Halak Robbed of All - Rookie Team Position

Canadiens goaltender Jaroslav Halak came extremely close to acheiving a unique feat this past season.

After it was announced late in the year that Halak had received the AHL's nod for All - Rookie team goaltender, I quickly looked up all the other NHL rookie goalie stats and found that the only stopper than had the goods other than Halak was Mike Smith of the Dallas Stars.

I thought that if voters saw things in the same light as I, Halak stood a better than fair chance at notching both.

It was not to be.

As it often happens, the vote was decided by merely looking at statistical data, and not by comparing the individuals team strength.

On the NHL.com site, Smith's winners bio reads this way:

"Smith, 25, appeared in 23 games with the Stars, posting a 12-5-2 record with a 2.23 GAA and a .912 save percentage. He became the first goaltender in franchise history to record a shutout in his NHL debut Oct. 21 at Phoenix (22 saves). He twice was named the NHL's Third Star of the Week, honored on Nov. 26 after going 3-0-0 with a 1.73 GAA, .917 save percentage and one shutout, and on Feb. 12 after posting a 3-0-0 record with a 0.85 GAA and a .967 save percentage."
























This leaves little doubt as to Smith's qualifications for the award, on the surface.

Halak, who is 21, and only a half season removed from the ECHL had 16 appearances with Montreal, winning 10 and losing 6. His goals against was 2.89, and his save percentage was .906.

Along the way, Halak was given one of those dubious stars of the week nods, which are often a case of didn't do anything that particular week.

My main bone of contention with voters not skimming below the surface in this matter, has to do with the roles each goalie was handed during the course of the season.

For starters, Smith was clearly in a backup role to Marty Turco with Dallas all season. As a rookie, he was surely given selected stars ( read easier games) tobring him along at pre-planned pace.

Halak, on the contrary, was thrown directly into the fire, faced with having to resussitate squandering playoff hopes on a team that had nosedived in the standings. He came within one win of achieving it, had coach Carbonneau properly seen fit to give him the final game he so rightly deserved - and that's a whole other history lesson!



















Smith was on the Dallas roster from the beginning of the year, wheras Halak came on in the final third of the season, where a desperate team awaited.

While Smith got the light games, Halak battled down the stretch, defeating teams also in the playoff hunt.

As far as comparative numbers go, Smith runs all categories up first glance. Being that he played in 7 more games and had the entire season to do so, it is not surprising that his numbers are superior. In fact, placed in that context, they should be.

But given those additional 7 starts, Smith won only 2 more games than Halak did playing at the toughest time of year.

The more telling of goalie stats, the goals against and save percentage categories, are hands down won by Smith.

Again I must state, there is great deception in those stats when placed in a team context. Dallas, a tightly defensively oriented team, played shutdown hockey all season through. Case in point, Smith's total was identical to Turco's 2.23 GAA and .910 save percentage.

This tells me that no matter which goalie was between the Stars pipes, the team in front of him played the same composed game.

Such was not the case for Halak, who was in essense the starter for the majority of his late season stint. With number one goalie Cristobal Huet on the injured list, Halak basically rescued the teams hopes from the play of the ever more floundering David Aebischer.

Halak's play settled the Habs game down some, and the team could then approach each contest more calmly. With the rubber maid goalie that was Aebischer, the Canadiens began each game nervous to the notion that a minimum of two weak goals would set them back even before the game began.

That's quite a contrast between what they had become used to during those final desperate weeks.

These non-statistically based facts, also contrast greatly with Smith's role in Dallas.

None of this aims to take away from Smith's accomplishments, however, it only seeks to place them in perspective with Halak's heroics.

There is one statistic in Halak's favor that is not included in the NHL goalie's line, and that is winning percentage.

Discounting the two overtime losses on Smith's resume (because they are not wins), the Dallas goaltender had 12 wins in 23 games, for a winning percentage of .521. Heck, team don't make the playoffs with a stat like that!

Halak, for his worth, won 10 of 16, under fire, for a winning percentage of .625.

Considering the quality and importance of Halak's game, he should have been a two league All - Rookie Team Goalie - no contest.

Net Losses

James Mirtle has a great post this morning (nothing new with that!) debating the unwarranted criticism that Habs GM Bob Gainey has taken in the press for not going out and getting a starting goalie to replace the injured Cristobal Huet down the stretch. In a piece titled "Crease Conumdrum", Mirtle difuses what has been said by many in the media of late on the decision.

I wonder if James has heard any of the Montreal sports talk radio shows, where gainey has been shellacked worse than an outhouse toilet seat!

Admittedly, the move, or lack of one by Gainey, left many people scratching their heads.
Among them, is Mirtle cohort, of sorts, at the Globe And Mail, Stephen Brunt, who mused:

"This year, with his team struggling at the trade deadline, with a clear problem to solve and with two obvious alternatives available on the rental market, Curtis Joseph and Eddie Belfour, Gainey chose to pass. He didn't speak on deadline day — he has said almost nothing publicly since his daughter's tragic death at sea in December — so any suggestions as to his thought process are pure speculation. But since he had an obvious short-term problem to solve, and his best goaltending assets (injured Huet and first-round pick Carey Price) were both long-term propositions, he must have simply balked at the price."

Now admire Brunt, who wrote the awesome "Searching For Bobby Orr", but this this little rant on Gainey has annoyed and irritated me since I first came across it days ago. The same thoughts and musings, the same misrepresentation of facts, were seen and heard in other parts before Brunt latched onto them - namely TSN, a fine example of things Hab-itually misinformed.

On one hand, what he writes is factually incorrect, as Ed Belfour was not made available by the Florida Panthers. Not at a respectable price to anyone interested, in any regard.


Jaroslav Halak -Habs best shot until Huet returns.

















On the other hand, has Curtis Joseph, who it was said could be had for a song, played any better than David Aebischer?

(In my book, my daughter's Pee Wee team backup goaltender has showed more poise than Aebischer, but that's an old rant!)

In another matter, why does Brunt bring up the tragic death of Gainey daughter, in a National paper no less, and then question his mental capacity?

Talk about harsh!

I'll call it what it is - a total lack of professional tact, scruples and respect towards a man who has given his entire adult life to the game of hockey.

It's inconceivable that a writer of Brunt's stature would sink so godamn low! What is he, a blogger now?

The good James Mirtle, while hardly tip-toeing around the Habs most glaring woes, rationalizes Gainey's position with the usual Mirtle clarity. He adds:

"Now, if you're Gainey, and your team is suddenly on the upswing after a long fall down the standings — one that continued unabated regardless of who was in goal — do you make a move to shore up your goaltending?"

Mirtle goes on to make very valid points in defense of Gainey's perceived non-actions at the trade deadline.

My own comments in his post gave birth, in a sense, to mine here.

In any Habs fans wildest dreams, this is far from a Cup year by any means. You cannot plan on or gamble assets on being a long shot Cup contender, even in light of what the Oilers and Flames accomplished the last two playoffs.

Gainey is taking a relative beating, but he did well to sit still. Adding a first round pick and a young defenseman for Craig Rivet fits the plan perfectly.

Mirtle mentions that the youth on the team that has been playing well of late, and I believe that Gainey has resided with letting this present group take it upon themselves to make the playoffs.

The patient Gainey's motto might well be that Rome was not built it a day. Hence, the Stanley Cup will not be won off the backs of goaltenders pushing 40.

Much of the criticism aimed at Gainey's stance stems from the published trade deadline musings of Brian Burke. If you recall, the Anaheim GM was a little perturbed that he didn't get his mits on Rivet, and mentioned that he called Gainey to take him to task on it.

Most people seem to have forgotten that Burke spoke loud and clear before the deadline ended in saying he would surrender no youth or draft picks for the short term.

So just what did Burke have to whine about anyway?

Much of where the Canadiens went afoul after a surprising first 40 games had little to do with Gainey's game plan. A series of blindsided events derailed what was already an imperfect team.

The tension and pressure became a combustable to the team concept. Questions arose, the number one goalie went down, are here they sit.

Never mind the temporary distractions that have been added to the stew - tossing the blueprint at this point in time is ill advised in respect to those setbacks.

I see a young nucleus of a team with a bright future.

Gainey is on the ball. So is Mirtle.

Unfortunately, Brunt was way off course. Rightly, I paid him on online visit and let him have it good.

Mirtle won't thank me!

Halak Mask An Inspiration

From Pat Hickey, Montreal Gazette

If frustrated Canadiens fans are searching for a sign that salvation is at hand, they might not have to look much further than the right side of Jaroslav Halak's goalie mask.

There, in living colour, is a picture of Halak's boyhood idol, Patrick Roy, in a Canadiens uniform and hoisting the Stanley Cup.

The symbolism isn't lost on longtime fans, who recall Roy led the Canadiens to a Stanley Cup in 1986, when he was a 20-year-old rookie.

Nobody is mentioning the 21-year-old Halak and the Stanley Cup in the same breath, but the Canadiens are hoping Halak, who was called up from Hamilton Thursday to replace the injured Cristobal Huet.

"We didn't bring him here to be a tourist," coach Guy Carbonneau said yesterday, after Halak participated in his first workout with the Canadiens. "(Huet) is going to be out for more than a couple of days and Halak will play."