tomh009

According to the Athletic, Rutherford had a deal worked out between the Pens and a Canadian team just before he resigned ...

No points for Ikonen in today's game. Still, Ilves is struggling and have lost 2-0 and 4-1 before winning 2-1 today, so it'll be tougher to score. Ikonen is now playing as 3C, next to (the unrelated!) Joona Ikonen. Averaging 13:04 per game at the moment.

And it certainly does not hurt. Especially DZ face-offs on a PK, or OZ face-offs on a PP.

That was actually proposed by habs#4,9,10,33. 😁

OK ... I'm somewhat surprised at this, I would have thought Bergevin would have his man in Laval overseeing the Rocket's operation and people. But, hey, I've never run an NHL (or AHL!) team so I was just making some assumptions that appear not to be valid in the pro hockey world! 🤪

Perreault is a player development coach with Chicago. Antoine Vermette might be available, though: his career average was 56.6% But Danault is a not-too-shabby 54.6% over the last three seasons, and he's already on board. If Kotkaniemi, Suzuki and Evans can learn from him and all get above 50%, we'll have improved significantly already.

Yeah, I don't know what the Canadiens' internal org structure looks like. I would guess that the AHL team's GM reports to the Habs' GM but it's really a guess. Anyway, if that's correct, the AHL GM would be responsible for selecting that team's staff. If the AHL team's staff is not working out, you would typically give them some opportunity to improve before you go for the nuclear option and fire that GM (you need to then find a new AHL GM and hope that the new one either selects better staff or gets better results from the existing staff). It's been too long since Hamilton that I don't remember the specific management issues there any more, sorry ...

Personally, I believe it because I believe Bergevin is looking to succeed (and motivated by success). From that it follows that he will want to hire people who (he believes) will help him, and the team, be successful. Yes, it's not clear whether it's a (drafting) decision-making role or just people management.

He was Director of Player Development but was doing scouting for Chicago prior to that. I don't know how much actual scouting he will be doing at the director level, but at least he will be overseeing the amateur scouting team. He may have a good relationship with Bergevin -- he needs to, really -- but I have to believe the decision is based on an assessment of what Lapointe is capable of doing. Just promoting your buddies is not a recipe for long-term success.

Face-offs take skill, strength and experience. From the sounds of it, Danault is working with "the kids" to help them improve this, and Kotkaniemi has improved from about 41% last year to 48% so far this year. Evans is around the same average, too. Suzuki has more work to do on this aspect as he's below 42% so far this season, but he's still young and has fewer than 80 games under his belt (Kotkaniemi is at about 120, and Evans only 20). He'll get there. And while he's not tall (listed at 5'11) he is solid, and actually weighs more than Kotkaniemi, so he surely has the strength to succeed in the face-off circle yet.

The probability is actually pretty low that they all go hot and cold in sync, at least for any significant number of games. Working out as well as it has to date, though? Maybe not, and there are bound to be games where no one is able to put the puck in the net. But having the scoring this well distributed means that the risk of that is much lower, whether because of the players going cold or the opponents shutting them down. It still very early, but as has been said many times before, this team is difficult to play against. 🙂

We actually have SIX players at PPG pace or better right now: Toffoli, Drouin, Petry (all better than 1.0), Perry (yeah, only two games), Suzuki and Armia. Two guys from the second line, three from the third plus a D-man.

Working much better so far!

So ... those are new pads that Price is wearing, are they not? White-red-white rather than the near-solid red that he was wearing on the road trip. Or did he already have these ones in Vancouver?

D has been good, mostly (Romanov was looking a bit panicked on one shift, though as they were unable to clear to puck). And only one penalty is a huge improvement over the first six games.

And Drouin is now better than 1.0 PPG.

That's 5 SHG for the year so far -- the next-best team has only 2, and all other teams put together have only 11. I can't remember seeing this kind of SH performance before.

Jinxed! Byron in the box now for the first PK of the night.

Indeed. And a good play by Kotkaniemi to get the puck within reach of Anderson.

I like the fact that the two PP units have a significantly different structure, making it more difficult to defend against using a single PK formation. And one or the other may work better against against any given opponent. Luck or not, we will find out more as the season progresses.

I think the Flames had the better even-strength chances, but the PP really came through for the Habs.

This one? The difference in our PPG from last season to this is like night and day.

Did Perry actually see Gallagher driving for the net? That was a beauty pass to him.

It should be Perry's turn to score since he made a visit to the taxi squad before this game ...

I don't know that losing some speed would make him completely helpless. It's certainly his best (and go-to) tool at this point, I agree with that. How well he can adapt to losing a step is something we likely won't know for a while yet. Some players adapt amazingly well, others do not.