The Montreal Canadiens season is mercifully near its end, but before the healing can begin there is likely a couple more lashings to be served this weekend.
The Canadiens, 27th in the NHL, will meet Crosby and the Penguins Saturday night in Pittsburgh before jetting home to face Taylor Hall and the New Jersey Devils.
Easy weekend ahead.
The Pens come into the game at 2nd place in the Metro Div. and 5th in the East. They are 5-3-2 in their last 10 but I have to wonder if they aren’t already focused on the postseason, regardless of the canned comments players and coaches with push out after games.
Their first round opponents will be one of their division rivals in CBJ, NJ, PHI, or even WASH (if they fall to the 7th WC spot). All teams they likely know pretty well and all teams that could slide all over the place in the final week or so of the season. Well, aside from Washington.
The Pens might be working on gameplay specifics that they know will help come playoff time and I doubt they will be emotionally invested in a match against the Habs.
The Devils on Sunday will likely be tough ride for the Canadiens.
New Jersey will be on the second half of their own B2B set that starts with the NYI Saturday and ends with the Habs on Sunday.
The Devils are currently sitting in 8th with 3 points on the 9th place Florida Panthers, but the Panthers have a game in hand.
Should the Devils sweep their weekend games it’s would almost assure them a playoff position. These games are crucial for the Devils and will likely be preached as the culmination of their bounce back season.
Much more on the line and much more emotion should be expected from NJ Sunday. Habs better be prepared if they don’t want to get pantsed on home ice.
Draft Position Could Improve
After this weekends set of games the schedule doesn’t get much easier.
What could have been a few great pre-playoff tests will unfortunately be a 3 game grind against 2 playoff teams and a draft lotto rival.
The Habs will close out the final 3 games against Winnipeg, Detroit, and Toronto.
There’s a fairly good chance they beat the Red Wings as they are some equals this season but the two games against the Jets and Leafs look rough.
All in all, I feel that the Habs are likely to only see 2-4 points out of their final 5 games.
With VAN, OTT, and PHO winning lately and being within 1-3 points back of MTL it’s entirely possible that the Habs could find themselves slipping a spot or three lower before the clock strikes midnight on this season to forget. #Optimism?
The closer they can get to bottom through playing out these games the better as even in the worst case scenario where they move back 2-3 spots from lotto winners behind them moving up, they will still be in a position to land an elite prospect.
As it stands today they are in a position to land someone like Wahlstrom, Bouchard, or even Boqvist. All of which have massive potential and I listed them in my current order of preference. Actually my preference would be to land Wahlstrom AND Bouchard, basically rebuilding your team in one draft but I doubt the Habs will be able to get another top 10 pick to do so.
As it stands today it would be a very tough decision but I would be on Bergevin’s love of defenseman to force him to take Bouchard. Not that it would be a bad thing. Bouchard looks like a potential #1 D in the vein of Provorov or Ekblad. No complaints here.
But I digress. I’m getting a bit ahead of myself.
Let’s see what these last 5 games bring and then we can shift to draft and prospect talk.
Go Habs Go!