Jaroslav Halak's Agent Criticizes Carey Price on Twitter, Hilarity Ensues

Oh Twitter, you glorious and brilliant avenue for information and trouble.

Following the Montreal Canadiens' 3-1 loss to the Tampa Bay Lightning on Saturday, a game that saw Carey Price take the loss after giving up three goals on 21 shots, Allan Walsh, the agent for Canadiens backup goaltender Jaroslav Halak, created some havoc and controversy on his Twitter account when he pointed out Price's record in his past 42 starts.

Predictably, things went quite well.

Here's the tweet that started it all, which has since been deleted: "Interesting stat of the night....Price is 10W, 32L in last 42 starts. Hmm."

Normally, it probably wouldn't get much of a reaction (or any reaction, for that matter) had it not come from the person that happens to be the agent for the goaltender that's supposedly pushing Price for playing time.

Naturally, that's going to lead to some problems.

The folks at All Habs took notice of the tweet, and engaged in a back-and-forth with Walsh.

From All Habs:

I decided to reply to one user who had re-tweeted Walsh's original message and copied it to Walsh. My message set off a short back and forth between Walsh and I.
All Habs: "Not exactly an objective source. That stat came from Halak's agent. Advocacy like that leaves a bad taste in my mouth. @walsha"
Walsh: "Sorry you don't like the stat, if the stat was wrong, you may have a point..I was pointing out an interesting stat for fans."
All Habs: "I think we both know what the intent was. I would prefer seeing you present to fans, stats for your own client."
Walsh: "It's no secret who my client is....and very relevant stat as it relates to my client."

According to All Habs, Jeff Marek brought up the exchange on Hockey Night In Canada, infuriating Kelly Hrudey:

Hrudey jumped on Walsh's comments saying, "It makes me sick. I hate it and I'll tell you why. I have no problem with an agent sticking up for his client and telling management and whomever that this is what I think about my guy, the team and the direction and all that, but to make that public really annoys me." Hrudey continued, "If I'm Carey Price, that's already starting a fight between me and the other guy. I would actually go to the goalie the next day and say 'You know what? Tell your agent to shut up!' You know what, we have to work together in this whole thing and we do need competition and we have to battle through this but don't start doing that. Don't pit us against each other. Don't make a separation between the two of us that are in this together. That annoys me!"

I'd say this is a nice window into the ridiculous pressures goaltenders face in Montreal compared to the 29 other cities around the NHL.

Finally, Walsh closed the discussion and attempted to play it off as him making a harmless joke:"It was a tongue in cheek comment not meant to be taken seriously, forgot it was Montreal and everyone loses a sense of humor."

Yeah. Right.