This is the Canadiens' practice lineup, with the Ottawa Senators looming as our Saturday night opposition for the last pre-season game.
Tatar – Danault – Gallagher
Lehkonen – Domi – Suzuki
Drouin – Kotkaniemi – Weal
Byron – Thompson – Armia
Cousins – Poehling – Hudon
Mete – Weber
Chiarot – Petry
Kulak – Fleury
Reilly – Folin
Kinkaid
Lindgren
Some notes:
--I guess
Carey will be ready to play the final tuneup game? There have been mentions of a special padding inserted in his glove to protect his bruised hand. He better be ready, or we'll need special padding in the cell we're headed for if he gets off to a poor start.
--For now, Nick Suzuki replaces the departed Andrew Shaw on right wing of the Domi line, and Lehky replaces Jonathan Drouin, who's reportedly being showcased "En Special!!!"
--Apparently
Ryan Poehling is ready to go, and if he has a good game on Saturday, does that mean both he and Nick make le Grand Club? My wish that they get a half-season at least in the AHL is dashed on the rocks of pedestrian training camp performances by Charles Hudon, Matthew Peca, Dale Weise, ...
--I'm going to put my foot down on Cale Fleury though. I get that Nick Suzuki and Ryan Poehling are winning their jobs fair and square, differentiated themselves from the Pecas and the Varones and the Hudons, but those young forwards will have opportunities, can be moved around the lineup. Cale Fleury meanwhile, as a sixth defenceman, doesn't really do that much for us, provides us with another headache when Noah Juulsen is ready to return, and will mean we'll lose a Mike Reilly or Christian Folin on waivers.
Put him down in Laval, for another season of marinating, and hoard another asset. That's my final decision.
--Karl Alzner waived today, cross our fingers the Ducks Coyotes nab him. A Canadiens 'analyst'-mouthpiece was holding out hope the Jets might claim Karl Alzner. Which reminds me I haven't bought my Loterie Super-Max tickets yet this week.
(Update)
No luck with Karl, the Jets didn't bite. Nobody bit. He'd said before camp that if he was sent down to the AHL, he'd ask for a trade, but going unclaimed through waivers has to be an obvious demonstration of the level of demand for his services, right? If he wants out, he can void the contract "à l'amiable", shake hands on it buddy, no hard feelings...
What other options exist? Tell other teams we'll let him go and hold back a mill, a mill and a half, if they take on the contract? That would be cheaper for us than buying him out next season. As we discussed,
even next season, he's not an easy buyout decision, he'd cost us approx. $4M in 2020, then three more seasons at roughly one million cap hit.
If nobody wants to take him on, even with sweeteners/retained salary, it'll be up to him to play superb defence in Laval, be the stalwart defensive veteran we were hoping for, and then have teams suffer injuries and resort to him to shore up their defence. As a very long shot.
--The first four exhibition games portended too well for some excited fans, and now two straight losses against the partial Leafs have crashed us back to Earth.
Any hope I had that the team would be improved and would make the playoffs was based on Jonathan Drouin having an 80-90 point season (I know, I know, more on that later...) and KK taking the next Scheifele step and bagging 50 points and playing some Top 6 centre. And Alzner getting some Norris Trophy votes, while I'm at it.
The Canadiens are making no bones that they're holding a competition, that they'll ice the best lineup they can, regardless of waiver and contract situations. And if they start to falter early in the season, if by January the playoffs look unlikely, Canadiens GM Marc Bergevin can start to deal away non-core assets for draft picks.
There will be hell to pay, what with The Montreal Gazette's Stu Cowan guaranteeing in print repeatedly that Marc Bergevin had/must/would/shall be fired if the Canadiens missed the playoffs three seasons in a row, which hasn't happened since the '20s, he insists, and which is a neat stat, until you realize how many teams there were then in the League and how many there are now. TVA's Michel Bergeron would have an aneurysm nightly if that came to pass.
But I guess Geoff Molson can see through the noise. He's often said we're on the right track, that we're building for the future. If we miss the playoffs, we just divest in the Paul Byrons and the Brett Kulaks, add more picks to the impressive slate we have for the June 2020 draft, coincidentally held in Montréal, fold Cole Caufield and Alex Romanov into the roster, and take another run at it next season.
The GM evidently can't abduct the Sebastian Ahos, and he can't put a gun on the temple of the Jake Gardiners and 'convince' them to come play for the Canadiens. We need to add players through the draft, we won't get the Jacob Troubas falling in our lap, wanting to play here to further their wife's career
away from the frozen North, the Steven Stamkoses re-signing long-term at a discount.
We're in a better position than the Vancouver Canucks, for one. They're locked in, they can't pull up on this season and make another run next year, they're committed, their first-round pick belongs to Tampa this year or next, so they're not getting the benefit if they suck. The Canadiens can evaluate as the season goes on and freely pull the chute.
--My 80-point prediction hope dream for Jonathan was hopelessly optimistic.
He's been mentioned by Elliott Friedman as being floated on the trade market, with Marc Bergevin trying to unload a winger for help elsewhere. The troubling thing about Jonathan is that he can do it, and he showed up to camp in shape, but he's already pouting and in a rut.
Out here in Vancouver, at least their local-born whipping-boy, Jake Virtanen, he had the decency to
show up to camp fat and overweight,
to provide grist for the mill.
So yeah, I thought a summer hanging out with Max Domi and working out with renewed focus might make things click for him, that he'd look around and see his former peers thriving and he'd get into gear and get in that zone.
To think of the Canadiens improving and becoming a contender, they had to take a big step forward, to add an impact player over the summer, and since we whiffed on that, I thought that organic growth might (be the only way to) solve this, and Jonathan is eminently capable of taking the season, the team in his grasp and going at a point per game pace.
Instead, he looks like he'll sulk his way to Edmonton. Can you imagine him trying to keep up to Connor McDavid? He'd probably have 80 points in a down year playing with that guy.
I wonder how the Oilers will feast on waivers, they'll probably claim three or four wingers in the next few days, I would think.
