tomh009

Not playing tonight yet.

Now THAT is the Carey Price we need.

The man is a scoring MACHINE! 😀

10 saves for the Rocket! Could this be the first time this year that we see a Blockaid?

Petry, Weber and Chiarot are attacking aggressively, which gives breakout opportunities to the other team. But this could actually be on Julien's instructions, trying to compensate for the missing firepower from the forward lines.

That last one was Petry and Weber, or non-defensive defence pairing. Scandella, on the other hand, seems to be doing OK in his first game, does he not?

Not the smartest move. Domi makes a nice pass for a goal so he figures he needs to do something stupid to follow it up?

There must be a stat for that? But, yeah, they are giving up way too many turnovers trying to exit their zone.

And LEHKONEN!

They're looking better now, the first 3-4 minutes was awful.

He can actually play defensively! 👍

Canadiens projected lineup Tomas Tatar -- Phillip Danault -- Jordan Weal Artturi Lehkonen -- Max Domi -- Nick Suzuki Ryan Poehling -- Jesperi Kotkaniemi -- Nick Cousins Lukas Vejdemo -- Nate Thompson -- Dale Weise Ben Chiarot -- Shea Weber Victor Mete -- Jeff Petry Marco Scandella -- Cale Fleury Carey Price Charlie Lindgren Scratched: Ilya Kovalchuk, Christian Folin, Brett Kulak Injured: Brendan Gallagher (concussion), Paul Byron (upper body), Joel Armia (hand), Jonathan Drouin (wrist), Matthew Peca (knee) Penguins projected lineup Alex Galchenyuk -- Evgeni Malkin -- Bryan Rust Dominik Simon -- Jared McCann -- Patric Hornqvist Zach Aston-Reese -- Teddy Blueger -- Brandon Tanev Dominik Kahun -- Joseph Blandisi -- Thomas Di Pauli Jack Johnson -- Kris Letang Marcus Pettersson -- John Marino Juuso Riikola -- Chad Ruhwedel Matt Murray Emil Larmi Scratched: Kevin Czuczman Injured: Sidney Crosby (core muscle surgery), Nick Bjugstad (core muscle surgery), Brian Dumoulin (ankle surgery), Justin Schultz (lower body), Jake Guentzel (shoulder surgery), Sam Lafferty (illness)

Tatar has played well and will be a UFA after the next season so this would be when his value is the highest. Gallagher, Danault, Armia and Petry, too, are close to UFA. It would be crazy to trade Gallagher, though, and I can't see Bergevin doing that, and I wouldn't think Danault or Armia would be on the block, either, but Petry could be a possibility.

Do you mean that Sturtz gets us up to 50? Or this gets Ottawa down to 50?

But he may have (at least initially) the trust of Julien, which Kulak doesn't have.

He may not have lost his shooting skills, or at least not as much as, say, skating. So he may be able to help on PP, although I'm sure he'd be looking for more ice time than just PP.

Yes. He basically has the league-minimum $700K/$70K two-way contract, pro-rated for the season, so we only pay about $350K. The Kings have already paid Kovalchuk $3M this season, and I suspect he wasn't hard up for money before that, either. So the minimum salary is a non-issue -- what Kovalchuk was looking for is an opportunity to show that he can still play (and play next season).

I do believe that's intended to be for Brook's benefit.

A nice two-minute clip of Scandella on TSN: https://www.tsn.ca/nhl/video/scandella-it-s-been-my-dream-come-true-to-play-here~1867174 Seems like a nice guy, and I really do believe that he is (and his grandmother is!) super excited that he'll be playing for the Habs. Now let's see what he can do, and whether he can adjust to Julien's system.

Well ... if you are asking us to make these kinds of tough decisions ... 😝

Is this to make room for Scandella? Or is someone returning from IR?

24th overall. Five teams within five points of us. It's not looking good. Or, it's looking good for a draft pick. You choose ...

Yeah. I think we're pretty much out now, barring some major miracle. We simply can't catch up any more without three of our best players.

His advanced stats for this season are really much better than I expected. Best Corsi % (among D), second-best shot %, best goal %, second-best xG %. He's only played four games so it's a small sample size. But what did he do to get consistently scratched? Last year his numbers were closer to the bottom, but he was still the fifth-highest ice time. Now, numbers look better but he's sitting on the bench or in the press box.

I expect he was pretty much a throw-in in the deal, but adding him to the Rocket will be helpful, at least for this season.