2009-10 NHL Preview: Montreal Canadiens
The 2008-09 season ended on a very sour note for the Montreal Canadiens. They were swept out of the first round of the playoffs by the Boston Bruins. So heading into their 100th season General Manager Bob Gainey made kind of an unusual move. He blew the team up and looked to rebuild it another way. He fired their head coach and brought in Jacques Martin, who spent many years with their hated rivals the Ottawa Senators to take this team in a new direction.
In a matter of days the Habs got rid of three of their top four scores. Gone were Saku Koivu, Alex Kovalev, and Alex Tanguay, and their hard hitting defenseman Mike Komisarek. Coming in were ex New Jersey Devil teammates Scott Gomez, Brian Gionta, sniper Mike Cammalleri, and veteran defensemen Hal Gill, Paul Mara, and Jaroslav Spacek.
Now most of the new Habs roster wasn’t around for the 2009 spring meltdown. Of course that meltdown included a rocky performance by second year net minder Carey Price. While the former coaching staff tried to stay behind their net minder, he simply couldn’t get the job done last year. While he is still young, and had a great rookie year he enters a year which will make or break his career. At just 22 years of age, Price has sometime to grow into an elite goaltender in this league.
Additions- LW Cammalleri, LW Mathieu Darche, D Gill, RW Gionta, C Gomez, D Mara, LW Travis Moen, G Curtis Sanford, and D Spacek
Subtractions- LW Chris Higgins, D Doug Janik, C Kolvu, D Komisarek, RW Tom Kostopoulos, and RW Kovalev
