tomh009

Six UFAs and five RFAs at the end of the season. $7M in cap space now but it will not be easy for them to make another run next season.

Shesterkin apparently going on IR with a upper-body issue. Rangers going downhill fast.

Yes, absolutely. But Matheson seems to be able to handle the opposite side better than Guhle, so the current arrangement is a net win.

And I also wanted to highlight a snippet from the third period: watching Lane Hutson cover Keegan Kolesar on the boards was awesome. Kolesar is five inches taller and 55 lbs heavier than Hutson, but he still could not free himself from Hutson's defensive coverage. What a gem we have!

I got exactly what I asked for. What a win, never giving up!

You know, get into the playoffs, and anything can happen ... ??? 😂😂😂

And Dach again. He has been improving over the last month but that's two costly mistakes in a single period.

Xhekaj could have/should have taken Whitecloud, too, no? As usual, a goal is a result of multiple mistakes.

Matheson on the right is still better than having Guhle there. Guhle has been excellent since moving back to the left, and I don't think Matheson's play has suffered that much from playing on the right.

I'm hoping for a solid game, with the Habs "in the mix" until the end. What the final score will be matters less to me, this is now one of the top teams in the league, and on a hot streak yet.

We'll see how he's doing by then. It would be very nice to allow him to finish his career with the Habs ... if that can align with the team's goals and cap space. Much can happen yet in the next two years.

Yeah, sure, he'll say something nice. But what he chose to say, tells me that our team culture/character is one of the positives.

It would be nice to keep Prime Minister Koivu employed a little bit longer on the GDT threads ...

Had they picked Michkov they might well have picked someone else in this year's draft ...

Indeed. But switching sides for Guhle/Matheson, arrival of Carrier and the resurgence of Xhekaj have also contributed.

Even more importantly, I hope that Hughes can continue on his path of not handing out NTCs/NMCs.

2009!

And yet again on the faceoffs looking at the last month and a half, I think we've had the Newhook-Dach-Laine for pretty much the whole time, and yet Newhook has taken as many faceoffs as Dach has. I had not really paid attention to this when watching games, but are Dach and Newhook actually sharing the faceoff duties?

Adding to the faceoff data, here are our forwards from last season and this one: Monahan is already gone, if Dvorak and Evans are traded/walk, we will only have one centre better than 50%. Will need to do some work on that ...

Indeed different. So, what has changed since then? Laine returned from injury Carrier has stabilized RD in a way that Barron was not able to Xhekaj has played as well or better than he did last year after returning from Laval Team is internalizing MSL's system Anderson is playing a style that suits him, and makes him effective Guhle is back on the left side, with Matheson on RD Armia-Evans-Heineman has found great chemistry--and is getting enough TOI St-Louis is not juggling lines (easier to avoid when team is playing well) Primeau has barely played since October Really, there are many small positives that are adding up. Are there negatives as compared to October that we should be including on the list?

In general, Evans and Armia are the primary PK forwards. It will vary by game and situation, but that TOI stat is not lying.

Both the skating and the shot can be improved with appropriate instruction, whether from top speed skaters or figure skaters, or skills coaches such as Tim Turk. No, he'll never have the Laine shot--Laine has a combination of the right genetics and excellent technique--but he can certainly improve.

Jakub, Jacob, as long as one of them pans out, I'm all good! (But it's so unpredictable that I'm not counting on either one.)

An interesting tidbit is that Dobes is wearing #75, previously seen on only Hal Gill and ... Yann Danis! What makes it interesting is that Danis was the last Habs goaltender to record a shutout on his debut, a 2-0 win over Atlanta way back in 2005. Hopefully Dobes will have more impactful career than Danis, though!

I have to note here that the vets did score four of the five goals, although there is no denying that the young players contributed to those.