Danault Contract, Toffoli, Edmundson Fight | Habs Notepad

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Phillip Danault (Photo by Canadiens.com)

Habs News: Montreal Canadiens, Habs, Week In Review, Philip Danault Contract Negotiations, Joel Edmundson, Tyler Toffoli, Claude Julien, Joel Armia

Phillip Danault (Photo by Canadiens.com)

ROCKET SPORTS MEDIA | LAVAL, QC. — The Canadiens started their week with a 3-1 win against the Oilers on Monday. The victory allowed Montreal to sweep the two games in Edmonton. Alexander Romanov scored his first career goal in the National Hockey League (NHL) that night.

“Firstly, I didn’t understand that I scored. Second, I was so excited. I had no words when I screamed. It’s amazing,” Romanov described the moment after the game.

Canucks Series

The Canadiens headed to Vancouver to face the Canucks in a three-game series. Vancouver won the first match 6-5 in shootout on Wednesday. Montreal allowed three goals while being short handed.

“It wasn’t our best performance tonight. These things happen. It’s the start of the season. We definitely have to fix certain things. Firstly, we have to be more disciplined. We’re taking too many penalties. We did play better hockey as the game went on, though. We were skating a lot better in the third period,” Claude Julien evaluated the game.

Montreal came back strong the following night and beat Vancouver 7-3. Jake Allen recorded his second win as a Canadien by making 14 saves.

“There were four goals that were scored pretty quickly. When we came out for the second period, we talked about playing tight defensively and minimizing the penalties. We managed to minimize their scoring chances, too. We adapted better from the start of the second. It was more our type of game,” Julien said.

On Saturday, the Habs blew a two-goal lead before scoring three unanswered goals to go on to a 5-2 victory at Rogers Arena. Corey Perry made his season debut and scored his first goal in a Canadiens uniform.

“You want to play every single game. It’s a different situation, but at the same time, we have depth on this team and some great players in this game. I’m here to win and I believe in this group. You can see it through the first six games and through training camp, everybody’s here to win and show everyone that we mean business. It’s a step in the right direction coming off this road trip and we’ve just got to continue that,” Perry said following game.

Successful Road Trip

The Canadiens concluded their first road with 10 out of 12 possible points. They’re on top of the Scotia North division, and lead the NHL in goals scored. I’m glad I didn’t make any predictions about this road trip, because I can confidently say that I’d be wrong.

“We’re happy with the way we’re playing. We wanted to start strong. It’s always nice to get going on the right foot. We don’t have to try and catch teams ahead of us, especially in our division this year. We’re playing three-point games every night. We wanted to start like this, but we can’t be satisfied. We have to build on this. We have four lines producing. Everybody is playing well. We’re really happy. We have to keep building and we’ll get even better,” Jonathan Drouin evaluated his team’s start.

Montreal begins a five-game homestand with two games against the Flames this week on Thursday and Saturday.

Praise Received

In last week’s Spittin’ Chiclets podcast, Nathan Mackinnon of the Avalanche gave high praise of Philip Danault. “Such a good centreman, it’s hard to get space on him. I don’t know if he’s in Selke talks but he should be, hopefully he wins one. Good versus everyone not just me,” Colorado’s forward named Danault when asked to name the hardest center to play against.

It’s high praise coming from one of the league’s top forwards. If I were Danault’s agent, Bergevin’s inbox would have a copy of that excerpt from the podcast. If I were Bergevin, I’d reply to that email with some clips of Danault’s most recent performances, as they have not been his best.

Danault Contract Negotiations

Mathias Brunet from LaPresse reported on Friday that Danault received in September a six-year contract offer worth a total of $30 million. Danault rejected that offer.

On Saturday, La Poche Bleue podcast featuring former Canadiens Guillaume Latendresse and Maxim Lapierre reported that the organization actually offered a five-year deal worth $25 million.

Both reports provided slightly different figures, but both represent a $5 million per season offer. La Poche Bleue reported that Danault is looking for an annual salary ranging between $5.5 million and $5.7 million for six years.

“Two years ago, the Canadiens gave me a three-year contract. I have one year left to play with the Canadiens, and we’ll see after that. I have the intention of honouring my contract until the end, and after it’s in Marc’s hands to decide for the future,” Danault said during the off-season about the situation becoming a distraction.

I think that the two sides will strike a deal that will keep Danault with the organization past the 2020-21 season.

Toffoli Offensive Threat

It was only seven days ago that there was concern by fans and observers about the chemistry of the line of Tyler Toffoli, Jesperi Kotkaniemi, and Joel Armia. The coach wasn’t concerned because of the opportunities that the line was obtaining. Julien’s patience paid off as that trio was the team’s top producers last week.

“I think just doing a better job holding onto pucks. They’re big guys, and I’m not small by any means, but holding onto the puck and making smart plays and not really giving the puck away so we weren’t really chasing it,” Toffoli explained his trio’s success following Thursday’s game.

On a personal note, Toffoli scored five times and added three assists in the last four games. He leads the team in scoring while playing on average 16:56 per game.

“One thing that I knew but impresses me the most is his intelligence with the puck. He places the puck at the right spots, he makes good decisions with the puck. It’s rare that he will lose the puck in a situation that will give a scoring chance to the other team,” Julien said on Toffoli before Saturday’s game.

Armia Injury

Thursday’s game ended with an ugly incident with 2:28 remaining in the third period. Tyler Myers concussed Armia with a blindside hit in front of the penalty box area. The officials penalized Myers with a match penalty. Armia scored two goals and added two assists when the injury occurred.

“I think the referees did the right thing by giving him a five-minute major. We’ll see how Player Safety handles it. We don’t have control over that. I really didn’t like the hit, especially with the score being 6-3 and just two minutes left. It wasn’t necessary. We’re trying to take that kind of hit out of the game. We’ll wait and see what the League says,” Julien evaluated Myers’ hit.

The NHL’s Department of Player Safety deemed that there would be no supplemental discipline to Myers, and published a video explaining its decision.

If the league is serious about removing head shots from the game, it needs to alter the rules that made this hit legal.

Edmundson Fight

As soon as the non-suspension was announced, it was obvious that the Canadiens would retaliate in some manner on Saturday. During warmups, Joel Edmundson had a talk with Myers.

“I just went up to him and asked him if he’d give me one, and he said yes. It was really short. First shift that we got out there together, it happened. Our team wasn’t a big fan of the hit, and he stepped up. He didn’t back away, so you got to respect that,” Edmundson explained the chat with Myers.

“When we saw he didn’t get suspended, we knew it was going to happen – someone was going to fight Myers,” Drouin said on the situation.

I have a hard time believing that the hockey world is serious about removing head shots out of the game. The league doesn’t severely punish them, and that leads to two players delivering head shots to each other with their fists during a fight.

Canadiens Connection podcast

Current Habs topics were discussed on this week’s episode of the Canadiens Connection. Listen, share and subscribe!

By Chris G., Senior Writer
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