The Habs showed some guts the last two games by first beating an incredibly downtrodden Buffalo Sabres team 3-0 on Friday night.
Niemi must get a heap of credit for being tossed around the NHL in his career twilight only to land on a miserably underachieving and depleted Canadiens squad and giving an incredible effort. With the 25 shut out of his career he has probably secured himself another NHL contract, whether it’s with the Canadiens or elsewhere.
The shut out, Niemi’s 25th of his career, puts his Montreal totals through 17 games at 6-4-4 with a .936 SP% and 2.25 GAA. Niemi has given the Canadiens the safety net they need to let the youth develop and make mistakes along the way.
Kudos to him for going from cast off to challenging his own career highs in SP% and GAA, admittedly in a much lighter seasons workload.
The Canadiens followed that game up with a hard fought game against one of the leagues top teams. What ended up being a 6-4 loss to the Washington Capitals gave us a look at a couple key points to next season: Team Defense (specifically on the back end, and yes I know they are very banged up) and Young Scorers.
ICYMI, despite a strong start, the Canadiens lost to the Capitals last night.
— Canadiens Montréal (@CanadiensMTL) March 25, 2018
ðŸŽ¥âž¡ï¸ https://t.co/ibbvRuh6Ae #GoHabsGo
The team defense point is kind of difficult to give a reasonable perspective on as I’m thinking we will see a trade of one Petry, Benn, or Schlemko with the latter two being the most likely. The additions of Mete, Reilly, Juulsen, and Vailev in season kind of put that writing on the wall, in my humble opinion. Two to three of them should be on the roster next season with the 6-7 guys being bounced around from Laval to Montreal.
Considering there could be another move on D coming with trades or free agency I would think we are very likely to see another D core overhaul before the 2018-2019 season.
The young scorers on the team have had this season to build their skills and lately we are seeing some of the prime strugglers like Hudon, Lehkonen, Scherbak, and even Drouin have been showing clear signs of progress late into this season and you have to see that as a positive going forward.
"I’m not too worried about being too statistically-minded. I’m just worrying about the next shot and trying to have fun out there."
— Canadiens Montréal (@CanadiensMTL) March 25, 2018
- Carey Price
ðŸŽ™âž¡ï¸ https://t.co/lTyIwiiOZm #GoHabsGo
Not every young player can be a Boeser or Barzal. Look no further than the annually struggling Coyotes and D Strome. Here’s a team that needs good players, yet aren’t rushing their current top prospect. Now everyone knows Strome has skills but lacks skating ability. They have been waiting on him for 2 seasons now, but they aren’t willing to give up yet because the NHL is hard and everyone develops differently.
At the draft the talking heads and media types try to tell you Player X is like Karlsson or a young J Thornton. Or how about hands like Patrick Kane? So they get you pumped to thinking your prospect is coming in hot and realistically they are 2-4 years away from a regular NHL shift, if at all and if they commit their life to the sport.
The Habs have been waiting on the Hudon’s, Scherbak’s, Lehkonen’s and De la Rose’s for 4 years and this was pretty much their chance to start their NHL careers. The fact that in a lost year, lacking big NHL cornerstones and leaders, they have been showing consistency in their play against some pretty good teams speaks volumes.
Yes, it’s a lost season with less playoff pressure, but the kids face another pressure established guys with million dollar contracts don’t and that’s trying to stick in the league. A league that is moving towards a cycle of recycling the old dogs into young legs and quickly, like the NFL. The game is being modified for teams to take greater control of young players earlier when they are more cost controlled so they should realize this is a great chance to make it in one of the NHL's biggest spotlights.
These kids are showing promise now with this opportunity and any improvements made to the center ice position should be exemplified big time next season. Not to mention the possible auditions for J Evans and W Bitten (both Centers)
I will say there should be a similar effect on the young defensemen like Mete, Juulsen, and Reilly next season with a healthy, and likely angry, Shea Weber in the lineup showing them what it takes to be one of the best. It will be fantastic for their development.
After that we all just have to believe Price will bounce back to being Price-like and we will likely be battling for a playoff spot next spring.
CANADIENS SIGN OHL OVERAGER HAYDEN VERBEEK TO ELC
The Habs dipped into the undrafted UFA pool grabbing spark plug C Hayden Verbeek as he begins his playoffs with top team Soo Greyhounds. The Greyhounds finished first in the OHL by a disgusting 24 points on second place Hamilton Bulldogs.
The Greyhounds had incredible production up front led by Morgan Frost (112 pts in 67 games) and Boris Katchouk (85 pts in 58 games). Verbeek finished the regular season with 67 games played, 30 goals, and 31 assists.
Verbeek’s addition was lauded by some Soo fans on social media who said he plays a gritty game and always seemed to make things happen for the team. Verbeek compares himself to a Gallagher/Marchand type player and that’s a couple of quality NHL’ers to aspire too.
His hockey blood lines run deep as well as he is the nephew of former NHL agitator Pat Verbeek. My concerns (from a strictly personal and statistical standpoint) is that the NHL fraternity runs deep and now the Habs have picked up a couple of players related to depth players of NHL’s past years in Rychel and now Verbeek. Not exactly players that scream potential top 6 scorers and that’s kind of what the Canadiens need. I’m always leary of the NHL relatives moves, but hopefully Verbeek proves to be more than an AHL type in the next couple years.
My other issue is that Verbeek was never a PPG player, and I mean never. Not even in AAA. I’m not sure how players who aren’t standouts in AAA project to an NHL regular unless they are perhaps related to someone who used to play and teams take chances on their bloodlines hoping they progress at the next level.
I just don’t see that in the numbers with Verbeek, who’s best season was this one during his overage year where he’s supposed to dominate and even with a clearly dominant team he couldn’t hit a PPG pace at almost 21 years old.
This is what concerns me, but perhaps this is a minor league move and I’m just like the rest of you in that I’m looking for a standout, impact player that was overlooked. I would be much more excited to see Schuldt sign an ELC with the Canadiens or even if they could sign their own prospect like J Evans. This signing, while possibly yielding a bottom 6 players in the next 2-3 years, is just one that I hope I am too far away from the inner workings to properly understand.
In what I have been reading about Verbeek he sounds like an energizer bunny type player with loads of character. I’m sure half the fanbase will be thrilled to hear that.
#Habs prospect Evans and Notre Dame moving on to the #FrozenFour https://t.co/EwqdOuFYTs
— Canadiens Prospects (@mtl_prospects) March 25, 2018
As always, I will gladly eat my words if a player brought in exceeds expectations, like I have with Deslauriers and Niemi.
Other than this folks, there isn’t much to chat about. I’ll try to save the draft talk for the end of the season at this point as it’s all we will likely have to talk about, and I do love draft time regardless of the Habs position.
Oh ya, Go Blue!!!
Michigan survives late collapse to cut down nets ahead of Final Four. https://t.co/aogtwdOqgZ pic.twitter.com/ACJgD5rjNY
— theScore (@theScore) March 25, 2018