While the players enjoy what will hopefully be a short offseason, there are still news happening in Habsland. On August 29th, Jonathan Drouin held the third edition of his golf tournament in Laval-sur-le-Lac for the CHUM Foundation. Even with the pandemic, it was a success and $500 000 were raised. It was also great to see Guy Lafleur at the event considering it wasn’t even a year ago that he had to go through a heart procedure closely followed by another operation aimed at removing cancerous cells from his lungs. The even almost made the headlines because Jonathan Drouin was asked to comment the Max Domi situation. The Habs’ left winger said the following:
“Yeah, it’s the Montreal market once again, last year he was our best player with 72 points… Impatience should go down a bit, you know he was our best player last year, everyone wanted to sign him for 8 years at 9 million and now they all want to get rid of him. I don’t like to talk about it, I don’t want to completely speak my mind, but people need to realize that he’s an excellent player and you can’t find those everywhere.”
Drouin even retweeted the following on his page:
I’ll admit that I was surprised by that table. Of course, the first year made for most of Domi’s points but overall, he’s still ahead of some very big names.
It was Marc Bergevin’s turn to make the headlines on Tuesday when the team announced a trade with the Blues in which the Sainte-Flanelle acquired Jake Allen. Considering I’ve blogged about it earlier this week, I don’t feel the need to add much on the matter aside from the fact that Bergevin is off to a great start and I’m looking forward to seeing what comes next. He also signed Lukas Vejdemo to a new one year, two-way contract. The big forward (six-foot-two, 196 pounds – that’s big in Habs terms) gathered 19 point in 47 contest in Laval. He also took part in 7 games with the Canadiens, getting his first goal on March 10th against the Nashville Predators in what turned out to be the last game of the season for the Habs.
Finally this week, Arpon Basu wrote an interesting piece about the Habs first pick at the last draft, Cole Caufield. As you know, the Canadiens had already decided that it was better for Caufield’s development to spend another year developing with the Badgers of Wisconsin University before turning pro but the pandemic might throw a wrench in that plan. There’s still not decision on whether or not the Big 10 season will take place and if the season is called off, a decision will have to be made in Caufield’s case. Basu’s piece tells us that even though a season in the OHL could be possible, the youngster is not interested and thinks that it would be a step backwards for him. You can kind of see his point since he played last season with and against older guys while the majority of the LHJMQ players are younger than him, but it would still be better than a season without hockey. While Montreal didn’t think he was ready to turn pro, he did use his time wisely during the pandemic, training alongside other US development team program players and alumni. He spent time both on ice and in the gym and added 5 pounds of muscle to his frame. It remains to be seen if that could sway the Habs to sign him to a pro contract and assign him to Laval (if the AHL does have a season) or even give him a shot at the big time. For now though, he’s back in Wisconsin, waiting to see if there will in fact by a season and by the look of his Instagram, he’s not too worried about Covid-19.
Montreal Canadiens Blogger • 
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