For two Habs goaltending hopefuls, it could be their last shot.

 

 Nicholas Champion (l) is one of two goaltenders invited on a tryout to this year’s Canadiens Rookie Camp – photo: Pierre Obendrauf Montreal Gazette

While most eyes at the Montreal Canadiens training camp focus on the likes of Louis LeBlanc, P.K. Subban, and Lars Eller, a pair of 20-year-old goalies may be getting their last shot at the pros.

Both Peter Delmas and Nicholas Champion were given tryout invitations to this year’s camp and while cracking the big team is far in the distance, a supporting role could be a stepping stone.

Barring injury, or total collapse, Carey Price and Alex Auld have secured the two spots in Montreal ,while Curtis Sanford and Robert Mayer should hold the two Hamilton Bulldogs slots on the Canadiens depth chart.

Delmas and Champion will be looking for a potential opening on the Wheeling Nailers (ECHL) now that Mayer has moved to the AHL.

Delmas was a former teammate of Los Angeles Kings prospect Jonathan Bernier, when the two played together for the Lewiston MAINEiacs (QMJHL). In light of playing in the shadow of Bernier, the Colorado Avalanche drafted him in the 2nd round (61st overall) of the 2008 NHL Entry Draft.

Photo courtesy LHJMQ

He remained in the Q and despite playing for a partial season under former Canadiens and Avalanche Hall of Famer Patrick Roy, was left unsigned. Delmas became eligible again for the 2010 Draft, but was not picked up by another team.

Much of Delmas’ lack of a big year stems from a hip injury. He had his hip scoped in the off-season and is looking to impress this week at the Canadiens practice facility in Brossard.

Photo courtesy LHJMQ

He is currently playing for the Halifax Mooseheads (QMJHL), and received his invitation to the Rookie Camp on the same day the Canadiens traded goaltending prospect Cedrick Desjardins to the Tampa Bay Lightning.

His last overall evaluation from HockeysFuture is as follows:

“A solid, positional goaltender, Delmas is unflappable between the pipes and plays a mature, steady game beyond his years.

Always square to the shooter, he never gives up on the puck and possesses a quick glove, but at times he struggles controlling rebounds.

Though he has settled down from his rookie year, Delmas is sometimes a bit too adventurous in and around the net and doesn’t have the quickness and agility to always make up for his aggressiveness.”

Champion, on the other hand, has stayed out of the spotlight. A native of Labrador City, Newfoundland, he is familiar with exceeding his own expectations.

Playing Midget hockey in his home town, the 5’10 netminder was accustomed to facing 50 to 60 shots a night for the Labrador Huskies.

Nicholas Champion makes one of 51 saves, for Team Newfoundland & Labrador, during the Midget tournament at the 2007 Canada Winter Games. Photo via  hockeyscene.com

After stating the 2007-08 season in the Maritime Jr. A League, Champion surprised himself when he was called up by the Acadie-Bathurst Titan before Christmas. He finished the season with a 25-9-2 record and 2.98 GAA.

Photo courtesy LHJMQ/Lewiston MAINEiacs – Ron Morin

He was never drafted and coincidentally is now playing for Delmas’ former team in Lewiston.

Both goalies have clearly caught the eye of Canadiens’ GM Pierre Gauthier and his scouting staff. Are they just taking a free look at a one-time NHL prospect, or did a diminutive goaltender from Lab City remind them of a former Habs goaltender, from recent memory, who played well under fire.

The following days could be a real test, and pivotal time career-wise, for the two netminders. Not only will they be competing for a long shot to the pros, but also have to know that their Junior days are getting shorter, and being challenged by up and coming teenagers, while they are away.

Jacques Lemaire, a Buffalo Sabre ??…sort of.

Jacques Lemaire’s uncorrected card #24 from the  1974-75 Topps/O-Pee Chee set

I guess back in the early ‘70s, hockey card producer O-Pee-Chee got wind of an inaccurate trade rumor.

Back then there was no Eklund, no Twitter, and essentially no internet period, so how they got there source is a mystery.
In any event , the then London Ontario based company (the brand name  is now part of Upper Deck) was led to believe that the Canadiens centre was about to be traded to the Buffalo Sabres.

The company did not verify it their facts and airbrushed Lemaire’s photo and applied the Sabres logo to the card.

You’d think at the time that the card producers would have wondered which Sabres to change to Canadiens players, no?

The card is now considered a UER (uncorrected error) in the collector’s market, and would have raised the eyebrows of youngsters, opening their packs of cards 35 years ago, with the season already under way.

Of course it’s not the first time the card company, or other ones, has made errors in it’s card production.
Onestophockeycards.com has a list of uncorrected O-Pee-Chee errors from 1968 onwards.

Though many are misspelled names (Guy La Fleur, Claude La Rose, Ragatien Vachon), or statistical errors, there are two different years in which Canadiens Hall of Famers Bob Gainey and Serge Savard are mistaken to be Doug Risebrough. Must have been sad for Risebrough, as his first ever NHL card didn’t even have his picture.

Clearly, confirming information was not a concern of hockey card manufacturers back in the day, or for that matter, neither was what position they played!!



Maybe this one explains why Mario Tremblay can be so bitter…Another rookie card error! It's actually the Habs 15th pick in the 1974 draft, Gord McTavish, who played all of 11 NHL games, none with Montreal.

Canadiens Hall of Famer Jacques Lemaire turns 65

OK so now we can say he’s officially retired! Happy 65th to Jacques LeMaire.

The Hall of Fame centre with the Canadiens, and current coach of the New Jersey Devils, was born on this day in 1945.

When you look at Lemaire’s statistics during his twelve-year career with the Montreal Canadiens, one thing that gets overshadowed was his defensive ability.

He was once referred to as Guy Lafleur’s defensive conscience during the Canadiens run of four Stanley Cups to close out the ‘70s.

His speed, anticipation and determination allowed Lafleur and linemate Steve Shutt to excel more offensively. Lemaire was the workhorse, winning the faceoffs, and digging pucks out of the scrums and getting the puck to his sharpshooting wingers.

In an interview with the Hockey Hall of Fame in 2007, Lemaire gave insight into the importance of a good defensive forward.

"We talked more about defence than offence. It was always there. I remember my first year playing for Toe Blake -- he was always talking about it.

On the bench, he'd be telling us if this guy or that guy didn't come back on defence and he would bench them. You hear people say their team needs more offence and forget defence.

That's crap! Defence is what we talked about. Somebody has to get back and help the defense. We knew we could score enough goals. We didn't want to give goals to the opponent because if they got a goal, we had to get two."

Lemaire’s defensive capabilities made the Canadiens top scoring line even harder to play against, and he never went a season, since his rookie debut in 1967, without scoring less than twenty goals in a season. He’s finish with 365 goals (7th in Habs history) and 469 assists (5th) for 835 points (7th) in 853 regular season games. Lemaire had a career plus/minus of +349.

During the playoffs, Lemaire brought it up another notch. His 139 career playoff points put him second behind Jean Beliveau. He played on eight Stanley Cup winners with the Canadiens.

He had three overtime playoff goals in his career including Cup clinchers in 1977 and 1979. Only five other players have scored more than one overtime Cup winner.

Not positive, but could be Lemaire’s Cup winner in the 1977 Finals.

His 1979 Cup winning goal would be his last in the NHL.

Lemaire retired from the NHL and spent two seasons as a player-coach in Switzerland. He later returned to become head coach with Montreal at the end of the 1983-84 season, taking the team to the Wales Conference Finals. The following season, Montreal finished first in their division, but lost in the second round of the playoffs.

That summer, Lemaire became a member of the Hockey Hall of Fame as a player.

The pressure of coaching in Montreal grew too hard for Lemaire and the following season he moved to the front office to become the Assistant to the Managing Director for eight seasons. The Canadiens would claim two more Stanley Cups (1986, 1993) over that span.

He then took a position as head coach with the New Jersey Devils in 1993 and developed what is now known as the “Trap" System”. He would win the Jack Adams award as coach of the year that season.

Coupled with the goaltending of Martin Brodeur, the Devils won the Stanley Cup in 1995 and Lemaire remained with New Jersey until 1998.

He was hired as the first coach of the Minnesota Wild in 2000, winning a second Adams Award in 2003, remaining there until he stepped down until the spring of 2009, returning to New Jersey.

After one final season with the Devils, he retired as an NHL coach in April of 2010 with 588 wins and a .561 win percentage.