Habs In Philly for Super Bowl Parade + Saad To MTL? + Weber & Danault News (pacioretty)

pacioretty

Habs In Philly for Super Bowl Parade + Saad To MTL? + Weber & Danault News

By Brandon Smillie

Feb 8, 2018 • 7:52 am

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The Canadiens head into Philadelphia tonight to take on the Flyers at 7pm on the Wells Fargo Center ice.

Needless to say, this game won’t be the talk of the town tonight with the Super Bowl Champion Philadelphia Eagles parade today, but maybe some will bring some of their football enthusiasm to the rink tonight.

The Flyers come into the game winners of their previous game, a 2-1 OT win over the Carolina Hurricanes on Feb. 6, but losers of the 4 before said win (0-3-1). They are fighting for a Wild Card spot in the East as they currently sit 7th with 59 points, but they have Columbus (58), NY Islanders (58), and Carolina (57) all really close behind them.

They are in a fight for playoffs and getting some huge performances this season from team point leaders Voracek (62), Giroux (58), and Couturier (51). They are also watching young stars Konecny (25 pts), Provorov (25 pts), and Patrick (13 pts) grow into impact players (I also own all 3 players in my keeper league).

The Flyers have done well by the draft lately with the three young players mentioned above and definitely are fans of the current Draft Lotto set up as last season they moved up from 13th to 2nd overall to be gifted the incredibly talented N Patrick. Fans of the Canadiens should hope to find the Habs as fortunate as the Flyers were last year heading into the 2018 NHL Draft.

Montreal may surprise the Flyers if they think they are heading into an easy night as the Habs currently rank 7th in the NHL on the Power Play after going 5/10 on the PP in back to back wins against the Senators and Ducks. The Flyers however are rocking a 29th overall rank on the Penalty Kill so if the Canadiens can stay disciplined and the Flyers cross a few lines this game could be very entertaining to watch.

WEBER SKATES WITH DANAULT

Great to see Weber and Danault skating before the Habs practice as both players are key to the Canadiens team and you don’t want to see injuries linger too long.

Weber may have been given a longer timetable as he is too important to the core of the team to have play through injuries in a season that was over around Christmas 2017. I hope thats the case as it would be worrying to think he simply couldn’t put on a skate this entire time. The team has released really no info other than it was a foot injury that wasn’t healing as quick as they hoped. If his foot had a fracture, the by all mean, heal fully before pushing anything.

With Danault it’s more of a relief to see him getting closer to return after taking a Chara snap shot off the bucket. There isn’t much faith in Danault being anything more than a 3rd line C in the NHL from some of the fanbase, but I think Danault has fantastic #2 C potential and has perform better in each of his first few seasons in the NHL so far.

To see him getting healthy without any concussion setbacks is relieving to me, to say the least.

Hemsky and A Shaw remain out.

GALLAGHER EXPLAINS POWER PLAY SUCCESS

In the above linked article on the Montreal Canadiens official website is a thoughtful quote from one of best, if not the best current Canadien player, Brendan Gallagher. He goes on to explain why the PP is having greater success lately with the quote below.

"If I had to point to one thing, it would probably be our puck retrievals. We're getting a lot of loose pucks back, and it's creating second and third opportunities. Whenever you can hem the penalty-killers in, the more opportunities you get to put the puck in the zone, the more chances you're going to have to score. It's been paying off, we've been making some good shots. The recoveries of the pucks have led to that.…

Great insight from Gallagher and the way to win games is winning puck battles so clearly the team has put an emphasis on being more Gallagher-like on the puck and its working.

Gallager, in addition to being the Canadiens goal scoring leader this season with 18, has 2 G and 4 A in his last 6 games.

Possibly the next Captain of the Canadiens folks, and he would definitely be a respected one.

EKLUND SAYS HABS TALKING TO CHICAGO ABOUT B SAAD

I’m a big Saad fan actually and think he’s a fantastic, all around player. He shows potential for more offence, but unfortunately hasn’t been able to past his career high 53 points. Saad has produced 53 points in each of the previous two seasons in Columbus (despite probably being a bit underused by Coach Tortorella).

The last 3 seasons he has scored 23, 31, and 24 goals and the year before his career high of 53 pts he put up 52 points.

Now, he played with some pretty good players on these Chicago and Columbus teams, I won’t argue that. A deal to Montreal may give the Habs a fantastic player, but the Habs C depth issue may mean that 50 points would be huge out of Saad. But also, last year he was used in the bottom 6 a lot and only had 3 PP points (1G, 2A). With better deployment he likely hits 60 points just with more PP time and production. The potential is there for Saad, but what would be the price for the 25 year old LW who’s signed for 3 more seasons after this one at a $6 cap hit?

I definitely wouldn’t complain if the Habs replaced Plekanec’s cap hit with Saad’s but I have kind of thrown my support behind trading one asset (Pacioretty) for multiple assists (top prospect or two and a 1st round pick). If the talk is Pacioretty straight up for Saad then I’m not really on board.

I’m not saying it wouldn’t be a win for MTL, it would. They get younger, similar production, cap certainty in Saad. My hope is the Canadiens wait until the deadline wire on Pacioretty and drive the price through the roof for a team that is a contender, but is now reacting to other teams around them who may have picked off rentals like Nash or E Kane and have to pay the established market price.

It would be wiser of the GM to work out a deal for the best available F option in Pacioretty and set the market since the rumored asking prices for Kane and Nash is a top prospect and a 1st round pick +. IF Kane is dealt, and not signed, for that asking price then the cost for Pacioretty could rise and that’s simply how sellers will react to the market. It will throw all negotiations for a loop.

It would be wise to avoid that and simply pay a fair price for your chance at the Stanley Cup for a signed goal scorer.

So, yes I would like Saad on the Habs. No, I wouldn’t want to deal Pacioretty for him straight up despite it being a good deal for MTL as they could turn the Captain into multiple high end assets that simply haven’t hit the NHL yet.

Go Habs Go!

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