Nov 24 Guillaume Latendresse Gone To Wild - Benoit Pouliot To Join Habs

Whenever a Quebec player is traded from the Montreal Canadiens, it seems to spark a national controversy, and the announcement yesterday that Habs have traded Guillaume Latendresse to the Minnesota Wild for Ontario native Benoit Pouliot was no exception. 

The city, since last night and running into the later hours of this afternoon seem to be split into two camps; those who say Latendresse wasn’t given a fair shake since he was drafted by the Canadiens, and those that say that the team had been more than patient with him, but his work ethic and apparent refusal of playing the role they set out for him was, in the end his final demise. 

Not surprisingly, you can put Gui in the former category. 

Latendresse, made no bones about the fact that he felt he was not given the chance to succeed, citing many line changes from 1^st to 4^th as well as narrowing it down to occasions where if he did not perform in his first shift on the first line, he would be demoted the very next shift. 

Gui even went further saying that a pat on the back (which according to him, he never got) from time to time could have gone a long way. He also said he felt that he knew from season’s start that his days with the Canadiens were numbered. In my honest opinion, I’m not sure how he could have felt this, with the departure of so many core players as well as the new coach openly stating that he was in dire need of his big forwards protecting his new smaller acquisitions.