This just up on Sportsnet from Hamilton Spectator writer Steve Milton.
Barry, you'll like the discussion around CJ. Other than that, I'll let Mr. Milton's words stand -- nothing for me to add...

Trouble between the pipes and between the ears

The trouble for the Habs is lack of confidence in Theodore. The trouble with Theodore is a lack of confidnece in himself.

That ought to be some Battle of Upper and Lower Canada this weekend.

When the Canadiens visit the Maple Leafs Saturday night, it won't exactly remind anyone of the '67 Stanley Cup final, other than that the two teams are roughly equal. Back then, though, they were the Peerage of the Powerful, now they're the Fellowship of the Frail. The good thing is somebody has to come out with a win. The bad thing is someone's going to keep losing.

By then, the Leafs could be on a seven-game losing streak and the Canadiens a five-gamer, this time. But in reality, the Habs have been on a two-month freefall.

And, as it turns out, Claude Julien wasn't the problem. The entire league, including the guy who fired him, knew that. But Bob Gainey pulled the trigger anyway.

I'll admit it: I think Claude Julien is a good guy and a better coach, and Gainey suffered from premature evacuation. It's not like the stoic one to panic, so we'll shy away from that verb, but this move was too far hasty, gusting up to rash. Guy Carbonneau's apprenticeship aside -- and how do you like what you're about to step into next year, Guy? -- Gainey may discover that the most appropriate guy to coach this hockey club is... Claude Julien. Won't happen, though, because it hardly ever does in pro sport, where admitting a mistake is about one thousandth of one percent as common as making one.

In the typical first rush of scared, fascinated adrenalin when the blood from the beheading is still on the dressing room carpet, the Canadiens won their first two games under Gainey who put one foot down from the executive suite and onto the bench. It was a good move not to throw Carbonneau to the wolves, both in the press and in other team's uniforms, until next year when he's had a chance to digest whom and what he's working with.

Those first two wins were at home, where Gainey is as close to a god as someone born in English Canada can ever be. But the club has now lost three straight on the road, which might as well be the River Styx. Just in case you haven't been following the math, here is the numerical data. But be forewarned: it's not for the faint of stomach.

In their last two games, the Canadiens have been outscored by Vancouver and Carolina (admittedly two of the better teams in the league), by a mere 15-5. What is this, the Battle of Ontario? The Canadiens have come out of the first period of those two games down by a total of 7-0, and this is on the road, where you're supposed to have more control of your team leading up to game time. Togetherness is built on the road, a common, focussed purpose which should be evident at the opening whistle. So, if the problem with this team was indeed coaching, well they've still got it. The Canadiens are a team which overachieved early in the season when they won 12 of their first 16, about a half-dozen of which could easily have gone the other way. This is a historical trait of teams coached by Julien and tends to mask the weaknesses of the core roster. Now they've won just nine of the last 30, which is probably also not a true indicator of the club's strengths.

The Canadiens are suffering from key injuries, as they so often do. Their defence has degenerated, with Sheldon Souray still struggling in the new game, Mike Komisarek taking way longer than anticipated to round into NHL form and Andrei Markov hurt. They are still too small and not tough enough and they've become desperate enough to change that, that they had to claim Aaron Downey off waivers from St. Louis, of all places. The Blues, you might recall, are the league's worst team.

They are weak down the middle despite, and maybe because of, the trade for Radek Bonk. Yes, we know that this corner called it a good deal in the pre-season analysis, but with Mathieu Garon winning the starting job for Los Angeles, one of the top teams in the league, and Bonk really labouring, we're doing a 180 and clicking our heels together as we do so. Because Garon, among other things, is exactly what the club needs right now.

What Gainey is discovering, and knew somewhere in his heart already, is that the core problem on this club is in the net. Julien knew it, which is why he had chosen to start Cristobal Huet for a third consecutive game, on the day he was fired.

Gainey undid that decision and for sound reasons. If The Franchise was having a crisis in confidence, it wasn't going to get resolved by sitting on the bench. Julien figured a little differently: that Jose Theodore's declining play and self-doubt had spread to the team in front of him, and they were losing confidence themselves. He wanted that restored first.

Which is not to say that Theodore's play has been the worst on the team. Far from it. But what it hasn't been is what it needs to be, and has been during the Canadiens' finest hours over the last six years, even before Gainey or Julien were with the franchise: superlative, Hart Trophy stuff. It hasn't even been close. And his body language is not that of a confident man. Teammates, and opponents, are fluent readers in that language.

When Gainey pulled Theodore after Vancouver ripped five past him Saturday night, the goalie told our old pal Pat Hickey of the Gazette, "It's not the first time I've been pulled and I don't think it will be the last time."

How did he know? The very next game, last night in Carolina, he was pulled again. Of the last 29 shots Theodore faced, 10 have got by him. He has had flashes of his old game, but he has clearly struggled with, first, the glove side and, now, the blocker side. And he's not getting set as quickly as he used to, while also overplaying the east-west motion at times.

Perhaps it's unfair to expect Theodore to carry this club. But he's getting paid extremely well for that expectation. And when a team senses that the guy who's always done the job isn't doing it now, they tend to be a little slower to surge forward, which can be fatal in today's too-much-time-in-your-own-zone-will-kill-you NHL. They tend to be a little more cautious, to think too much, to try do too much themselves. They tend to not hit as hard nor as often because they're afraid of penalties. And with a club still lacking in many areas, that too is fatal. The Senators, as good as they were all those years, weren't totally confident in Patrick Lalime in the net and it always undid them against Toronto. Yes, they're a lot tougher now because of new additions, but they also have more confidence in their goaltender. You can take that penalty of aggression when you know your best penalty-killer is on his game, as Dominik Hasek has been from the start. You can work the fast break without fear, knowing you've got a stone wall in case of a turnover.

The Sabres, after they lost Hasek, found that until this year they could not rise above their averageness. The Stars, once they discovered that Marty Turco was for real, improved in all areas without really improving their roster. They play defence with the same confidence, attack with the same gusto, that they did when Ed Belfour was in his prime for the '99 Cup year.

The key to playing well on the road is the K.I.S.S. plan, stingy defence and good steady goaltending, and the Canadiens lost last night for the 16th time in 17 road games. That was one of the main reasons the coach got fired.

Despite having eight Selke awards in their three-man coaching staff (Gainey, four, Carbonneau three, Doug Jarvis one), the Canadiens are no better on the road then they were under the old coach. And that' s making it even harder for the General Manager because the market value of his most tradeable asset -- there are probably no untouchables besides Alexei Kovalev and Mike Ryder -- has been plummeting as quickly as their playoff hopes.

Steve Milton writes for the Hamilton Spectator and contributes regularly to Sportsnet.ca.