GHT120

Might as well go defensive since the PP specialist seems to be anything but ... CW averaged all of 1:15 PP-TOI per game played (46) last season ... he scored zero PP goals and had two PP assists (one primary, one secondary) ... it is true the Habs PP was awful last season (4th worst in the NHL), but as a "specialist" supposedly quarterbacking the PP some of that awfulness starts with him.

Unless someone makes a ridiculous offer, I expect Kovacevic is at worst the 7D.

And what do the Canadiens give that bottom dwelling team to entice them into taking on DeSmith (a moderately priced backup) or Allen (a very expensive backup), and Gallagher's contract with FOUR years remaining @$6.5M AAV?

Barring injury, not certain there is roster room to give Beck 9 games

I have to wonder whether Wisconsin might have made the decision, and not Smilanic ... I'm not certain that scholarships are "guaranteed" contracts ... schools have been known to "run off" players to get back a scholarship slot.

At least in terms of expectations ... let the lad find his level ... if it happens to be Plek-ish that will be tremendous.

Unless Peterborough trades him, Beck will be in Ottawa on 2023-09-29, 2023-10-20, 2023-12-08 and 2024-02-09 to play the 67s ... and Peterborough is only 3-ish hours away down Highway 7.

Slightly easier for a forward ... but it can be done, and hopefully will be by Hutson.

All-star is an imprecise term ... the All-Star Game is a worthless measure IMO (John Scott made it) and there are only 12 year-end NHL all-stars amongst 650+ NHL players ... but I would agree there are few elite (Top 6/Top Pairing/Starting Goaltender) prospects in the group.

Same height, but BU is listing Hughes at 155 lbs (Wikipedia* claiming 161, or 11 stone 7 lbs), while Canucks list Hughes at 180. * - I'm guessing Lane, someone in the Hutson clan or his agent updates Wiki every time he puts on a pound ... or 161 is before he went hiking and he didn't take his boots off.

His future (however big or small) with the Habs or elsewhere in the NHL now depends on this coming season with Wisconsin ... for his sake, I hope he does well enough to earn a contract ... for the Habs sake I hope he does well enough to at least have some trade value (likely more as an add-on to a trade).

The ordinary NHL/AHL or junior-eligible players back to junior are standard team decisions ... it gets slightly more complex with Euros if they previously played pro overseas ... If the team can convince the player then it is a consensus decision (the ideal approach) ... issues can POTENTIALLY arise (short or long term) when the team imposes its decision ... NCAA players are the others that can get more complicated as they sometimes want to turn pro rather than return to school and can force the issue by leaving school even if the team wants them to return.

True ... but how teams treat players can make a difference come next contracts, dealing with free agents, retaining your own free agents, etc. ... HuGo seem sensitive to this.

Unless he makes the Habs (hope not) he will be returning "home".

Logan Mailloux, Xavier Simoneau, William Trudeau, Joshua Roy and Riley Kidney spent much of the summer at Brossard training with Nick Suzuki, Kaiden Guhle, Juraj Slafkovsky and Arber Xhekaj. Cole Caufield and Josh Anderson dropped by occasionally to join them. - Journal de Montreal, Plusieurs recrues du Canadien ont passé l’été à Montréal (my translation) Francis Bouillon, Habs development coach, had suggested the youngsters do it ... although teams cannot require players to train over the summer, the Habs were able to make their facilities and resources available to the players ... including Adam Nicholas (director of hockey development) and Scott Pellerin (hockey development consultant), as well as the on-site chefs/nutritionists.

R.I.P. Yvon ... thoughts to his family and friends.

Even if Nylander were willing to accept a trade, unless it is a double sign&trade I don't see Winnipeg making the deal because they could get more in terms of long-term assets for Schiefle in another trade. Even in in a double sign&trade, unless TO feels that MS improves their team I'm not certain that they would "sacrifice" this season simply to have a lesser asset for the long-term. The assumption these days seems to be that the cap will go up $4M next summer ... Matthews new contract is only a $1.61M increase ... AND ... the Leaves currently only have 12 contracts for the 24/25 season, with $33.4M in cap space ($37.4 with the assumed bump) ... next summer is the opportunity for the Leaves to rebuild their roster ... especially on defence where only O'Rielly, McCabe and Timmins have contracts ... I expect that Nylander gets re-signed unless he wants near-Matthews money ... I'll make a wild guess at 3-4 years for $10.25 AAV.

Nylander has a 10-team NTC ... I would be shocked if Winnipeg isn't on it.

It is always a matter of timing ... Matthews may well get surpassed by Draisaitl come 2025-26 season, who is a UFA one year before McDavid comes up in the summer of 2026.

Matthews is 25 ... he will be 26 when the contract kicks in next July 1st, and 30 when the contract expires ... He is a free agent next summer at 26 because he will have the required 7 seasons (8 actually) ... UFA status is at age 27 OR 7 seasons in the NHL.

(1) I expect Wideman to the 7D, no sense having a youngster sit in the stands most of the time ... so Wideman would either be injured or already filling in for another injured D in an "emergency" situation. (2) I wasn't suggesting Mailloux would necessarily be the first choice.

There is also the possibility that if injuries pile up an "emergency call-up" could give him a short look-see.

Seems to fit here as well as anywhere else. The NHL rulebook has a problem, but we can fix it by removing one word ... The Athletic article (so fair warning to non-subscribers) raises the issue of how a referee is supposed to be able to tell whether a player is injured, or REALLY injured in the case of the Claude Lemieux-s of the world, when deciding between a minor or major penalty ... some injuries are obvious but others aren't even diagnosed until after the game ... so, the suggestion is to remove the word injury from the definitions of penalties and judge based on the act not the result ... I agree ... it has always bothered me that a relatively innocuous deed gets 5 minutes because the victim is unfortunately injured while a more violent offence is a minor because the aggressor gets lucky and the victim is not injured (or does not appear to be injured).

Don't know that a Weber/Souray slapshot is passé ... but building a PP entirely around such a shot certainly is ... as I've said before, I think Souray (and Streit and MAB) were so successful because Markov could not only feed them but players on either "wing" and also get the puck to the net/slot ... PKs could not focus as much attention on his bombers as they later did with Weber.