So the Steady Eddie trade is defensible if a little disappointing. My uninformed fan's solution was to hold on to him until the trade deadline, when he could reap a second and in the best of a Chiarot world, a first-rounder. You'd have Matheson, Guhle and Edmundsson on the left, which again in my plan you dealt with by unloading Victor Mete 2.0, namely Jordan Harris, on some other gullible GM (Pierre Dorion), and sending Wifi to Laval at least to start the year.
Relentless Ineptitude
My soapbox to proclaim on hockey, football, politics, life. Spotlighted will be the Montreal Canadiens, and the San Diego Chargers, at least until the Vancouver GlassSmashers' inaugural NFL season.
Sunday, 2 July 2023
2023-24 Canadiens Offseason Roster Construction: UFA (Unexciting Free Agency)
Sunday, 30 April 2023
2023-24 Canadiens Offseason Roster Construction: Which UFAs and RFAs should be retained?
The 2022-23 season is thankfully over for les Canadiens de Montréal, but it doesn't really feel like we can now sit back and take a break. As supporters of the team, all season long we kept an eye on the current, sure, at the daily games and practice reports, but really our hearts and minds were on the future. We saw everything that happened this year through the prism of The Rebuild, and at this point on the calendar, we're ankle-deep in it.
We have a lot of wheeling and dealing to look forward to as we prepare for the next season. We will work through some decisions the team's brass will have to make as some important dates near (May 8, June 15, June 28-29, July 1, August 15). While our educated guesses won't be binding on Jeff Gorton and Kent Hughes, they will be a starting point for discussions, and will firm up in our own minds what the issues are, where the biggest struggles will be.
What we'll look at in the first instalment is relatively straightforward. We'll gaze into the crystal ball and try to predict which and/or how many impending Canadiens free agents will be re-signed for next year. Restricted free agents (RFA) are under team control, and can be retained if the team submits a qualifying offer (QO) by June 15. Players with expiring contracts who are set to become unrestricted free agents (UFA) can re-sign with their teams at any time, or can wait until their contract expires on July 1 and then offer their services to the highest/best bidder.
One important factor to consider in our decision-making is the 50-contract limit. In the olden days, the Canadiens' Frank Selke and later Sam Pollock could and would sign an apparently inexhaustible parade of prospects to 'C forms', which bound players to an NHL team in perpetuity, but this is no longer allowable. Now teams have to stay under this limit, and usually don't go above 47 or 48 at the outset of the season, so as to leave some flexibility to acquire players in trade, in case of injuries, etc.
The Canadiens organization currently has 48 players under contract. This number will decrease as players whose contracts are set to expire and and who can become unrestricted free agents are cut loose or choose to play elsewhere. These candidates are Jonathan Drouin, Paul Byron, Sean Monahan, Alex Belzile and Chris Tierney on the NHL roster, and Anthony Richard, Otto Leskinen, Frédéric Allard, Corey Schueneman, and Madison Bowey on the AHL farm team roster.
Jonathan Drouin and Paul Byron will not be back with the Canadiens. Jonathan Drouin's travails and unproductivity have been thoroughly discussed, there is no need to beat this dead horse. If Jonathan can find an NHL home in a market with a much smaller media and fan-obsession profile, good for him, but we're almost wishing in his case that he finds a sinecure in the Swiss league, apparently conditions there are great, he can play pro hockey with no pressure and no facial cross-checking. We wish him good luck.
Paul Byron is medically unable to play NHL hockey, he's recovering from hip surgery and cannot even go for an easy skate without experiencing great pain. His future health and mobility are in question, so he'll probably retire to rehab and launch an NHL front-office career, he's already being eased into the role by Jeff Gorton and Kent Hughes, having occasionally this season donned a suit and watched games with them in the exec suite.
Sean Monahan's ability to play and avoid injuries is a giant question mark. He proclaimed himself healthy at training camp, as feeling the best he had in a long time, but suffered injuries and couldn't play for a majority of the season. As such, he's a big risk for any team to take on, he'll take up a roster spot and cap space but very well could end up on IR, which isn't a get-out-of-jail-free card, it's just another roster headache teams would rather avoid if they can. At locker cleanout day, he expressed to the assembled media a desire to return to the Canadiens next season, but if he does return it will most probably be on a one-year prove-it deal at a low cap hit, possibly with incentives.
Chris Tierney did the job he was expected to when he was claimed on waivers, which was to fill out a jersey while the Canadiens muddled through their rash of injuries, but he had little impact, no Torrey Mitchell was he, so he'll most likely not be back.
Alex Belzile we can foresee being signed for one or two years, with a substantial AHL salary or even on a one-way deal, with a view to serving as a captain in Laval and a ready callup candidate.
Anthony Richard appeared to love playing in Laval in front of hometown crowds, and to love even more getting to play some games with the Canadiens, but he's not a slam-dunk to return. He is at an age where the most important deciding factor is an opportunity to play some NHL games and establish his career. For him, signing with Phoenix would be a windfall, not a nightmare. Let's put him at a 50% chance of returning, at best.
Corey Schueneman is in kind of the same situation at this stage of his career, and he can probably read the handwriting on the wall, with so many young left-shot defencemen having vaulted past him on the organization's depth chart. He will likely be in search of greener pastures.
Frédéric Allard, acquired mid-season in a trade, is a hometown boy who played a few NHL games almost by default; he also was made a healthy scratch repeatedly by Laval Rocket head coach Jean-François Houle. Madison Bowey is a former blue-chip NHL prospect and World Junior star who has failed to establish himself as anything but a farmhand. If he returns to the Rocket it will be on an AHL contract. Otto Leskinen made a surprise return to Laval this season, and did not really improve or materialize as an NHL prospect. I expect he will play in Europe next season.
So of the ten UFAs, let's pencil in three as returning. This whittles down the contracts number to around 41.
Next, we get to prognosticate about the restricted free agents. In the past, I've tended to be overly optimistic about the number of returnees. You grow attached to your own prospects, and you tend to think there's no harm in being patient, but Marc Bergevin for example demonstrated he could be remarkably unemotional about cutting ties with unproductive or stalled or low-hope prospects, and there is an opportunity cost to having such players gumming up the works in your organization, they can prevent you from signing the next Great White Hope, from jumping on the right gravy train.
So we'll try but probably fail to be ruthless, or at least objective. On the NHL team, the RFAs are Cole Caufield, Denis Gurianov and Michael Pezzetta. On the AHL roster, we find RFAs-to-be Jesse Ylonen, Lucas Condotta, Rafaël Harvey-Pinard, Joël Teasdale, Mitchell Stephens and Nicolas Beaudin.
The Cole Caufield matter is easy: he should/will be signed to a long-term contract comparable to Nick Suzuki's.
Denis Gurianov is less straightforward. His pedigree and scouting report are compelling, but his tenure in Dallas and his cameo in bleu-blanc-rouge much less so. Maybe the GM will trust Martin St. Louis to be the Enigmatic Russian Whisperer, but he hasn't had much success with the Enigmatic Armia so far, nor with the Infuriating Hoffman, so it's doubtful that the roster can contain three such shiftless loafers. The latter two hold contracts that are nigh impossible to trade away, so we're stuck with them next year, whereas Mr. Gurianov we can walk away from, cut ties and be free and clear, cap-unencumbered, and I predict that's what we'll do.
His qualifying offer would be $2.9M, so it wouldn't be a low risk gamble to make and hope for him to blossom next season. If we offer him a lesser amount, he can refuse to sign that offer and become UFA, and play for that lesser amount anywhere he pleases, say a warm-weather tax-free locale. He's as good as gone.
Michael Pezzetta, while clearly no better than a 13th forward-level player, probably has earned himself a small raise this season. The 2016 6th-round draftee toiled for years in the Canadiens system and made his callups count by showing grit, determination, and courage. While his counting stats are nothing to write home about, his fearlessness and take-on-all-comers snarl probably make him a popular teammate. With the team not expected to really compete for a playoff spot next season, with many youngsters and small or smallish players in the lineup, Michael Pezzetta has a place and usefulness on the roster. If he has a dip in his performance or gets squeezed out by lineup shuffles, he can get sent down to Laval, even at the risk of his being lost on waivers, it wouldn't be the end of the world. This however can be warded off somewhat with a one-way $1M contract, I would think. Other teams might balk at the bill, but in our situation we can afford it.
For the Laval contingent, again it's easy to read the tea leaves in some cases, namely for Jesse Ylonen and Rafaël Harvey-Pinard, who will receive qualifying offers, and may be signed to longer term deals. Both showed in NHL callups that they could keep up and contribute.
Jesse Ylonen would require to go through waivers if the Canadiens wanted to send him to Laval, and they won't risk losing him thus, so he's pretty much guaranteed to start the season in Montréal or be used as a trade asset and sent elsewhere. Rafaël Harvey-Pinard could be sent to the AHL without waivers, and in his case the complicating factor would be basic decency, since his impact on the roster, however he was used, was remarkable, both in the stats he amassed, but also in his intangibles, and how quickly he became a fan favourite. It would be hard to preach a culture of accountability and merit if you sent down Monsieur Harvey-Pinard.
Nicolas Beaudin has a lot of runway as a 23-year-old defenceman, we often state that defencemen take longer to develop, to 'get it', and he has an enticing background as a point-producer and powerplay quarterback, so he'll most likely be qualified. He'll have to work very hard to distinguish himself among all the other young promising defencemen, but that's the career he's chosen, a very competitive, results-based one.
Contrarily, Lucas Condotta, Joël Teasdale, and Mitchell Stephens are all forwards in their mid-twenties whose ceiling is quite low, and while they are useful farmhands and played varying important roles in Laval and as callups, they'll be pushed by the arrival of a number of young forwards like Joshua Roy, Sean Farrell, Riley Kidney, Emil Heineman, and Jared Davidson. While you can't have an AHL roster with nothing but rookies, while you need veterans and experience and leadership, I'm struggling to see how many of the three RFAs we can keep.
This is where the 50-contract limit has its effect. You can't keep everybody. And the kids are going to need icetime if we send them to Laval, there's only so many spots in the lineup. So let's be ruthless and guess that one is re-signed, or at most two.
So if we keep score, let's say six RFAs are retained and three are cut loose, which would bring our total existing contracts to 38. While that seems like a healthy cushion, let's bear in mind that all those kids we bring into the fold, they're going to need contracts, or the contracts they have already signed but 'slid' for a year or two, they will kick in next season. Sean Farrell and Emil Heineman are already counted in the existing contracts, but Joshua Roy, Riley Kidney, Jared Davidson, Jayden Struble and Logan Mailloux will add five more, so our total would go back up to 43.
That is not a lot of room to manoeuvre. If the Canadiens sign one or three free agents, make a trade for a couple of warm bodies to get us through the season and prepare for injuries, we'd be right up to the limit of 50 again. So does Kent Hughes feel comfortable with this, or does he wave a magic wand and maybe clear out contracts like Carey Price's? Maybe the Coyotes would love to add his cap hit, with the understanding that the insurance company will pay out the actual dollars? Or does the Canadiens GM trade away a superfluous Chris Wideman, or buy him out?
Most of these questions will be answered during the spring and summer, and we'll revisit these matters before training camp, and see how the Canadiens dealt with their free agents-to-be, and with this vexing 50-contract limit.
In our next étude, we'll look at which draftees whose rights are set to expire, either on June 15 or August 15, the Canadiens might/will/must sign to a contract.
Friday, 27 March 2020
1976 Stanley Cup Final Game 4: Canadiens 5, Flyers 3
-The image quality is frightful, in its little square box, all fuzzy and all. Some brilliant minds should be put to work on this, the NHL should spend its untold billions on restoring these videos of classic games. I'm guessing all it would take is a software program that sharpifies the image, determines that this pixel should be the place on the sweater where the white of the number borders on the glorious red of the Canadiens' sweater, and makes it so. I assume after a lot of image rendering, bingo bango, you have HD quality images.
Make it happen, Bettman. Earn your keep, if that's at all possible by now. Realistically, this is how you can start to earn back your soul and give yourself a fighting chance to not roast in hell for eternity.
-Lots of fan banners to be seen, with messages such as "WHATEVER HAPPENS YOUR STILL #1" and "WE KNOW THAT FOUR IN A A ROW IS HARD, BUT YOU'LL ALWAYS BE CHAMPIONS." Flyers fans, their shameful hockey team down 3-0 in the series, know what time it is, despite being ignorant brutes.
-Reggie Leach opens the scoring. 1-0 Flyers. Flyers players I can tolerate: Reggie Leach, Bill Barber, Rick MacLeish. That is all.
-The pace of play is torpid, disjointed. There isn't really much passing, just a succession of zone clears, broken plays, errant dishes, hopeful whacks at the puck. Where is the tic-tac-toe precision passing of the 70s Canadiens that I clearly recall with my infallible memory?
This year's Detroit Red Wings, if you teleported them back to 1976, would wipe the floor with the Canadiens. It would be no contest.
-Ken Dryden looks like a stork with swollen legs, all gangly and ungainly. It's striking how small he looks in the net compared to the modern goalies all sumo-suited up. His mask is a classic, and that lean-on-the-stick pose, how I've missed that.
-Canadiens play as if they're just trying to not get assassinated in this game, and then win it in Game 5 on Forum ice. I say this with respect, that's the sensible thing to do. I'm not saying I would have been braver. It's just that they're on the lookout for goonery and lunacy. At one point, Peter Mahovlich is tangled up with a Flyer, the whistle goes, yet Gary Dornhoefer skates in with intent, seemingly. Peter assumes an offensive lineman position, arms raised, ready to pass block, to fend off a defensive lineman's helmet slap, seemingly.
Not a bad idea. Every contact along the boards, the Flyers unleash a jab to the back of the head, a high stick in the face, it's definitely their, um, culture?
So it looks, for long periods of the game, as if the Canadiens know they're up 3-0 in the series, that they can return to the Forum up three games to one if need be and clinch it then, no need to suffer a broken jaw now.
-The refs actually make a couple of calls early in the game to cool things down, to send a message. Dave Schultz, that scum, actually is caught punching Serge Savard in the kidneys who is otherwise engaged along the boards, and after everyone is separated, they give le Sénateur two minutes, but the Flyer goon gets four. Almost a Solomonic decision.
-I keep seeing this defenceman wearing #6 always out of position, and I can't tell who it is. Is it Don Awrey? It's not Chartraw is it? It wasn't Chuck Lefley, he was gone by then, I know that much. It's not John Van Boxmeer, one of my childhood favourites, I'd have heard his name called. Bill Nyrop maybe? It takes me most of the first period to see that it's Jimmy Roberts. I'd pretty much forgotten about him.
-The first period ends 2-2. The Canadiens had scored twice (Steve Shutt and Pierre Bouchard) to quiet down the crowd, before Bill Barber tied it up again with a couple of minutes left.
-That Steve Shutt helmet though... Not sure what's worse, the lack of protection it offers, or how unflattering it is. I never liked the Jofa unit he wore the rest of his career, but that was definitely an upgrade on that Cooper jobbie from the 60s.
-The second period ends at 3-3. Bill Barber had scored early in the period on the powerplay to revive the crowd, but Yvan Cournoyer inherits a loose puck in front of the net and backhands it home, with eight seconds left.
-Larry Robinson is as magnificent as I remember. Long, lanky, with that shock of curly brown hair and that mustache, he's large and in charge and you can't miss him when he's on the ice, he's charging with the puck, directing traffic in his zone, pacifying Flyers. Man he was great.
-I formulate the thought that Guy Lafleur is pretty much invisible in this game. One shift later, he takes a pass from Peter Mahovlich and drives it home, midway through the third. Big, big goal.
And a minute later, Guy returns the favour, and sets up Mahovlich for the insurance goal. Bonsoir la visite, Merci-Thank you, à la prochaine, c'est fini.
How could I ever doubt Guy in the playoffs?
-A new fan banner is unfurled: "WE LOVE YOU ANYWAY".
Final score is Canadiens 5, Flyers 3, the Canadiens sweep the hateful Flyers, and end their reign of terror.
Saturday, 4 January 2020
Marc Bergevin wheels and deals Reilly, Scandella and Kovalchuk
The Canadiens have acquired a fifth-round pick in 2021 from the Ottawa Senators, and forward Andrew Sturtz, in return for defenseman Mike Reilly. Details to come.#GoHabsGo— Canadiens Montréal (@CanadiensMTL) January 2, 2020
The Canadiens have acquired defenseman Marco Scandella from the Buffalo Sabres, in return for a fourth-round pick in 2020 (acquired from the San Jose Sharks on June 22, 2019).#GoHabsGo https://t.co/uJEKDoyayl— Canadiens Montréal (@CanadiensMTL) January 2, 2020
The Canadiens have agreed to terms on a one-year, two-way contract with free agent forward Ilya Kovalchuk. The deal will pay Kovalchuk $700,000 at the NHL level and $70,000 in the AHL.#GoHabsGo https://t.co/VdpyijRjNh— Canadiens Montréal (@CanadiensMTL) January 3, 2020
(François Gagnon: Ilya Kovalchuk : le pari de la dernière chance)
(Ken Campbell: GETTING MARCO SCANDELLA AND ILYA KOVALCHUK MIGHT HURT THE CANADIENS MORE THAN HELP THEM)
ADDENDUM:
Bergevin sur Kovalchuk:— Raphaël Doucet (@raphdoucet) January 3, 2020
- ne devrait pas jouer demain vs PIT
- risque minime à court/long terme
- Nate Thompson (LA) et Scott Mellanby (ATL) sont d’anciens coéquipiers et l’ont recommandé
- le CH pas vendeur + vise les séries... le DG voulait du renfort en attendant les blessés
Game 41: Canadiens 2, Penguins 3 (OT)
This is the 41st game, the midway point of the season. Canadiens are 13th in the East, but a healthy 19 points up on last place Detroit. Tanking won't work this season. Les boys are on pace for an 84-point season though...
First game of the Ilya Kovalchuk era, except he hasn't sorted out his visa yet, so he won't play.
(Francois Gagnon: Ilya Kovalchuk : le pari de la dernière chance)
Marco Scandella will play his first game for the bleu-blanc-rouge, wearing number 28.
Le bleu-blanc-rouge te va bien, Marco!— Canadiens Montréal (@CanadiensMTL) January 5, 2020
🔵⚪🔴 looks great on you, Marco!#GoHabsGo pic.twitter.com/XcIdQrBxBh
The Canadiens start off well and earn a powerplay early, but can't get much of a threat generated. Ilya Kovalchuk, sitting in the pressbox watching this, must be itching to get on there and show them how it's done.
Artturi Lehkonen gets the first goal, and is starting to look more like the 20-ish goal-scorer we thought he was going to be, instead of the snakebitten frustrating enigma he's been for a couple of seasons.
The Penguins get one right back though and tie it up 1-1. Canadiens are notorious this season for allowing goals a minute or two after they score one.
The first period was marked by another ugly incident that is so routine in the NHL that it will be ignored by the powers-that-be, but should have landed Max Domi in the hockey slammer. On a fairly innocuous play, Domi carried the puck and tried to deke around Marcus Pettersson of the Penguins, who made a fine defensive play and stripped him of the puck. Subsequently, their skates touched and hips collided and both went down, but this was after the puck was gone, and not a result of an illegal or dirty play.
What does Max Domi do but get up and attack Marcus Pettersson, first crosschecking him then dropping his gloves and starting to punch him before the defenceman knew he was in a fight, let alone why. Somehow, Max Domi only got an extra minor for crosschecking, and both got five minutes for fighting. No instigator penalty, which was clearly called for, and no expulsion from the game.
This should be a textbook sequence to coach up new referees on how to award instigator penalties. I mean, Max should be the poster boy for the instigator, with Chris Neil and Brad Marchand and Nazem Kadri.
Hockey is a great sport, but the NHL is a garbage league.
Change coming at a glacial pace. This year, we've removed Nick Kypreos and Don Cherry from their pulpits. Maybe 50 years from now, that type of play will be met with an appropriate response. Meaning, jail time.
In any case, now is the time to trade Domi to Calgary for TJ Brodie and a first. It can't be soon enough.
Brian Burke in the first intermission opines on the Canadiens, and says that a GM should/would like to see his team getting better fast or worse fast, but not treading water, as the Canadiens are, with Shea Weber and Carey Price in their thirties, and most of the kids we're waiting on a ways away. Hmmm....
Is that Mike Bossy wearing #62? Early in the second, Artturi strips the puck off Erik Johnson, stuffs it in past Murray, 2-1 Canadiens.
Again though the Penguins respond, a minute or two later, with a goal by Bryan Rust, and it's tied 2-2.
Try as they might the Canadiens can't get that killer goal, the one that makes a difference in the game. Instead, we get a Scandella crossbar, Artturi with a chance at the hat trick and go-ahead goal... "We came so close!..."
And in OT, Brandon Tanev, of all people, puts it away, and ends the game, despite a blatant interference on Carey Price in full view of the impotent officials.
A loser point against a conference opponent. Straddling the growing gap between the dock and the boat. A moral victory.
So it goes...
Penguins 3-2 (NHL Game recap, stats)
(Radio-Canada: Le Canadien s’enfonce avec une cinquième défaite d’affilée)
Saturday, 28 December 2019
Game 38: Canadiens 4, Lightning 5
La formation projetée du match de ce soir face au Lightning. 📝— Canadiens Montréal (@CanadiensMTL) December 28, 2019
The projected lines for tonight's game against the Lightning.#GoHabsGo pic.twitter.com/1QeUiwaZJj
Tuesday, 17 December 2019
Game 34: Canadiens 3, Canucks 1
La formation projetée du match de ce soir face aux Canucks. 📝— Canadiens Montréal (@CanadiensMTL) December 18, 2019
The projected lines for tonight's game against the Canucks.#GoHabsGo pic.twitter.com/LU4Qrt7U5V
Les règlements de la LNH prévoient que si une punition est décernée entre le moment où un hors-jeu aurait dû être appelée et le but qui a mené à une contestation, la punition demeure en vigueur et doit être écoulée.— Marc Antoine Godin (@MAGodin) December 18, 2019
Règlement 38.7. pic.twitter.com/kJpJgugsvD
— Scott Matla (@scottmatla) December 18, 2019
— Here's Your Replay ⬇️ (@HeresYourReplay) December 18, 2019
Friday, 13 December 2019
New Colisée in Trois-Rivières won't host Canadiens farm team
Sounds like the chances of an ECHL club in Trois-Rivières are dead.— Andrew Zadarnowski (@AZadarski) December 13, 2019
Radio Canada reports that the mayor unilaterally rejected the application. His preference for a QMJHL team is known.https://t.co/bWBb7NkwBZ
Tuesday, 10 December 2019
Game 31: Canadiens 4, Penguins 1
The Canadiens won this one 4-1, although the score doesn't quite reflect a closely-contested game.
La formation projetée du match de ce soir face aux Penguins.— Canadiens Montréal (@CanadiensMTL) December 10, 2019
The projected lines for tonight's game against the Penguins.#GoHabsGo pic.twitter.com/kEsF3BhJga
Les #Penguins ce soir:— Chantal Machabee (@ChantalMachabee) December 11, 2019
Guentzel-Malkin-Rust;
Kahun-McCann-Simon;
Galchenyuk-Lafferty-Noesen;
Aston Reese-Blueger-Tanev.
Letang-Marino;
Johnson-Schultz;
Pettersson-Ruhwedel.
Jarry
Murray.
And the Canadiens responded in kind, they'd collapse around their net, I saw a few defenders sprawled on the ice à la Hal Gill, the whole thing had a faint whiff of Jacques Martin.
Carey is out of his November funk, seemingly at the top of his game. He's flashing the leather, he's skating around his net handling the puck and dishing it off, he's making things look easy. He's worth every penny.
And how about that Shea Weber wraparound goal, à la Larry Robinson, 'à l'emporte pièce'?
I don't think I've ever seen that kind of mobility from the Man Mountain. Maybe he's thinking that he has to take matters in his own hands these days, that the team is a little fragile, that Max Domi and Jonathan Drouin are MIA and the offence has to come from somewhere other than Gally's stick.
Saturday, 23 November 2019
Game 23: Canadiens 5, Rangers 6
La formation projetée du match de ce soir face aux Rangers.— Canadiens Montréal (@CanadiensMTL) November 23, 2019
The projected lines for tonight's game against the Rangers.#GoHabsGo pic.twitter.com/lQyZtwatz5
(Francois Gagnon: Un autre petit match facile…)
Carey Price is starting, will be starting the rest of the way the whole season no doubt. Keith Kincaid's relegated to puerile tweet duty.
The big news today was that Max Domi's pout about being shunted to the wing was rewarded by the Canadiens' head coach. He's back at centre on the second line, and Nick Suzuki gets pushed to the right wing.
1st PERIOD:
--Sure enough, Max Domi, who I was going to enjoin to put out, to turn it up a notch, well, he scores in the first couple of minutes, assisted by Nick Suzuki and lightweight (on the scoresheet) Artturi Lehkonen.
Canadiens 1, Rangers 0
--Gary Galley says, commenting on the absence of Tomas Tatar after a percussive bodycheck by Chris Kreider (him again...), "the Canadiens have more depth than ever". Really Gary? More depth than in the 70s with the stacked Junior de Montréal and Nova Scotia Voyageurs teams? More depth than the 80s when guys like Sergio Momesso, Claude Lemieux, Stéphane Richer, Brian Skrudland and Mike Keane among others would arrive from the LHJMQ or the Sherbrooke Canadiens and step right into the lineup?
It really should be a requirement to have basic critical thinking and language skills to be allowed to hold a microphone on air. The housecleaning at Sportsnet, while mostly being about their bottom line with the disastrous NHL broadcast rights contract they (and we the public) are stuck with, is not over, not by a longshot. Nick Kypreos, Doug MacLean and Don Cherry, goodbye good riddance, but there's a lot of deadwood there still.
--I cracked wise about Artturi, right? Well, he just scored too, on a decent line-rush snipe. Not sure the Rangers goalie is long for this game? Two goals he didn't look great on already, halfway through the first.
Canadiens 2, Rangers 0
--Tomas Tatar is back on the ice later in the 1st period, so no major damage after the Kreider hit I guess.
--Joel Armia and Nick Suzuki both tried a wrist shot on Alexandar Georgiev, when the latter was set and unscreened. He plucked both muffins out of the air with his catcher, with ease. We need guys who can rifle the puck.
--Max Domi racks up another goal, a nice screened shot, well-timed from the high slot. Right at the end of the period too, with thirty seconds left.
Canadiens 3, Rangers 0
2nd PERIOD
--The Canadiens, buzzing around the Rangers zone as if they were on the powerplay, make it 4-0, on a big slap shot by Shea Weber. Again, though screened, Georgiev didn't look great, letting a puck dribble through him.
Canadiens 4, Rangers 0
--The shutout is dead. The Rangers get two quick goals back, on line rushes. Maybe the Canadiens eased off a tad, thinking this one was in the bag?
Canadiens 4, Rangers 2
Gary Galley is already openly-cheering for the comeback. Once a dirty Bruin, always a dirty Bruin.
--Brendan Lemieux, that turd, scores on the powerplay. Gary Galley can hardly contain himself.
Canadiens 4, Rangers 3
--The Canadiens, not quite done shooting themselves in the foot, go on the penalty kill, and then Ben Chiarot accidentally clears the puck over the glass and they go 3-on-5. They do manage to kill it off.
3rd PERIOD
--The sloppy game continues in the third. Snipey Lehkonen put in another nice shot to put the Canadiens up by two goals and maybe settle this game down five minutes in, but no, the Rangers score another thirty seconds later, and then tie the game up on a shorthanded two-on-one rush. Brendan Lemieux again.
Canadiens 5, Rangers 5
--And sure, why not, Jacob Trouba floats in a wrister from the blue line, and it gets through Carey Price, screened as he was by Kreider and Jeff Petry.
Time to think some dark thoughts...
Canadiens 5, Rangers 6
--I guess that's what life is like, when you cheer on a team with an erratic goalie? 6 goals on 32 shots against usually rock-solid Carey. His counterpart, who we sniffed at earlier, has let in 5 on 40. So far. The way this is going, these teams could pump in another four or five, easy.
--Canadiens fail to convert on a powerplay, a too-many-men penalty against the Rangers. 4 minutes to go.
--Turns out, this one isn't "facile", even against the lowly Rangers. Claude Ruel was a sage.
--Canadiens pull Carey with two minutes to go and a won faceoff in the offensive zone. They get a few shots off, Georgiev smothers the puck for a whistle. Timeout Canadiens, with slightly less than a minute to go.
--The Domi line, which has been hot tonight, gets the last shift, wins the faceoff. Brendan Lemieux takes a shot at the empty net, trying to finish the hat trick, misses. Icing. Please please please make him pay...
--No dice. Petry shot stopped by Georgiev. 27 seconds left.
--The boys are going to be skating at practice tomorrow. Or Monday, most probably, Sunday is usually their CBA-mandated scheduled day off. Claude Julien must love that.
The Rangers close it out, 6-5 final. The tattered scattered remnants of HIO will hang Marc Bergevin in effigy. I might brandish a desultory pitchfork in the background.
(Eric Engels: Canadiens’ defensive issues the root of ‘unacceptable’ loss to Rangers)