At long last, the All-Star break and the bye week are a thing of the past and the Canadiens will be back on the ice tomorrow afternoon at 14:00 to face the New jersey Devils. If you recall, they shall be doing so without goaltender Carey Price who serves a one game suspension for refusing to go to the ASG (after Bergevin told him not to go). A few things did happen during the hiatus and here are the most important ones....
While the Habs were resting this week, the Bruins played 2 games which means that both teams have played the same amount of matches. What does that mean? Well, it means that both teams have the same amount of points 61 points in 51 games. The Habs are in the first wildcard spot while Boston is currently 3rd in the Atlantic division since the Bruins have 2 more OT losses. Goes to show that games in hand really don't mean much, you still have to win those for them to matter and that's always easier said than done.
Also worthy of note is the fact that Andrew Shaw is now back at practice. He was in a baby blue no contact sweater on Thursday but had a full contact practice today. He won't be back in the line-up this weekend but he's definitely getting closer, he's aiming to be back on Tuesday. The lines are practice were as follows yesterday:
Drouin - Danault - Gallagher Tatar - Domi - Byron Lehkonen - Kotkaniemi - Armia Agostino - Chaput - Shaw Hudon - Peca - Deslauriers
Mete - Weber Reilly - Petry Kulak - Benn Alzner
Price Niemi
It will be interesting to see who will have to bow out once Shaw is ready to return. The way he played before the injury, there's no doubt that Claude Julien will want him back in the line-up. Montreal will also be able to count on Paul Byron tomorrow since he's done serving his 3 game suspension.
Last week, Ron Fournier said that Noah Juulsen was still having vision trouble after getting hit in the face twice by pucks in the same game and that it looked like the injury could be career threatening. Yesterday, Sportsnet's Eric Engels said that he tried to get the Canadiens' comments on the situation but that they would neither confirm or deny. Of course, all that did was to spark even more curiosity and today, the issued a rather short medical update. Juulsen is indeed having vision issues and will remain sidelined for an indefinite period of time. They do go on to say that they expect him to make a full recovery however. Fingers crossed this does sorts itself out for Juulsen he has showed a lot of potential this year and the Canadiens cannot afford to lose defence players in that manner.
Finally, as previously mentioned, Price cannot suit up tomorrow and the Habs have called back Michael McNiven to act as Niemi's backup while simultaneously sending Karl Alzner down to Laval (this means that they will save their last emergency recall before the trade deadline).
Back tomorrow after that game, until then, enjoy the start of your weekend!