Wilkernator's Daily

The steal of the season definitely goes to Canadiens' the emerging number 1 goaltender, Cristobal Huet.

After coming to Montreal in the trade that sent backup goalie Mathieu Garon and a 3rd round draft pick to the Los Angeles Kings in exchange for himself and forward Radek Bonk, Huet has established a presence here in Montreal.

Huet was intended to be nothing more than 2002 Vezina and Hart winner, Jose Theodore's backup and to top it all off, he missed a small chunk of the first-half of the season recovering from serious knee surgery he had in the offseason.

The Canadiens, Jose Theodore and then-backup goalie Yann Danis started off hot, Danis had a shutout in his first NHL game and Montreal won their first three games of the season and went 6-0-2 on their next 8 road games.

So where does French goaltender Cristobal Huet fit in to all this?

After the Canadiens appeared in their first shootout ever versus the Penguins, Sidney Crosby's highlight-reel deke followed by a sprawling Jose Theodore and the red light, the Canadiens went 4-6-4. Scoring was down and goals against went up. So Yann Danis was assigned to Hamilton and the Canadiens went with minimum wage goaltender Cristobal Huet as an attempt to salvage their season and most important, playoff hope.

They had no idea what they were dealing with.

In his first game doming bleu-blanc-rouge, Cristobal Huet made 24 saves in a 4-3 overtime loss to the Minnesota Wild. Fans now had the impression that he was nothing more than an ordinary goaltender, playing on an ordinary team with an ordinary salary.

Well, all of you who thought that were terribly wrong. All of you who cast him off or merely considered him a mediocre option in net were terribly wrong.

Cristobal Huet, revived his career. And he did it in style.
Slowly he stole the number one job away from Jose Theodore and fans started chanting his name at the Bell Centre, taunting number 60.

The 9th round, 214th overall pick of the Los Angeles Kings became the NHL's most storied franchise number one goaltender.

Huet has bulletproof numbers:
Huet has 15 wins and 8 losses. Leads the NHL in sace-percentage with a mark of .930 and is only second to Dominik Hasek (2.08) in GAA with a miniscule 2.14.

He also has six shutouts to top it off.

At the trade deadline, Canadiens general manager Bob Gainey dealt franchise goaltender Jose Theodore to Patrick Roy's hometown Colorado Avalanche.

"The Avalanche should stop drafting goalies. They always take them away from the Canadiens"
--Roy's reaction to the Jose Theodore swap.

Not bad for a guy that has played in only 30 games.

The only problem however is that Huet is set for free-agency after the season. He'd sure like to get more than league-minimum. Sources say that he'll sign a three-year $12.5 million contract with the Canadiens.

I wonder if we can mention "Huet" and "Vezina" in the same sentence?

So it seems.

The Wilkernator