Football
Associated Press 18y

Hip, Hip, Huet! leads Canadiens' Euro tandem in goal

MONTREAL - The Montreal Canadiens enter the playoffs with two French-speaking goalies. Big deal? Well, remarkably neither are from the province of Quebec, not even the rest of Canada.

Frenchman Cristobal Huet will start for Montreal on Saturday in Carolina, where he will be backed up by Swiss goalie David Aebischer.

Sacre bleu! This is the team that counts Georges Vezina, Jacques Plante and Patrick Roy among its legendary players.

Roy alone spawned a wave of Quebec-born goalies who began dominating NHL rosters in the 1990s, yet the Canadiens' current No. 1 - who has been serenaded by chants of his name at the Bell Centre along with renditions of "La Marseillaise" - hails from Grenoble, site of the 1968 Winter Olympics.

Canadiens coach and general manager Bob Gainey, who played and coached the Epinal Squirrels in France after retiring from the NHL in 1989, chose Huet - who lost his last two starts - as his playoff goalie despite Aebischer's 3-1 record while starting four of Montreal's last six games.

"Cristobal is the guy who brought us here," said Canadiens center Mike Ribeiro, no stranger himself to Francophone goalies as a bilingual product of Quebec minor hockey. "He's a big part of why we're here right now and I don't see why it wasn't going to be him. Both goalies have been great for us lately and we'll be in front of Cristobal and we'll play as a team and try to win the game."

Montreal had only one non-North American goalie before this season and that experience was very brief and not particularly good. Czech Tomas Vokoun, who has since gone on to star for Nashville, allowed four goals and played just one period in his only game with the Canadiens in 1996-97.

Yet, just as suddenly as Jose Theodore's star in Montreal waned, the Canadiens found themselves with a pair of goalies who developed their game in the Swiss elite league.

"Huey's been such a huge reason why we're here today talking and not at home watching," defenseman Sheldon Souray said. "The guy's been unbelievable and he's kept his level of play up there and we've seen him be spectacular the whole year. That's not taking anything away from Dave because he played awesome in the last few games. He actually gave us a few points out of those games that maybe we didn't deserve. We're just lucky to have both goaltenders."

Neither Huet - who led the NHL with a .929 save percentage - nor Aebischer was with the team at the beginning of the season, when a pair of Quebecers were doing the job - including rookie Yann Danis, who recorded a shutout in his NHL debut in Atlanta while serving as Theodore's backup.

Huet, who had yet to play for Montreal since he was acquired from Los Angeles following the 2003-04 season, injured his knee while playing in Germany during the lockout. Activated in late November after a four-game rehab stint with Hamilton of the AHL, Huet sat behind Theodore until making his debut in Minnesota on Dec. 17, beginning a stretch of four consecutive starts while Theodore was injured.

Still entrenched as the Canadiens' No. 1 goalie, Theodore lost eight of 12 starts upon his return, including three to Carolina. The Hurricanes scored 14 goals in those games, twice driving him from the nets after he allowed five goals in both games, including a 10-shot fiasco Jan. 31 in what would be the 2002 league MVP's final game in Montreal.

Huet took over the starting job on Feb. 2 and began an incredible run two days later when he recorded the first of two shutouts in two days with a 35-save performance against Boston.

After registering four shutouts - all with Los Angeles - in his first 65 games in the NHL, Huet helped turn around the Canadiens' season, posting seven shutouts within a stretch of 20 games.

On March 9, at the tail end of Huet's remarkable run, Gainey traded Theodore to Colorado in return for Aebischer.

The Swiss goalie sat out his first three games with Montreal, then lost his first two starts before getting his first win March 26 in Pittsburgh. He allowed five goals in each of those games, his only appearances in a stretch of 11 games following his acquisition.

"I have a little more background with Cris here," Gainey said. "I think both goalies have played good games for us down the stretch when we needed that play from our goalie to back us up, but I feel he's the guy who probably had the harder tests and maybe the best preparation to be start on Saturday."

When Huet looks down the ice at the Hurricanes' net, Martin Gerber - Aebischer's teammate on the surprising Swiss Olympic team - will be staring back at him. Swiss Olympic team captain Mark Streit, a defenseman who scored the game winner in his country's stunning 2-0 upset victory over Canada in Torino, is also a teammate of Huet and Aebischer with the Canadiens.

"I'm confident," Huet said. "I think the whole team is confident and that's the approach we're going to have in Game 1."

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