Nikita Scherbak not waived down to Laval. Yet.

Jesperi is staying, Noah Juulsen and Victor Mete easily made the team, so now on to the Scherbak quandary...

I wonder why didn't they send him down to the Rocket today, with the rush of other waivees, while other teams are grappling with their bubble-guys too?  Because if they keep him in Montréal, it's only for a week or so, until Andrew Shaw or someone else comes off IR, and then we have to waive another person down to Laval, and then other teams may be more ready to take on our project.

I'm like François Gagnon and Mathias Brunet, I'm even less inclined towards Nikita than I was originally this summer.  I expected him to show better at training camp, and the issue to be whether he'd be better off playing first-line minutes in Laval instead of Bottom 6 or 13th forward in Montréal.  I thought there'd be more of a numbers game, and that he'd be squeezed out of the Top 6, especially with Paul Byron being unexpectedly ready, and now Yeppo making the team.  But again, he underwhelmed.

Two or three seasons ago, Nikita was openly pronounced to be out of shape, not fit enough to compete as a pro, by Sylvain Lefebvre and Martin Lapointe.  It's two summers now that, instead of going back to Russia and getting back on the perogyi and vodka diet, he stays in Brossard and trains with the Canadiens staff.  It hasn't really moved the needle.  He had a point-a-game season in the AHL last year, and seemed to have graduated from there, but in The Show he's still lost, lethargic, confused, ill-positioned, amorphous.  He doesn't make an impact.

Now the refrain is that his Hockey IQ is missing.  Compared to Jesperi Kotkaniemi, who looked lost and Bambi-legged at the Rookie Tournament, but then progressed every game, every scrimmage, Nikita is stagnant.  If he happens to get the puck with open space near the net, watch out, he can drill it, he can wow you with a dangle, but apparently that's not enough in today's NHL.  You have to skate and forecheck and work for a 30-40 second burst, pedal-to-the-metal, then change off and catch a breath for a minute or two then do it all over again.  Nikita seems aimless, undecided out there.  He doesn't 'get his man'.  He doesn't get it.

So yeah, I was deadset against losing either he or Mike McCarron on waivers this go-round, but I thought Nikita wouldn't underwhelm like this, I thought he'd at least evenwhelm.  His presence, if detected by scouts in training camp, will not cause them to recommend to their GM that he be snapped up on waivers.  Maybe the Canadiens feel they don't need to finesse this one, despite fanboys like me blogging about it, that if Nikita is picked up by another team then he's their headache, and no big loss.