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Preseason Game 4: Habs vs Senators |
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Prior to yesterday's contest in Ottawa, the Canadiens started trimming their roster and announced the following players had been cut: Morgan Adams-Moisan, Connor LaCouvee, Ryan Culkin, David Sklenicka, William Pelletier, Nikita Jevpalovs, Joe Cox, Antoine Waked, Michael Pezzetta, Alexandre Alain, Hayden Verbeek, Michael McNiven, Maxim Lamarche and Lukas Vejdemo. you'd be hard pressed to try and find someone who's demotion is a surprise amongst this group but as training camp enters week 2, it's time to move on to serious business.
Clearly, the Senators hadn't gotten the memo that it was time to get serious since their compete level was almost non existant early on in yesterday's game, at least in the first two period since after 40 minutes, the Canadiens were leading shots wise 29-14 and 2-0 on the scoreboard. It's not that the Habs didn't try their hardest to get the Sens into the game, taking 3 successive penalties in the first period alone but since the Sens hardly managed to shoot during those power plays, scoring would have been a miracle.
While the Sens couldn't shoot or score though, they could take penalties and for once, the Canadiens power play was actually working. It might only have been a preseason game but it's still worth mentioning that the man advantage unit was actually flawless last night scoring 3 power play goals in as many opportunities. That's the kind of night that must have made Kirk Muller, the power play coach, rather happy. Both of the man advantage units managed to score and while last night's line-up didn't exactly include every regular player, there was a fair amount of regulars deployed on the power-play. The first wave included Weal, Danault, Armia, Hudon (at the point) and Jeff Petry. As for the second wave it featured Reilly, Tatar, Kotkaniemi, Barber and Chiarot.
Once again, there were some bright spots worth noting:
Keith Kinkaid: the Senators might have slept for the first two period but they did wake up in the third to complete the game with 27 shots. When called upon, Kinkaid was ready. His positioning and puck tracking was good and so was his decision making which allowed him to venture quite a way from his net when his defence needed it. In the end, it was a well deserved shutout and Kinkaid sure knows how to put his coach and fans' minds at ease.
Nick Suzuki: I know, I am repeating myself but once again Suzuke performed rather well in what was his first shot playing alongside Tatar and Drouinl The 3 were able to put on a great show and created several chances. There's no doubt that Suzuki is aware of the opportunity he has been given and he intents to make the most of it. He could reach Danault and Tatar without even looking for them and he also has the good sense to move back and cover for the blue liners who joined the attack. He was also used on both the power play and the penalty kill, I said it yesterday but I'll say it again, if I'm Jonathan Drouin, I'm starting to worry.
Jake Evans: He once again made the most of the limited ice time he received (11:39) and managed to notch a point, 3 shots and 1 hit. the 23 year old was picked in the 7th round in 2014 and he is forcing Julien and co. to take a long hard look at him.
With that 4-0 win in Ottawa, the Habs preseason record is also 4-0 and we can only hope that this splendid form continues come regular season.
This morning, the Habs announced that both Cayden Primeau and Otto Leskinen had been cut and sent to Laval in the AHL. It could have been interesting to see Primeau goal a first game but there wasn't much point keeping him around given the fact that the back-up job is already Keith Kinkaid's.
Right now, the Canadiens still have 39 players at camp and we should expect some more cuts sooner rather than later. The Canadiens will be back on the ice on Monday to face the Maple Leafs and it will be interesting to see who Claude Julien picks to face them.
Montreal Canadiens Blogger • 
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