Price stays put as Gainey pares roster

[Habsfan84]

Goalie escapes cuts. D'Agostini, Kostitsyn join chopping block as 29 hopefuls axed

The Canadiens began yesterday with 55 players on their training camp roster, but by the time general manager Bob Gainey and Trevor Timmins, the director of player recruitment and development, were done, 29 were sent packing.
While many of the cuts were expected, the early demotions of Matt D'Agostini and Sergei Kostitsyn raised some eyebrows because they showed a lot of offensive upside throughout training camp.
"I'd love to stay up here and play for the Canadiens, but there are things I have to work on, obviously, so I'll go down and work my way back up," said D'Agostini, who scored two goals in three preseason games, but must improve his positional play.

"I wouldn't say I played the best game I could, but I thought I played pretty well," he added.
Said Gainey: "Those guys (D'Agostini and Kostitsyn) are good, talented players, but they need to improve. We can see they both have great skills, but they are not completely developed physically or their maturity." The remaining 26 players, including prospects Carey Price, Ryan O'Byrne, Kyle Chipchura and Mikhail Grabovski, boarded a bus for Mont Tremblant in the afternoon, where the Canadiens will practise until Thursday, before returning home to face the Boston Bruins that night at the Bell Centre. The Canadiens will play their final preseason game Saturday in Ottawa and open the regular season next Wednesday in Carolina.
O'Byrne and Josh Gorges are in a fight for one of the final berths on the blue line, while Chipchura and Grabovski will be trying to earn a forward spot ahead of veteran Garth Murray.
Gainey seemed to backtrack a little when asked if Price, the Canadiens' first-round draft pick (fifth overall) in 2005, would stay with the team only if he was the No. 1 goalie, saying anything is possible.
"It's an opportunity for a goalie to learn and to get better because of it, but it's normal that we don't want to have young players stay idle for a long time," Gainey said.
Yann Danis, the goaltender who was all but forgotten in training camp, didn't make the trip north. Danis must clear waivers before reporting to the American Hockey League's Hamilton Bulldogs, and there was a feeling he would be snapped up by another NHL team before today's waiver deadline at noon.
The same goes for Corey Locke, who couldn't make a place for himself in Montreal as a diminutive centre on a team that is already small up the middle.
Most of the players who were cut will report to Hamilton, but Ryan White and Ben Maxwell were returned to their junior teams in the Western Hockey League.
"I was happy to get in a couple of games and show what I can do. It was a lot of fun and I had a great time," Maxwell said.
But not everyone shared Maxwell's enthusiasm.
Veteran defenceman Jamie Rivers, pursued and signed by the Canadiens as a free agent during the offseason, was shocked by the move.
"Yeah, very surprised," he said. "Obviously, when I signed, I was No. 7 on the depth chart at that point and, obviously, future signings bumped me down. You still feel like you can come in and earn a spot, and I thought I had done enough at this point to continue getting some games."
Rivers was placed on waivers and hopes to land with another NHL club.
"I would like to be claimed, because I want to play in the NHL and I think I proved I can still play in the NHL," he said.
Jean-Philippe Côté was another defenceman placed on waivers, and he couldn't help but feel the injury he suffered during training camp last season cost him a chance to play for the Canadiens.

"It's disappointing. I think I played well, but I am just not in the team's plans," he said.
Other rearguards sent down yesterday were Jon Gleed, Andrew Archer, Mathieu Biron, Pavel Valentenko, Marvin Degon and Mathieu Carle. Goaltenders Cédrick Desjardins and Loïc Lacasse also were sent to Hamilton.
Forwards Mathieu Aubin, Eric Manlow, Duncan Milroy, Gregory Stewart, Cory Urquhart, Jimmy Bonneau, Francis Lemieux, Jonathan Ferland, Ajay Baines, Janne Lahti, Ryan Russell, David Desharnais and Thomas Beauregard also will report to Hamilton, which opens training camp today and plays its first exhibition game tomorrow.
Biron, Archer, Milroy, Urquhart and Ferland must clear waivers before reporting to Hamilton.