TurdBurglar

About a week ago I saw a report saying Monahan was probably the most desirable center on the market because of his skill mixed with his cap hit. Skill wise Lindholm was the clear front runner, but many contending teams didn’t have cap space for him. Now Lindholm is off the market, especially this early, Monahan should get a nice little value boost. I don’t think a 1st or equivalent is out of the picture for him now. Would be nice to end up with 2 1st, or equivalent, and almost 2 years of service for a cap dump.

This is assuming the Flyers want rid of Hart. If they still view him as their guy, they might want to hold on to him in the small chance his personal leave doesn’t end the way we all think it will. I doubt they make any move on him until his situation is finalized. I also doubt any other team will touch him until then either. Even if it’s for cap reasons. If there’s any indication he will be charged, I’d imagine the suspension/termination process would move quickly to free up that cap space anyway. What I don’t know is if there’s any additional cap penalties for termination or suspension in a case like this.

My assumption from the statement would be potential now, as he said it was a young forward. Since Montreal is refusing to trade him, they obviously see more potential in Xhekaj than a bottom pair defensemen.

Pagnotta has also said it’s believed Montreal was offered a young NHL forward with second-line potential that was a former 1st round pick for Xhekaj. No more details were given.

It’s pretty deserved. Was an unnecessary dirty hit.

I thought the penalty on Evans was funny. He was being held, which wasn’t called, and when he grabbed the stick to free himself, he got called for holding the stick. That’s a botched call. It should of both been called, neither, or a penalty on the islanders. it the equivalent of being called for playing with a broken stick after immediately having your stick broke by a slash. Or being called for diving after being tripped. The second penalty was a result of the first penalty, but the second one is the only one called.

Yeah, there’s no defence for that hit. It was just plain dirty.

That was an interesting call on Evans. Getting called for holding the stick, which he did, while trying to free himself from a hold.

https://www.tsn.ca/hockey-canada/report-five-members-of-canada-s-2018-wjc-team-told-to-surrender-to-london-police-1.2066984 The TSN link for reference. It didn’t name any names.

That’s the catch-22 of rumour sites. They report fringe rumours for entertainment, or they try to be accurate and report very little. There really isn’t much in between. Even the more credible ones will report made up stories, like Seravalli’s Gibson rumour that sent Anaheim and Gibson into a PR tailspin.

According to Friedman, teams have contacted Montreal about Xhekaj since he's playing in the AHL now. Montreal have told those teams Xhekaj isn't available.

With the emergence of Slafkovsky with Suzuki and Caufield, Montreal has Newhook and Dach as suitors for 2nd line C. I would give Dach the edge in that department, as he’s shown flashes of a higher offensive ceiling and his size is nothing but and asset at center. I'm not so sure Zegras has a fit on the team unless it’s a great deal.

I doubt there will be a comeback, especially being the second game in a back-to-back. There’s also no way the score should be this close. if Montreal even pulls a point out of this it will be a miracle.

Considering Nashville was willing to give up their best prospect, one of the best goalie prospects in the NHL and more to get Reinbacher, I think you’re downplaying Reinbacher here a little.

While injuries have no doubt affected production of the entire team, as evidence of Montréal being 6th worse in the NHL. I do also believe it's a shift in coaching mentality. Especially CC, has been attempting to be more defensive this year. Offense will suffer when trying to be more defensive. As for his one-timer, I've noticed as the season goes on that they've moved away from the sole game plan of setting up CC's one-timer on the PP. This makes for less opportunities for Caufield, but an overall better PP. The PP is slightly better this year. I think CC's struggles are more of a result of developement than anything else. Similar to the sophomore slump you see in rookies.

When talking about trading Monahan, we seem to often leave out Montreal already received a first for him. So any return is just gravy really.

The real value of Monahan is going to be late in the day on deadline day or a team like Toronto or Edmonton without the cap space for the other centers come knocking. I know what you're thinking, neither of those teams will be looking for a center. You just have to remember it's Toronto and Edmonto who believe if they throw enough offense on the ice, the non-existant defense or goaltending doesn't matter. Don't forget last season where Toronto desperately needed defenceman or help in net above everything else and they went out and got Ryan O'Reilly, then couldn't afford to get anything to address their actual needs.

His numbers don't reflect how good of a season is having. A few games ago he had the lowest GAA in 5-on-5 play in the entire NHL. He's playing well enough that Montréal needs to have him start the bulk of games while Allen and Primeau split the available backup games. That's not the best for Allen or Primeau, but they need to stop punishing Montembeault because they can't find a suitable trade and sending one down will lose them for free.

I think you're assessment of Monahan is a little harsh. Despite injuries, he's always produced at a top-6 level. Last season, in the short sample size, he averaged 0.78 points/game. That's top-6 production on all but about 3 teams in the NHL. This season it has dipped to 0.59 points/game, but his struggles start after injuries started piling up and the rest of the team started a similar trend in production. Still, 0.59 point/game is the upper end of a third line player, which is roughly 50 pts in a full healthy season. He's also playing on a team with the 6th worse goals/game in the NHL. It's very reasonable to say on a better team his production would go up. Even a 10% boost in production is pushing him into the top-6 realm. I also want to point out while he's not a PK forward, his point production is hampered by Montréal popgun PP and his role in it. When he's on the ice on the PP, the puck cycles mainly through Suzuki, Matheson and Caufield. So he needs to wait to be passed to or make something happen for himself to produce points on the PP.

I doubt Montréal would have to retain to move Savard this year. Typically centers and RD are premium positions. They are always in demand and it's very hard for that market to get flooded. I would imagine with goalies is high demand this season that if Hughes uses the last retention slot on a non-expiring contract, it will be on Allen. The problem with any Allen trade is the longer it takes to make, the less desirable and return it will be in the current market.

Elliot Friedman said on his 32 Thoughts podcast that teams have said Montréal is asking for a 1st for Allen. He didn't make it clear if that was with or without retention.

To win gold? Maybe not, to win that game? Yeah they were. They were playing cute hockey. Cute passes, cute shots and cute plays. By 5 minutes in the third I got so sick of hearing Gord Miller say "JUST WIDE!" They were too busy trying to pick corners and not making the goalie make a save. You'll never score a goal by not hitting the net. Make the goalie make the save. I'd love to see the stat of how many times they missed the net. Sure, some were from Czechia clogging up in front of the net, but a lot were just misses.

Czechia deserved to win that game. They played a great defensive game. Canada deserved to lose. They didn't show up until the 2nd period and hit the net, seriously.

Toronto placed Samsonov on waivers today. He has 1 year @ $3.55m. Pure speculation but, Allen for Samsonov plus a pick or prospect, pending Samsonov clearing waivers? Clears the logjam in net, Toronto gets an affordable goalie with an extra year on the deal. Toronto does have a little LTIR to work with so the cap shouldn’t be an issue with them only taking on $300k, assuming a roster player isn’t going with Samsonov, like Robertson or Knies. Woll isn’t back from injury yet and they only have Jones on their active roster currently. There are rumours they may call up Hildeby.

Montreal is 0/3 on the PK this game. If it wasn't for a slim offside that stat would reflect that instead of 1/3 on the PK, and that's just not good enough at an NHL level. As good as they've been 5-on-5, the PK needs serious work.