Gainey's goalie gamble, Wild put on the foil, and more

For better or worse, GM Bob Gainey and rookie netminder Carey Price are forever joined in Habs history. Bruce Bennett/Getty Images

On the day after an NHL trading deadline in which big names moved around like pieces on a Monopoly board -- Brad Richards to Dallas, Brian Campbell to San Jose, Marian Hossa to Pittsburgh -- the spotlight turned to a player who never left the comfort of his home rink on Tuesday.

So, Carey Price, how do you like those, gulp, Ken Dryden and Patrick Roy comparisons?

There was the customary deadline good (the Stars relieving the burden on center Mike Ribeiro by acquiring the professional and pricey Richards) as well as the garden-variety bad (Toronto's Pavel Kubina flip-flopping on his initial willingness to waive his no-trade clause; the stay-at-home defenseman ultimately decided to stay at home). But Deadline Day '08 also gave us the downright weird in the form of the Montreal Canadiens.

GM Bob Gainey began the day shopping for an impact scorer. Atlanta GM Don Waddell kept moving the goalposts on what he wanted for Hossa and the Canadiens belatedly backed off. Then Gainey went off the chart, ditching veteran goalie Cristobal Huet and handing the keys to the Canadiens' playoff bandwagon to a preternaturally poised rookie, Price.

As Gainey described it, moving Huet to the Washington Capitals for a second-round draft choice in 2009 was a risk/reward deal. The risk is obvious. Montreal traded a goalie with the fifth-best save percentage since the lockout, leaving themselves in the care of a 20-year-old puckstopper who has no safety net other than Jaroslav Halak, who had played two mop-up periods in the NHL this season but had been a moderately successful backup last year to Huet.

The reward isn't as apparent.

The second-rounder Washington gave up is actually Anaheim's pick, which means it will likely by in the 50s. Gainey turned Huet, an unrestricted free agent on July 1, into an asset. But for a team with a farm system better stocked than it has been for a decade, it is highly dubious that the future pick is more valuable than having Huet around for playoff duty in the wide-open Eastern Conference should Price happen to falter.

The subliminal message, despite coach Guy Carbonneau's claim last week that the Canadiens are serious Stanley Cup contenders, is that Gainey is not quite as sold. Anyway, Price is under a microscope on a franchise that has had a pair of twice-in-a-lifetime rookie goalies since the 1967 expansion: Dryden in 1971 and Roy in 1986, both of whom won the Conn Smythe Trophy those years and eventually landed in the Hall of Fame.

The Canadiens, now in their 99th year, always honor the past -- Gainey's No. 23 was retired last Saturday -- but the past isn't necessarily prologue. Price is not Dryden. He is not Roy. For the moment, at least, he is not Steve Penney, an unknown rookie who carried Montreal to the 1984 semifinals after playing four regular-season games. At this point Price is merely a big, talented butterfly goalie with a placid mien, one who has the bona fides in junior competition and in the American Hockey League -- he was the playoff MVP for Calder Cup-champion Hamilton last spring -- but hasn't even been able to stick in the NHL for the entire season.

Although Huet likely will have the opportunity in Washington, he is hardly a classic No. 1 goalie although he had played well enough (at least until the past three weeks) to be Montreal's starter much of the season. He was a popular figure in the dressing room, a goalie who was not low maintenance but basically no maintenance. (You mess with hockey chemistry at your peril.)

Gainey could have let things ride, seen how the playoffs progressed and then made a call on Huet for next season. If the goalie walked -- and the only Frenchman in the NHL did enjoy playing in the largest French-speaking city in North America -- Gainey could have found another veteran to help nurse Price to presumptive stardom.

As a GM, Gainey principally will be known for constructing the 1999 Dallas Stars, gritty Stanley Cup champions. Now there is an excellent chance that the second line of his résumé will include Price, for good or bad. When Gainey took Price fifth overall in the 2005 draft, it was a controversial pick for a franchise that rarely has a lofty drafting position. (Montreal already had a Hart Trophy-winner, José Théodore, in nets at the time; and other than slam-dunks like Roberto Luongo and Rick DiPietro, goalies don't often go that high.) But Gainey knew his mind then and knew it on Tuesday when he exiled Huet to a team desperate for a goaltending upgrade.

Right or wrong, Gainey is the only GM in the NHL with the gumption to have made that kind of trade.

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