Habs News: Montreal Canadiens Opening Night Roster, Jonathan Drouin and Jesperi Kotkaniemi Promising Starts
ROCKET SPORTS MEDIA | LAVAL, QC. — Finally some meaningful hockey games are being played in the NHL. The Canadiens provided us with two entertaining hockey games last week that both ended in a shootout. They were on a losing end of the 4-3 game on Thursday night against the Hurricanes and they beat the Maple Leafs 6-5 on Saturday night.
Taking three of the four possible points from the road is a success in my books. Typically, teams are satisfied with anything over .500 percent of possible points from the games away from home.
There were positives to take away from the opening two games. In both games, Montreal was able to come back after being down to take the lead. They took a lead following a two goal deficit against Carolina and took a lead following a three goal deficit against Toronto. The players showed character and fought all the way until the end of the games.
Before we get too excited, the Canadiens did also lose the lead in both games after they managed to close the gap. Playing from behind isn’t sustainable long term because it gets physically and mentally draining for players.
The Canadiens have a couple of days before playing a stretch of three games in four days. The Habs will be in Buffalo on Wednesday before heading home to face the Red Wings on Thursday in the home opener and the defending Stanley Cup winning Blues visit the Bell Centre on Saturday.
Final Roster Moves
Teams had until October 1st at 5 pm. Eastern Time to submit their opening day roster. The final roster move made was to assign Ryan Poehling to Laval, which officially made Nick Suzuki and Cale Fleury part of the roster to start the season.
“I don’t have a timeframe but it’s not going to be for long,” said Marc Bergevin on Poehling’s assignment to the AHL. “Ryan has to play games and because that 10 days out, it’s almost a third of training camp be missed. So he needs to get that under his belt.”
“I’m excited for this opportunity,” said Poehling when he met the media in Laval on Wednesday. “I would I like to play Montreal right now of course but I’m not, so I’m not cry about it or be upset about it. I’m just gonna deal with what I what I can deal with.”
I think there was several factors that the management team took into consideration to make that decision, because it certainly wasn’t an easy one. There was definitely the time missed due to the concussion as Bergevin mentioned, the amount of centers on the roster, and the possibility of losing a player on waivers.
In the two games, the centre line has consisted of Philip Danault, Max Domi, Jesperi Kotkaniemi, and Nate Thompson. The only one that Poehling would have a chance to replace would be Thompson on the fourth line. That would be a difficult task right now because Claude Julien relies on Thompson to take faceoffs in key moments. In the first two games, Thompson has won 67 percent of faceoffs he’s taken while the team is shorthanded and has an overall 64 percent success rate overall. Those are difficult numbers for any player to match, especially a rookie.
The Habs already have four good NHL players on the left wing and the team has usually carried eight defensemen on their roster during Bergevin’s tenure as General Manager, therefore I think that it was never considered to send Mike Reilly or Christian Folin on waivers to make room for Poehling.
There definitely was a bigger opportunity for Suzuki to get a roster spot because there was a need for a right winger. Prior to the start of the season, I had Jordan Weal slotted as the right winger on the second line. Nothing against Weal, but he’s a bottom six player. Suzuki capitalized and snatched up that roster spot.
Suzuki and Fleury both played well against the Hurricanes on Thursday for their NHL debuts. It was a different story against the Leafs as they both made mistakes that led to pucks in the net behind Carey Price.
Suzuki’s ice time was 13:39 for both games (how did they do that?), and finished Saturday’s game on the fourth line against with Weal and Thompson. Fleury was the least used defenceman with 14:52 ice time against Carolina and 10:28 against Toronto.
Promising Starts
It is a well known fact that all of the Canadiens organization reads this column on a weekly basis. What else would explain Jonathan Drouin‘s and Jesperi Kotkaniemi‘s good start after the first two games after I wrote last week that they are most likely to disappoint this season?
We will get to Drouin in a few, after we take a look at Kotkaniemi. Overall, I think Kotkaniemi played better in the two games last week than he did in the pre-season. Kotkaniemi finally scored a goal on an away game. One aspect that he needs to work on is faceoffs as he has only won 33 percent of the faceoffs to this point.
Drouin also looked better in the two games last week than he did during the entire pre-season. It wasn’t perfect, but I’m happy with what he has shown on the ice so far. On Saturday, he scored the goal that began the Canadiens comeback in the third period. It may have been a lucky goal as Drouin’s intention was to pass to Paul Byron, and instead the puck went off the defender’s skate and in the net.
Drouin started the game on a line with Kotkaniemi and Joel Armia, and ended up on a line with Domi and Byron in the third period against the Leafs. With Canadiens scoring four goals after the line shuffling, there’s a good chance that we see those line combinations to start Wednesday’s game against the Sabres. That also means that the Finnish line of Lehkonen, Kotkaniemi, and Armia would be reunited, which I think is a good trio.
In addition to his goal on Saturday, Drouin got an assist in Thursday’s game against Carolina, which was his 100th point in a Habs uniform in his 159th game. That represents 52 points, if you prorate to an 82 game season.
I’d like to see a bigger sample of Drouin playing good hockey. He also had a good start last season and we all remember how that ended during the final stretch.
By Chris G., Senior Writer
All Habs Hockey Magazine
Copyright © 2019 Rocket Sports
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