With All Leadership Injured/Gone, Baby Habs Have A Chance To Impress (pacioretty)

pacioretty

With All Leadership Injured/Gone, Baby Habs Have A Chance To Impress

By Brandon Smillie

Mar 5, 2018 • 1:02 pm

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The Montreal Canadiens received some more devastating news in a season where devastating news has become a monthly tradition. Captain Max Pacioretty and rookie stand out Victor Mete will both likely miss the remainder of the season due to injury.

Pacioretty will be sidelined due to a hip injury and Mete due to a broken finger. Both injuries occurred during the same game March 2nd against the NY Islanders.

The injury to Pacioretty will leave Montreal with its best pure shooter (or is that becoming Galchenyuk and/or Drouin?) and its leading point scorer since 2011-2012. The season that keeps on giving….

Losing Mete essentially robs the youngster of the opportunity to hone his trade in the remaining games which would really have been figuring out his next course of action for summer training.

Both losses sting hard and possibly more so when you consider that Pacioretty is likely moved this offseason. It’s a disappointing end to an era for a player that always did his best for the Canadiens despite constantly being saddled with less than ideal centers.

Max will be in Habs history as #29th overall in points, just ahead of Doug Harvey, and 19th in goals, just behind the recently traded (and likely re-signed) T Plekanec.

Pacioretty has had a regrettable season by his standards and with the Canadiens in need of a quick injection of top end prospects, Pacioretty is the Canadiens best trade chip. The contract due after next season would likely be something the Canadiens wouldn’t have the appetite for, especially if they want to make a big push for impending UFA’s *cough-Tavares-cough*…. Pardon me.

Max will likely score 30+ for the next few seasons where ever he ends up, and I hope he finds success, but the Canadiens needs to acquire that elite potential C now with the number of fine young wingers currently on the team. These players need a creative C who will help them all succeed and outside of NCAA standout R Poehling there isn’t anyone in the system that looks up to that challenge. The centerman must be brought in and the timing of this absolute waste of a season, with Pacioretty’s incoming contract negotiations, seems almost as if it was meant to be.

Could the Canadiens trade Pacioretty and re-sign him after next season? For sure, we already believe Plekanec wants back in and if Pacioretty loves the team and city then perhaps he will return as well, but that can’t cloud the reality of the Canadiens needs right now. It’s the unfortunate consequence of being unable to draft and cultivate a Centerman during Bergevin’s tenure.

D men, wingers, and goalies? The Habs have been pretty good at drafting those.

C’s? Nope.

With the likelihood of the Canadiens drafting in the top 5-6 this summer we will have a player that could possibly play next season at F or D, but not likely a Centerman. It will be either a elite PMD or an elite scoring winger and without a proper C to work with them, it will simply be an issue that continues to limit the team.

So Max must go… for now.

LEADERSHIP SIDELINED GIVES US A CHANCE TO SEE WHO TAKES CHARGE

Now, I know that the Canadiens aren’t completely without leadership. B Gallagher is likely playing through something right now that would keep any one of us reading in bed for a week and he is continuing to lead by example with his play.

Aside from Gallagher though the team is now playing and practicing without Weber, Price, Pacioretty, and the recently traded Plekanec (who is doing a great job submarining the Leafs at the moment #SleeperCell).

This is a great opportunity for Galchenyuk and Drouin to build on the momentum they have been creating the last couple months. A chance to help the kids, even though they are kids themselves, and see themselves thrust into leadership roles out of necessity and roles they haven’t seen since junior hockey.

It’s a great chance for a new comer like Karl Alzner to work with a guy like Juulsen, Reilly, and Valiev. Benn, Schlemko, and Petry are the oldest players on the team, outside the crease, at 30 (?!) and this is a great opportunity for them to find a new motivation for the season in helping the kids stay focused and professional.

In a league like the NHL and with a team like the Canadiens there should never be anyone just packing it in and checking out. Injuries have forced some guys out but the ones that remain better be focused on the betterment of the team and that means taking care of the young players in this stretch run to the offseason.

Somewhat surprisingly, we are seeing that the youth the Habs have are hungry and play with speed. The Canadiens are 3-0-4 in their last 7 games and despite them kind of wrecking their chances at a top 3 pick out the gate after game 82 its very encouraging to see the players like Scherbak, Hudon (although injured), Deslauriers, and Danault still battling hard.

The Juulsen call up has been really good so far as well with the young D man playing almost 20 minutes a game over his first 6 games and already having scored his 1st NHL goal with a bomb from the point against the Islanders March 2nd. He’s also a +3 and has only taken 1 minor penalty, which is really telling for a player that is known to be a tough player. I commend him for his discipline so far. He keeps this up and his name on the roster next season goes from pencil to ink.

The addition of M Reilly for a 5th round pick looks really go so far. Reilly came in with a great background of being a point producing, puck moving defenceman with speed in College and at the AHL level. Minnesota’s depth was Montreal’s gain this trade deadline as the 24 year old, 6’02… left shooting D man has already put up 2 assists in 3 games and has also averaged about 20 minutes a game.

They say you need to see an NHL D man play at least 200-250 games before you know what they are at the highest level. Reilly has 87 games of NHL experience and 4 G and 16 A to go with it. There is still almost 2 seasons worth of development at the NHL level before we will know what the Canadiens possess here, but its looking like its fair to say Reilly could be a steal and could help fill a void on the left side.

People are loving their Bergevin Bashing lately but bottom line is the guy did well at the trade deadline and didn’t make a bad trade for Pacioretty just for the sake of making a trade. All the while he extracted a good pick and assets out of Toronto for the teams highest paid, and oldest, forward in Plekanec, while managing to turn J Morrow into a 4th rounder while also acquiring a better D man (In my opinion, of course) in Reilly.

There was no panic, not like the beginning of the season when we saw the Habs acquire Hemsky and Streit which was likely Bergevin’s worst stretch of his time in Montreal. Since then the Canadiens have made quality moves, even if they were puzzling to me at the time (Deslauriers and Niemi. I’ll have a double order of crow for the way I responded to those moves).

Have faith Habs faithful, the future is literally here with the addition of another blue chip this draft and another in any Pacioretty deal. This turnaround could be pretty quick next season.

Go Habs Go!

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