Gauthier’s tackle box low on lures
Canadiens GM has precious little in way of bait to dangle ahead of trade deadline
Michel (Bunny) Larocque finally was getting his chance to prove he could be a No. 1 goaltender in the National Hockey League.
It just wasn’t going to be in Montreal.
Larocque was the first Canadien to be moved on an NHL trade-deadline day, shipped to the Toronto Maple Leafs on March 10, 1981, for defenceman Robert Picard, a Montreal native.
Habs general manager Irving Grundman made a second deal that day, sending sparsely used blue-liner Bill Baker to Colorado for a 1983 third-round draft pick. The yield would be forward Daniel Letendre, who never played a game in the NHL.
The Canadiens have made 16 deals on trade-deadline day since 1980, the date annually circled on the NHL’S calendar beyond which teams cannot exchange players until after season’s end. Since 1980, 443 deadline-day deals have gone through, involving 813 players and 275 draft picks.
Not one of the Habs’ 16 trades can be considered a blockbuster, though one was reasonably big; for years, the team didn’t even dip its toe into trade waters, making only three deals between 1983-96.
(Have you got over last season, having idled away hours in front of your TV and computer awaiting something – anything – to finally be rewarded by GM Pierre Gauthier dealing defenceman Brett Festerling to Atlanta for goaltender Drew Macintyre?)
Don’t expect Gauthier to cannonball into the trade pool before Monday’s 3 p.m. deadline. If he does take the plunge, his entry likely will cause as much splash as a Chinese tower-diver.
Famous last words, of course. But beyond the possible address changes of versatile forward Travis Moen and the enigmatic Andrei Kos- titsyn, who’s been clicking his skate heels in Montreal while repeating, “there’s no place like home,” Gauthier doesn’t exactly have 29 fellow GMS salivating at how he’s baiting his trade hook.
Thirty years ago, Larocque was happy to find himself a job away from the detested three-goaltender system of coach Claude Ruel, usually the odd man out in a rotation with Denis Herron and Richard Sevigny.
“I’m happy, business-wise,” Larocque said that March afternoon at the MinneapolisSt. Paul Airport, his now-former Habs teammates off to Pittsburgh, Bunny hopping up to Toronto.
“But I’m leaving a lot of friends behind, I’m not that happy,” Larocque said. “I had to make a choice. … I couldn’t stand it any more at the end.”
Picard, who played four years with the Montreal Juniors, said he loved the idea that he’d be under less pressure in his hometown than he’d faced in Toronto. Really.
Picard played 202 games with the Canadiens before he was traded to Winnipeg on Nov. 4, 1983 for the Jets’ thirdround choice in the 1984 draft. The Habs used that pick on a Granby Bisons goalie named Patrick Roy.
The Canadiens traded fu- ture Hall of Fame defenceman Guy Lapointe on deadline day in 1982, picking up the St. Louis Blues’ 1983 second-round draft pick that would be forward Sergio Momesso.
Arguably the Habs’ least popular deadline deal was that of captain Vincent Damphousse to San Jose in 1999, in exchange for three draft picks of little note.
Damphousse was the team’s fourth consecutive captain traded while wearing the C, preceded by Kirk Muller, Mike Keane and Pierre Turgeon.
Muller, shipped out on April 5, 1995, went in a deal completed two days before the deadline in a lockoutshortened season. He was packaged to the New York Islanders with defenceman Mathieu Schneider and centre Craig Darby for defenceman Vladimir Malakhov and centreman Turgeon, the latter assuming the captaincy after fill-in captain Keane was sent packing to Colorado in December with goalie Roy.
Another notable deadline deal, perhaps more for the message it sent than the body it involved, came four years ago on Sunday when the Canadiens traded goalie Cristobal Huet to Washington for a second-round pick. That transaction handed 20-yearold Carey Price the goaltend- ing keys to this city while dealing away the youngster’s mentor.
“This is like losing a big brother,” Price said of the Huet trade. “It was definitely
The rebuilding program … won’t be as simple as shuffling a few bodies.
a surprise. I didn’t think it would happen this year. (Huet) was unbelievable. He was a first-class guy, a great teammate who took me under his wing. I can’t say anything bad about that man.”
Price would stumble, of course, losing the No. 1 job to incoming Jaroslav Halak during the latter half of 2010 and the entire playoffs. But with Halak dealt to St. Louis for Lars Eller and Ian Schultz that June, Price again has the Canadiens on his shoulders.
The Habs will hold a rare Bell Centre practice Wednesday, moving their workout north from their Brossard training facility for the benefit of a camera.
It has been standard practice in recent years for the organization to shoot a second team photograph immediately after the trade deadline. The second portrait becom- ing the “official” team photo of the club that’s headed toward the playoffs. Or in the case of the current squad, into its final 18 games of 201112.
Monday’s trade deadline will come and go, the Canadiens expected to be a bit player, at best. The rebuilding program facing this team won’t be as simple as shuffling a few bodies during the circus of a three-ring day.
When a team comes unravelled over many seasons, it’s not stitched back together in a single day.