Habs' Halak has heart; Price doesn't
by Jack Todd (Montreal Gazette)
MONTREAL – Trust me on this: Andrei Markov is not the guy you want around if there's a fire in the house.
He's so soft-spoken, the house would burn to the ground before anyone heard him whisper "fire!"
First time I talked with Markov (or tried to) it was in Moscow in 1999. Markov was one of a group of three young Russian prospects I was keying on, along with Maxim Afinogenov and Nik Antropov, now teammates with the Atlanta Thrashers.
Afinogenov, through a translator, had a lot to say. Antropov said enough. Markov? Nothing. Nechevo.
So if Markov is whispering "ogon" (that's Russian for fire) you can be sure that, as the Russians say, "net dyma bez ognja." There's no smoke without fire. Or in the case of young master Carey Price, a lack of fire.
If Markov lit into Carey Price for his alleged failure to show heart during the Canadiens' loss to the St. Louis Blues (and I believe he did) it's because this particular fire has been smoking for a long while. Markov put his finger on what is missing from Price's game: Heart. Grit. Fire.
Call it what you will, it's the ingredient that now separates Price from his alleged backup, Jaroslav Halak. Price is too lackadaisical by half.
If Markov didn't light into Price, he should have.
Price's willingness to duke it out on the ice has nothing whatsoever to do with whether he has the heart to be a great goalie. He is paid to stop pucks, not to play George the Vegan. What he lacks is the scrappiness to get down and dirty and fight to keep that puck out of his net.
It's the quality Patrick Roy had in abundance. Halak has it and Price does not - or if he has it, he hasn't shown it in a long while.
At the NHL level, the margin between winning and losing is razor-thin. The great ones have what Roy had: a ferocious will to win. It might be worth no more than a half-goal a game, but ultimately it's the difference between Halak's 14-9 record this season and Price's abysmal and embarrassing 11-21.
A few fans last week accused me of "hating" Carey Price. Nothing could be farther from the truth. I was proud to cover the first regular-season game Price played for the Canadiens, on the road in Pittsburgh, because I thought I was seeing history. Like many others, I was fooled into believing that he might be a great one.
By now, I am heartily weary of the whole Price/Halak debate, especially of the obscene verbal abuse and mind-numbing justifications Price's defenders trot out every time their overgrown baby draws a little flak.
But while I no longer believe Price has the inner stuff to be a great goalie, I still think he could be a good goaltender. I simply believe that it's bad for Price and bad for the club when he's handed a job he hasn't earned - not once, but over and over again.
When Price got the nod over Halak in Tampa Bay Wednesday, my jaw dropped. Halak had just come off three games in which he allowed a total of three goals while defeating the Devils and Rangers, and losing 2-1 to the Panthers in a game in which his teammates simply did not show up.
While it's not true (as RDS had reported) that Halak has never gotten a start after a loss, it's rare. Despite the nature of Halak's loss to Florida, the Canadiens used it as an excuse to trot out Price once again. Do that often enough and a playoff berth is going to slip away.
You can't blame Price, or not entirely. From the first day he arrived in Montreal, Bob Gainey has done everything in his power to give Price a sense of entitlement. Why work hard when you keep getting the starts, win or lose?
From early in his career, there were troubling indications that Price's dedication was something less than what it should be. At his first scrum after his first training-camp practice with the Canadiens, Price seemed stunned at how hard goalie coach Roland Melanson expected him to work. I can recall being surprised that any player could reach this level without knowing how hard you have to work, but I forgot Price's comments until his attitude and work ethic became an issue.
Then Price confessed that he had to lose 35 pounds during his rookie season with the Habs. That one was a stunner: it was hard to believe any modern NHL player could gain that much weight at any time.
The last straw for me was that yuk session Price had with this clown Cabbie after a playoff loss to Boston. (The most nauseating part of that stunt was Georges Laraque yukking along with the rest. Had John Ferguson caught Gump Worsley behaving like that, the Gumper would have absorbed such a beating, it might have driven him to drink. Then Cabbie, his cameraman and their equipment would have been stuffed into the nearest garbage bin.)
Andrei Markov didn't whup Price the way Fergie would have. But for Markov to go as far as he almost surely did was another indication that Price's teammates are as alarmed by his attitude as some outside the organization.
While Price appears to take the game more seriously this season, there's still something missing - which is why he loses more often than he wins. It takes grit and fire to pull out a win in a tight, tough game.
Beyond all that, the treatment of Halak disturbs my sense of fairness. Jobs in the National Hockey League are supposed to be handed out on the basis of merit, not reputation or what TSN calls "pedigree."
It's as simple as this: If you ain't got the heart, you shouldn't get the start.