by Roger Quinn

Created on: August 10, 2010   Last Updated: August 12, 2010

Last year the Montreal Canadians were the disappointment, then the surprise of the NHL.  They followed a terrible regular season with a spectacular playoff run thanks to goalie Jaroslav Halak.  Now Halak is gone, and Carey Price is the number one goalie for the Habs.  There are several questions now that need to be answered, the biggest obviously is whether Price can be the starting goalie in Montreal.

Last season the first line underachieved with Scott Gomez, Brian Gionta, and Mike Cammalleri having down years.  Part of this is because of injuries, part of it was related to size.  All three players on that line are not going to win many physical battles.  In order to succeed they have to skate well and pass well.  All of them must be on the same page and develop chemistry.  If the line produces like they are capable of, like they did in the playoffs, there is plenty of depth behind them.  But offense is not the strength of the Habs.

Montreal's defense needs to provide lots of support for Carey Price to succeed.  Montreal is hoping that P.K. Suban has a breakout year of sorts, which will give them much more depth behind Hal Gill and Marc-Andre Bergeron.  But it is debatable whether those two should handle top four defensive duties, Andrei Markov and Paul Mara are sure bets. Potential pairings of Mara-Markov, Suban-Gill, and Bergeron with whoever are good bets for the Habs.

Now let's talk about Carey Price himself.  Everybody knows that he has the natural talent to be a number one goalie.  But ask anybody about the hardest places to play in net and Montreal is always number one.  Even Patrick Roy eventually failed.  So this brings the question as to why Montreal traded away Halak.  He did what very few goalies can do when he succeeded in Montreal. So this means that Pierre Gauthier must have seen something in Price that he really liked, or that he knew he could not afford to keep the pending restricted free agent Halak.  Either way Price must show he can play in Montreal this season or he is gone.

Montreal has many question marks going into the season. Thankfully for them so do the other teams in their division.  The Habs should make the playoffs again this season, but unless Price plays as well as Halak do not look for them to compete against the top dogs Pittsburgh and Washington.

Learn more about this author, Roger Quinn.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.