Devious Journal Entry

“Maybe in some organizations you use the words ‘history’ and ‘tradition’ as taglines,” Hakstol said. “That’s not the case here. The tradition of this organization is heartfelt by everybody. The players that have come before and built this organization are dually and well-respected by the current players in this locker room.”

That makes the few chances backups get to play even more pressure-packed, since one bad outing can tip the statistical scales out of their favor. It took nine days before Montoya played again, a 3-2 loss in Chicago on Sunday in which he made 32 saves. "You're fighting for survival," Washington goalie coach Mitch Korn says. "You don't have the freedom to fail and bounce back quickly."

“Instead of trying to jump the pass, because you know it’s coming, instead of trying to move really fast, if you just watch it, all you have to do is push off this leg. When you’re looking at it, everything just goes THERE. Even just doing that drill, facing the blue line, and I push to the other blue line, I can tell if I’m doing it or not. If I’m doing it properly, all I have to do is push and stop with my foot and I’ll be square. If I don’t look and do it properly, then I’ll have to stop, and stop again, because I won’t be square. That’s the indicator that I didn’t lead.”

It is Marner who, ironically enough given his smallish size, sticks out however. McHardy says that Marner is one of the favorites among the Flames and his approach to the game has inspired a number of the young players.

For netminders like San Jose's Martin Jones and Edmonton's Cam Talbot, successful apprenticeships with other teams—the Kings and the Rangers, respectively—can lead to starting gigs elsewhere. Others, like Montoya, who was a sixth overall pick in 2004 but has never stayed with one team for more than two years, crisscross the league, finding work on reputation and demand. "You can definitely get labeled into a certain role," says Johnson, who is on his fourth team in four years. "They put you in a box, and they can't see outside of that."

Dante's Inferno envisions the ninth circle of hell as a frozen lake, trapping traitorous souls for all eternity, but it was the ice at the Blue Jackets' Nationwide Arena where, on Nov. 4, Montreal goalie Al Montoya discovered an even deeper level of damnation. Under ordinary circumstances Montoya would've been yanked early after surrendering three goals in the first 15 minutes against Columbus, and thus spared the full extent of what became a 10-0 pasting. But since Carey Price, consensus Best Goalie of Planet Earth, was scheduled to face Philadelphia the next night, and since Canadiens coach Michel Therrien wanted to let him rest, and since the Blue Jackets' lead soared to 8-0 by the end of the second ... as one NHL goalie coach put it: "Montoya was Secret Service. He took a bullet for the president."