By Steve Milton
The Hamilton Spectator

Well, it's a darn good thing the Montreal Canadiens got rid of Jason Ward. Look how well they're doing without him.

In their current state of disrepair, the Habs could sure use a diligent tradesman like the 26-year-old New York Rangers winger. He checks hard, scores useful goals and always shows up with his game face, areas in which Canadiens keep falling hopelessly short.

The Habs had Ward for eight years, after drafting him 11th overall in 1997, but he didn't renew his contract after the lockout ended this summer.

The Rangers, who seemed desperate for any warm body at the time, picked up Ward and he's now their eighth-leading scorer, with eight goals, 11 assists and is a plus-2.

For a club that is one of the major surprises of the east, we don't hear as much about the Rangers as we should. Probably because they have proven so many of us astonishingly wrong. Instead of bottom-feeding, they're nibbling on the fringes of the Top Four. The Canadiens are busy trying to figure out just who they are.

"I'm not going to lie. It did put a smile on my face," Ward says of the Canadiens' extended struggles. "They didn't believe in me. Now I'm getting way more ice time than I ever would have in Montreal. But I was sad to see Claude Julien get fired. He was a great coach, and he helped me out a lot."

Julien twice ignited Ward to greater things. He coached the big, indefatigable winger for the first half of that magical 2002-03 Bulldogs season , when Ward went on to become the MVP of the American Hockey League. A year later, he teamed Ward with Jan Bulis and former Dog Jim Dowd, and the trio was an integral part of the Canadiens upset of the Bruins in the first round of the playoffs.

"I think I proved myself in the playoffs," Ward told The Spec.

"When they let me become a free agent, it was a big shock. It was the first time in my life that I was unwanted. But the good thing is that other teams started calling right away."

The Rangers were calling everybody but were particularly interested those who could help get rid of their familiar motifs: lots of pay but not much work; all flash and no crash.

Ward, who absolutely reeks of effort, fits right into Tom Renney's sense of labour.

"He's stresses work all the time, how hard we're going to work," Ward says, "and he rewards work ethic."

And Ward has reaped some of those rewards for his constant sweat. Recruited as a fourth-line guy, he's been elevated to a unit with Martin Rucinsky and newly acquired Petr Sykora. They were both in on Ward's game-opening goal in the Rangers' rout of Pittsburgh Saturday.

"Getting Sykora (from Anaheim) was a great addition for us," Ward says. "When you've developed the kind of chemistry we've been getting, you have to pick and choose who you bring to the team and he was a perfect choice. I'm the energy guy on the line. I get the pucks to them, because they have the magic in their sticks."

Although this corner envisioned Ward on a high-resistance line with Bulis and Radek Bonk, the Canadiens didn't envision him on any of their lines. Perhaps because Ward not only labours in his skating, they might have anticipated that he was not cut out for the new rules.

But there is also a place for smarter, bigger, players who never give up and have an eye for defensive detail. It helps if they can add a score or two, and Ward now has as many goals as he got in his last two terms with the Canadiens.

"The new rules hurt me in one aspect and help in another," he says. "I'm a defensive player and I'm not the fastest guy out there, so I had to say to myself, 'Okay, I can't hold guys anymore.'

"But the thing that has helped me is that, offensively, I'm not the strongest guy on the puck, but now I'm not getting held up like I was, and I can go with the puck to the net."

He's doing that enough that Renney has put him with two of the top shooters on the team.

"We have a lot of guys working hard to prove themselves on this team, and I'm one of them," Ward says of the fifth-place Rangers. "And our skilled guys, like Jaromir Jagr, are obviously doing the job. And we're getting great goaltending from (Henrik) Lundqvist and Kevin Weekes.

"I haven't been on a team that's this close together since that year in Hamilton. We're at the point now, where we believe in ourselves."

And are making believers of others.