tomh009

However, we can say that so far we love the way Anderson is playing! 🙂

Tatar - Danault - Gallagher Drouin - Suzuki - Anderson Lehkonen - Kotkaniemi - Toffoli Byron - Evans - Perry Chiarot - Weber Edmundson - Petry Kulak - Romanov Price Injured: Armia Tkachuk - Lindholm - Mangiapane Gaudreau - Monahan - Simon Bennett - Backlund - Leivo Lucic - Ryan - Nordstrom Giordano - Andersson Hanifin - Tanev Valimaki - Nesterov David Rittich Injured: Eller, Pinho I guess I keep doing these as long as the Habs keep winning ...

A checking role player who hasn't even proven himself in that role yet! Ikonen has a higher ceiling, I think, he has the potential for a middle-six forward, but the injuries are indeed a big question mark and will reduce the trade value.

Yeah, the difference in attitude (after being sent to Laval) was like night and day between Poehling and Kotkaniemi. One of them figured out that he could learn something there, the other one didn't clue into that for a while.

Well, that potato as bait sure was tasty!

According to naturalstattrick.com, Suzuki has had 2:15 more 5-on-5 ice time than Danault, over six games, that's 22 seconds per game. A few shifts of difference, maybe in response to specific game situations. Too early to tell, to be sure.

It does depend on who is the home team (and has the last change), though. On road games, the Habs don't have full control over the line matching. There is line matching going on, for sure, but if you look at the shift charts after the game, it's rarely a clear-cut "this line always plays against that line."

I know, it's the first time a thread has ever had an off-topic discussion!

So ... I just discovered that NHL Live offers the "French package", all the Habs and Sens games for $53.99. That's only about $1/game! All in French, but mayb ten I can learn what a "commotion" is, too! 🤪 No playoff games, though, so would need to buy another package for those.

RIght. Supposing that we still look strong at the trade deadline, it's hard to imagine Bergevin putting Danault on the block. Maybe Evans can step up for next season but for this year's post-season it would be a serious downgrade and a big hit on our chances of going deep in the playoffs. And what would we get for him as a rental? Would he merit a first-round pick? If it's a second-rounder, I'd say it's definitely not worth it.

I was hoping that someone was tracking injury data and I finally found it: https://nhlinjuryviz.blogspot.com/p/index-page.html I was specifically looking for Armia's injury history, and whether he has a history of concussions. I had seen a comment that he had had a concussion while playing in Liiga, but there have been no other head injuries since he came over to te NHL.

SN Now+ is $10 for seven days, often enough to catch three games, at least this season. They say "limited blackouts" but I don't know how limited it really is. Of course the streaming sites cost nothing and have no blackouts, but it would sure be nice to have a legit option.

For now. I believe he has potential to be a 3C in the longer term, which would be great with Suzuki and Kotkaniemi taking care of the first two lines.

And Kotkaniemi is no pushover himself, either, at 201 lbs.

What I think is unsustainable is the shooting percentage, at 12.6%. The league average last season was around 8.5% (and the Habs were around 7.5%). This is implies an average of under 3.5 goals/game assuming a constant shot rate. And the top goal-scoring rate last year was 2.95/60 by Tampa Bay... But, in the end, this is a really small sample, six games and only against three teams. Let's see what things look like in mid-February, a quarter of the way through the season.

Yes, I think we have the talent for effective, disciplined defence. That part is really up to Julien. With a short camp and no pre-season, I can understand why the D is not clicking yet. But I do believe it will improve yet.

13:30 of ice time in his first game back is respectable. No points — but then the entire team did get shut out in a 2-0 loss.

Yes. But. The likelihood of everyone going hot (or cold) at the same time is minuscule.

On a more serious note, it's great timing for the top line to turn on the taps. With four balanced lines, we can have someone finding the back of the net every night.

Drouin is just useless. Get that bum out of the lineup, he never makes an effort or scores.

So ... defence?

How on earth does Vancouver end up with a PP out of that?

That was a pretty soft call, really.

That would make sense to me, too. But apparently Julien thinks otherwise.