Canadiens 2009 Roster

The Canadiens went from the 8th place team in the Eastern Conference to 1 win away from beating the eventual Stanley Cup Champion Sabres. In doing so, you would think that GM Tomayko would keep the team around to try again. Instead, he traded away his 2 leaders in Pronger and St. Louis to develop his squad overall instead of top heavy. Pronger was dealt in a trade to acquire a hopeful starting goaltender for the years to come in Hiller as well as other players and especially a 2nd in next years draft. St. Louis was dealt straight up for veteran Ruslan Fedotenko and sought-after Dustin Byfuglien(who will not wear the reebok logo all year on the back of his jersey).

The only key player the Canadiens lost was Mikael Samuelsson. He was offered too much for the Canadiens wallet. Trade deadline acquisition, Eric Belanger, decided to stick around Montreal for 3 years after Montreal offered to match any teams offer. Other free agents include a new 6th D-man vet in Chris Chelios, and former All-Stars Sergei Fedorov and Bill Guerin. All were offered larger 1-year contracts than originally expected to ensure the Habs were over the Salary floor.

The new squad plays out like this:
LW - C - RW
Hudler-Fedorov-Guerin
Fedotenko-Belanger-Ryder
Ruutu-Steen-Fleischmann
Byfuglien-Talbot-Tootoo

DEFENSE
Jackman-Liles
Daley-Eaton
Chelios-Hnidy

GOAL
Hiller
Ellis

We're greatly satisfied for our defensive core. We signed Jackman and Liles to long term deals to rock our #1 blueline for 5 years. We've added some veteran presence missing from St. Louis, Pronger and Samuelsson. A lot of our guys are still in the 20's and will likely remain with the team throughout their RFA periods and beyond. We're in the hardest division in the Eastern Conference and quite possibly the whole league. Another 8th place finish is too low for this squad. We will come back stronger this year and advance farther as well.