Pierre Gauthier may have been a fine film director had he not decided to go into hockey, because his response to a question following the passing of Monday's trade deadline was the perfect mise en scène for Tuesday night's game.

Perfect if all he was trying to do was attract criticism.

When Gauthier was asked whether the lack of size and toughness among his group of forwards was a concern, he opened a can of worms that a fan base that seems to revel in finding fault with their sixth-place team could pounce on wholeheartedly.

"When people talk about us around the league, they see we're a team that is difficult to face," Gauthier said in French that day. "Not for the reasons you bring up, but rather because of our speed, our system and the cohesion of our team."

Among some of the other things Gauthier said to defend his inactivity on ripoff day – or trade deadline day – was a reference to the team's success in last spring's playoffs, and how he didn't want to tinker too much with a group that had proven itself under those difficult circumstances.

Of course, Gauthier made it easy for everyone and their grandmother to point out that the biggest part of that group's success – Jaroslav Halak – is no longer there.

Then, as if his team wanted to prove him right, the Canadiens went out and provided a carbon copy of the winning formula it used in the playoffs last season – namely to get a lead and hold on for dear life.

The Atlanta Thrashers controlled the game from beginning to end and only 40 saves from Carey Price allowed the Canadiens to escape with a 3-1 win, giving them an eight-point cushion over the ninth-place Buffalo Sabres and five points over the seventh-place New York Rangers.

With three wins in four games and a pretty strong stranglehold on a playoff spot, all should be good in Habs land, no?

Well, no.

Gauthier is seemingly still a fool in the eyes of many for failing to improve the team on Monday, even though he's brought in three defencemen via trade this season. It's just that it didn't happen on Monday, which would have been way more fun.

Jacques Martin is apparently also a fool who doesn't know what he's doing behind the bench other than writing notes in his notepad, who can't motivate his players, who doesn't know how to manage ice time, who plays a stifling defensive system, who can't develop young players and – most importantly – is a deathly boring interview.

Is Geoff Molson even paying attention? How can he allow this to continue?

Let me tell you how.

Gauthier deserves a passing grade

When Molson looks at Gauthier, I'd imagine he sees a GM who made what everyone eventually conceded was a shrewd move last season to grab Dominic Moore, even though he was chided for overpaying at the time of the trade. The addition of Moore played a large role in the Canadiens playing eight home games in last spring's playoffs, which is four times the amount most people expected they would play. That makes an owner happy.

Molson sees a GM who flew in the face of public sentiment and incurred the wrath of the great majority of his fan base when he traded away their playoff hero Halak. The jury's still out whether or not he handled that trade properly and maximized Halak's value, but a good degree of credit is deserved for choosing the right goalie. Not everyone would have done so.

He sees a GM who reacted promptly and decisively to two major injuries on the blue line and who filled those holes about as well as could be expected. James Wisniewski filled a need for a power play presence on the back end that was lost with the injury to Andrei Markov, while Brent Sopel filled the need for a shot- blocking, penalty-killing specialist lost with the injury to Josh Gorges.

There were 21 NHL defencemen who changed teams via trade this season (give or take a few), and of those there were 12 where a top-6 guy was traded for picks or prospects: Ryan O'Byrne (don't start), Wisniewski, Paul Mara, Eric Brewer, Derek Joslin, Tomas Kaberle, Sopel, Ian White, Bryan McCabe, Dennis Wideman, Evan Oberg and Chris Campoli.

That group is listed in chronological order of when they were traded, and I would say that Gauthier grabbed the two guys who best filled his needs without costing an absolute fortune.

You could say he would have been better off not trading O'Byrne to begin with, and that would be justified, but it wouldn't have been fair to the player to let him sit on the sidelines. No one could have foreseen the dramatic injuries that would follow the trade, except maybe Markov's. And having O'Byrne around wouldn't have meant Gauthier wouldn't need to get Wisniewski.

Overall, Gauthier thus far has botched only one in season trade in my opinion, and that's Maxim Lapierre. The return ultimately wound up being Mara and minor league goalie Drew MacIntyre, which is less than thrilling for a legitimate role player that attracted a better return at the trade deadline (although the inflation of deadline day also played a part in that).

A lot of people will point to the trade of Sergei Kostitsyn as a black mark on Gauthier's record considering how well he's done in Nashville. That's also fair. But his market value was very low when he was traded because he was considered a chemistry risk, one the Predators were confident super-coach Barry Trotz could manage.

Then there's the Halak trade, which can't be evaluated just yet. I think regular readers of this blog know that I believe Lars Eller will be a very good player for this team one day, but whether or not he winds up being good enough to justify a trade for the league's hottest goalie remains an unknown. To say Gauthier did not create enough of an auction for Halak is a fair criticism, because it appears a lot of teams were never given a chance to put in an offer. But I feel we have to see what becomes of Eller before making that judgment.

Coach is an easy target

As far as Martin is concerned, I feel he's pretty easy to criticize.

The game in Atlanta was great material for those who find his conservative system that preaches defence first is destructive and doesn't work unless his goalie is spectacular.

It's true, Martin's scheme is highly predicated on a goalie who can stop a certain kind of shot on a regular basis.

But is that so wrong?

What coach doesn't build a system around his best asset? Dan Bylsma forms his game plan around the fact he has two of the greatest offensive players in the game centering his top two lines, and now that they're not there he has to play the game a bit more conservatively. Mike Babcock has the luxury of having two of the best two-way forwards in hockey and one of the greatest defenceman in NHL history, and he coaches with that in mind. Peter Laviolette has what is probably the deepest group of talent at forward in the league, and that's what impacts his game planning.

Martin? He has a hell of a goalie. Everything else on his team is ranging from average to well above average, but nowhere near outstanding (although P.K. Subban is well on his way there). No, the only component of his team that meets that mark is between the pipes. So his system is built around that asset, and yet people feel he's not much of a coach because of that.

Let me ask you this: how often do you see Price make a post-to-post save? Or one that's even worthy of the highlight reels? Hardly ever. He makes routine saves appear boring, and difficult saves appear routine. But he's rarely called upon to make spectacular saves.

Price has a tendency to play down his own performance and pump the tires of his teammates, just as he did in Atlanta after that 40-save masterpiece, and a lot of that has to do with being a good teammate. But when he talks about his defencemen boxing out, about them clearing his rebounds, about the shots coming from far out and him being able to see them, there's a good degree of truth behind the comments.

This might be obvious, and perhaps even unfair, but I think we only need to look at how Halak has done in St. Louis to see what kind of impact Martin's system has on how the goalie performs.

Halak has faced 203 fewer shots than he faced all of last season in Montreal, but he's already surpassed last year's goals allowed total by five. His save percentage has dropped from .924 to .907, his goals against average is up from 2.40 to 2.63, and his record has gone from 26-13-5 last year to 19-17-6 this season.

Now, I know the Blues have been hampered by major injuries. But so have the Canadiens. Yet Price is succeeding, and Halak is struggling.

So I ask you, is it not the least bit possible that Halak thrived in a system designed to take advantage of his strengths? And that now that he has been removed from that system the very minor faults in his game are showing?

This is not meant to disparage Halak at all, because I still have loads of admiration for a man whose work ethic allowed him to go from a ninth-round draft pick to the level of one of the elite goalies in the world, one that not only led the Canadiens to last spring's conference final, but also led his country to an unlikely appearance in the bronze medal game at the Olympics.

His story is inspiring.

I just find it somewhat ludicrous that people can continue saying that Halak single-handedly created that magical playoff run and that Price is the lone reason the Canadiens find themselves where they are in the standings today without identifying what seems to me to be a blatantly obvious common element between the two.

And that is Martin's system, one that many people feel a kindergarten student can come up with because its basic tenet revolves around the goalie making the first save.

Markov not as vital as before

On top of that, raise your hand if you thought the Canadiens could be a playoff team without Andrei Markov. Or that the Canadiens could have beat the Penguins in last year's playoffs without him.

Martin has coached 165 regular season and playoff games with the Canadiens, and Markov has only played in 60 of them. That means the Canadiens have played without their linchpin defenceman in nearly 65 per cent of the games Martin has been behind the bench, yet his overall record is 82-66-17, a points percentage of .549.

Prior to last season, the Canadiens performing so well under such circumstances would have been unthinkable. Since the lockout, they were 6-19-2 without Markov before he got hurt in the first game of last season. Under Martin, the Canadiens are 49-46-10 without Markov, and 33-20-7 with him. It's a marked improvement, not one that should have anyone bragging, but a signififcant improvement nonetheless.

Add to that the fact that Mike Cammalleri is scoring at a lower rate than last season (0.4 goals per game to 0.31), as is Brian Gionta (0.46 to 0.36), Scott Gomez is a disaster (0.76 points per game to 0.5) and even Tomas Plekanec's production is down (0.85 points per game to 0.78), you have yourself a recipe for failure.

Yet, the Canadiens are sixth in the Eastern Conference, and extremely well positioned for a playoff berth. Far better, oddly enough, than last season when an overtime loss in the last game of the season was needed to back into the playoffs.

So even if you feel the team isn't big enough, or tough enough, or offensive enough, or whatever enough, try to remember one thing: this team is better than last year's team that went to the conference finals, even though logic would dictate that is practically impossible.

If you want to demand that ownership clean house because you feel that's not good enough, that's your right.

Just be careful what you wish for.