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Preparing to Weather the Storm |
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Twice a season, the Habs pose for their traditional team picture. Today, it was time for the early season edition. Both Cale Fleury and Nick Suzuki were featured on it but judging by the lines at practice, one can wonder if they won't be making their way down to Laval soon. Notice anything weird on the team picture?
Yup, there's a gaping hole between Paul Byron and Claude Julien...no, it's not that the head coach stinks but just that Marc Bergevin was nowhere to be seen. I guess he will be photoshopped in at a later date.
Once the photo was over and done with, Julien and co. ran an intense practice which focused a lot on the special unit. According to TSN's John Lu, these were the lines:
It should be noted that Suzuki was actually alternating with Kotkaniemi on line rushes and it looks like he will be watching tomorrow's game from the press box. Giving how fast and lethal the Lightning can be, this is not really surprising but the thing is that a young player needs to play to learn... As I've mentioned a few times since the start of the season, Suzuki cannot keep up with the pace of the regular season games with line-ups full of proper NHL players. It will be interesting to see if the Habs brass decides to send him to Laval to play sooner rather than later and the same can be said for Cale Fleury.
A lot of work was put in at practice on the special unit, the penalty kill has been abysmal thus far this season and this needs to be addressed as soon as possible. The power play units deployed raised a few eyebrows today until Arpon Basu pointed out that it's the penalty kill that was getting a workout and not the power play, hence why the likes of Nick Cousins and Mike Reilly were on the man advantage:
Tomorrow's visitors at the Bell Centre, the Tampa Bay Lightning, are having an underwhelming start to the regular season with 5 points in 5 games. It's safe to say that John Cooper expects a lot more of his men and he worked them hard at practice today. After being beaten 4-2 by the Sens on Saturday night, we can fully expect them to come out swinging at puck drop.
It's also worth mentioning that the Canadiens' first pick last draft is having a great start to his College career in the NCAA with 4 goals and one assist in 2 games. Yes, it's a small sample and it's only college but still, hard to say that this is not encouraging!
I'll also add that the Laval Rocket finally got its first win of the season today with a 3-1 win over the Ice Hogs while Charles Hudon got his second goal of the season and both Ryan Poehlin and Otto Leskinen got 2 assists. Those were Poehling's first two points in the AHL and hopefully, it will open the floodgates for him.
Enjoy the game against Tampa Bay tomorrow night, I'll be in attendance and probably will not be able to blog about it until Wednesday lunch time.
Montreal Canadiens Blogger • 
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