybrid trapped and tried to protect a 1-0 lead against an offensively-challenged team…and failed.
Sometime in the third period, the coach threw in the towel and sent his offensively-challenged 4th line winger (shouldn’t he be playing for the Bruins?) out on the power play.
Early in the third period, the 4th line center fumbled a glove drop from his goaltender that, with only open ice ahead, could have turned the game in favour of the Canadiens.
Yet, with all other game details ignored, the only focus for the past two days has been the so-called mistake of Carey Price. The fans suddenly forgot about his accomplishments in the playoffs, and his coach and some of his teammates stood by while the media threw Price under the bus. Hmmm…and fans wonder why it is so hard to attract good free agents to this city?
It seems that everyone has forgotten the great save that Carey Price made on Glen Murray. What about the incredible save he made at the end of the first period on David Krejci? Looking back further, Carey Price has certainly bailed his teammates out on dozens of occasions when they make mistakes (several per game for Patrice Brisebois alone!)
Stephen Brunt, from the Globe, who covers the Maple Leaf soap opera and shines Bob McCown’s shoes on a daily basis offered this: “a rookie goaltender (Price) playing in the sport’s greatest pressure cooker and, on Thursday night, he stank.” It should be noted that Brunt wouldn’t have even been here for the hockey game but happened to be in town for his first love: UFC. Figures!
So what about Red Fisher? You may recall that he whined for a month after the trade deadline that his beloved Cristobal Huet had been shipped out of town. He warned of dire consequences leaving the goaltending duties in the hands of two youngsters (he wasn’t even sure whether Price or Halak would emerge as #1). Today, in a great example of revisionist history, Fisher has re-written Price’s game #5 performance through the lenses of his rather strong spectacles.
In Saturday’s Gazette, Fisher writes, “Price, allowed four consecutive goals in the third period in Thursday’s 5-1 loss – three of them as bad or worse than any he’s allowed in his rookie season.” He continues, “He (Price) saw the puck all the way from the blue line when Zdeno Chara provided the Bruins with a 3-1 lead, and was out of it completely on other goals from Marco Sturm (shorthanded) and Vladimir Sobotka.”
Reviewing the goals that Fisher mentions, a completely different perspective appears. Chara’s goal came on a Bruin power play and deflected off the stick of Smolinski to find the net. Sturm made a great shot for his goal but the question has to be asked ‘what was he doing all alone shorthanded anyway?’ Sobotka’s goal was the only one that could be considered soft even though it deflected off Markov’s stick.
Boston’s second goal was the one that was the Olympic torch for all Price-haters to carry. Guy Carbonneau, who attended the Mike Keenan school of handling goaltenders, said “He (Price) knows he made a mistake and was a little soft after that.” He gratuitously added, “But Carey has shown he can rebound after a bad performance.”
With respect to the Bruins second goal, Carey Price says that he simply saw an opportunity. There was nothing but open ice in front of Maxim Lapierre. If handled cleanly, the sports headlines could have been about what a great leadership play Price made to start the rush to spark a victory (well all the stories except Fisher’s, I suppose). If Price and Lapierre are, at the very least, equally responsible for the botched exchange, why are there no headlines about Lapierre having to atone for his dreadful mistake?
One has to wonder about the role of Maxim Lapierre. Right after the incident on the ice, Lapierre bent over and held his head with regret for his mistake. Yet in the media circus afterwards, Max let his goalie get hung out to dry on this issue. If it was Kostopoulos (or other ‘team-first’ guys) in his place, he would have taken full responsibility for the ‘mistake’ to take the spotlight off his goaltender. In the first place, TK wouldn’t have allowed Nokelainen to steal the puck from him. Lapierre could only offer “Carey’s a special goalie. He has the skills. He’ll bounce back and we’ll play better in front of him.”
It was left to the substitute captain (not necessarily known for his tact when dealing with the media) to provide a voice of reason: “Price is one of the reasons we won a lot of games,” Alex Kovalev said. “We have all the confidence he’ll get the job done. It’s more important how we play in front of him. We’ve got to limit the shots. This is a long journey. We’ve got to limit the shots and play better defensively.”
Kovalev is right. It’s time for some perspective. The primary reason that the Canadiens have won 3 playoff games so far is: Carey Price. It’s a safe bet that if Gainey had listened to Fisher, Stock and others about his goaltending situation, that the Canadiens would have already made their exit from the playoffs.