NHL Trades That Shocked the League, Part II

And now for part two!

In 1995, Montreal trades Mike Keane and Patrick Roy to Colorado for Andrei Kovalenko, Martin Rucinsky and Jocelyn Thibault.

This day stayed marked in my head as the day I would forever hate Mario Tremblay and Ronald Corey…the two responsible for that horrible horrible trade. How dare you trade one of the best goaltender in HISTORY fortw2 underachievers and a rookie goalie?!

Someone had a big bubble going through his brain when that happened. Colorado still laughs at Montreal for this trade (but then we sent them Jose Theodore a couple years ago…which kinda equals the deal!)

For those who don’t know the entire story I’ll make it short. Montreal was playing Detroit and were being beaten badly. Prior…coach Mario Tremblay and goalie Patrick Roy had lots of arguments. Basically, Roy was king in the locker room (funny, roy translate to king in french…).

Tremblay didn’t quite agree his leadership was being challenged by one of his players. So he wanted to make a point and make Patrick Roy realise he is not the boss of this team. Roy was obviously not doing or feeling well in that game against Detroit. Any coach in his right mind would have pulled off his goaltender after four, five or maybe six goals.

But Mario Tremblay decided to leave Roy in net to make a point. In the end…Montreal lost 9 to 1. And yes…Roy let in all of the nine goals. After the ninth goal, Tremblay pulled Roy from the game.

When he reached the bench, Roy went strait for Ronald Corey who was sitting in the stands behind the bench and spoke seven words: "J’ai jouer mon dernier match à Montréal." Translated it means "I just played my last game in Montreal." So the end of Patrick Roy’s era in Montreal was caused by a stupid coach on a power trip. Since that day I’ve despised Mario Tremblay (who is now assistant coach for Minnesota).

Jocelyn Thibault never became a true No. 1 goaltender. He did okay considering the team he had in fron of him was struggling badly from a series of bad trades and even worse draft picks. Martin Rucinsky had his best season in Montreal, 25 goals and 60 points in 56 games and Kovalenko, played only 51 games for Montreal before running off to Edmonton for his only 30 goals season.

Montreal also lost Mike Keane in that deal. Although not an impact player, Keane did manage to become captain in Montreal before Pierre Turgeon’s arrival. Keane was a superb defensive player much like Guy Carbonneau was in his prime. So Montreal lost lots of leadership as well.

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