Habs News: Surprise at Camp, NHL Debut, Video Analysis of Cale Fleury’s Last Game, Assignment to Laval
ROCKET SPORTS MEDIA | LAVAL, QC. — By all appearances, there weren’t any defensive roster spots available to be won heading into training camp. Shea Weber, Jeff Petry, Victor Mete, and Ben Chiarot were locks to be the team’s top four defenders.
In the off season, Marc Bergevin had signed Brett Kulak, Mike Reilly, and Christian Folin to new contracts. Those signings brought the total to seven regular defencemen. Karl Alzner was a candidate if the team wanted to start the season with an eighth defenceman.
Surprise at Camp
Noah Juulsen was on the top of my list of prospects on defense that I felt had a slim chance to obtain an opportunity to start with Montreal. After playing a total of 24 games between the Habs and the Rocket in 2018-19, I was expecting Juulsen to start the season in the AHL to get back to game shape before returning to the NHL.
With Juulsen not able to hit the ice from day one of camp due to headaches, it allowed Cale Fleury to be given a bigger role during the pre-season. Fleury spent the entire 2018-19 season with the Rocket playing in a top-four role, paired primarily with Alzner or Xavier Ouellet.
Fleury gained Claude Julien’s confidence in pre-season by keeping himself out of trouble in the defensive zone and being physical. Two attributes that Julien arguably likes the most from his players, which resulted with Fleury starting the season in the NHL.
NHL Debut
Fleury made his NHL debut playing the first two games in Carolina and Toronto on the third pairing with Kulak. Apparently the coaching staff wasn’t happy with the pairing, because both players were scratched for the following game. Fleury ended up sitting the next four matches, while Folin skated on the right side of the third duo.
The Folin experiment lasted four nights before Fleury was returned back into the lineup. The 21-year old defenceman played 39 of the next 42 games, missing one due to an injury and scratched twice.
Fleury was paired with seven different teammates in the 41 games he played in Montreal. Julien split up the duo of Chiarot and Petry after the fourth game of the year, and moved Chiarot down to third pairing with Fleury. That newly formed pairing lasted three nights before the veteran was moved up on the the first pairing with Weber.
For the remainder of the season, Fleury primarily played with Reilly or Kulak depending on which of the two was in Julien’s good graces. Fleury would also regularly play on the second penalty-kill unit.
When Mete returned from injury in December, he was teamed with Fleury on defence. The pair played together for eight matches, before Fleury was scratched for four games and assigned to Laval.
The complete breakdown of Fleury’s partners are in the table below:
Video Review
On January 15th, the Blackhawks visited the Bell Centre. Heading into the game, the Canadiens were on a two-game winning streak, and seven points out of a playoff spot. Let’s have a closer look at Fleury’s performance on that night, which ended up being his final game with Montreal before his demotion.
On his first shift, Fleury was caught in Chicago’s zone when he pinched in at the blue line to prevent the puck to leave the zone, however David Kampf was able to clear it out of the zone. Jesperi Kotkaniemi rescued his teammate by skating to the puck ahead of Alex Debrincat to prevent an attack by the Blackhawks.
It wasn’t a great start for Fleury as seconds later, the puck bounced over his stick in the neutral zone, and he lost the race againt Matthew Highmore. Fleury spent two minutes in the penalty box as he was forced to hook Highmore as the forward skated around him to head towards the net.
Zack Smith scored twice to give his team a 2-0 lead. On the second goal, the play started when Fleury lost a battle against Smith behind the net. That led to Highmore taking a one-timer that was stopped by Charlie Lindgren. The Blackhawks took possesion of the rebound and it led to Slater Koekkoek take a point shot that Smith redirected into the goal.
Philip Danault scored early in the second period and Debrincat gave Chicago a two-goal lead before the intermission. Fleury only saw the ice for three shifts in the middle frame. On his last shift, Fleury delivered a hard hit behind his own goal against Ryan Carpenter. The check occurred seconds after Kotkaniemi was hit hard by Drake Caggiula in the defensive zone.
Fleury showed good hand-eye coordination as he knocked Ryan Poehling‘s pass down from mid-air to keep his team in the offensive zone. The puck ended up on Kotkaniemi’s stick and he passed it to Mete, whose shot was stopped by Corey Crawford.
Caggiula scored 11:47 into the third period to get the match out of reach for the Habs. As a result, Fleury was given plenty of ice time by the coaching staff, throwing him over the boards for three minutes in the last 4:36 of play.
On the sequence below, Fleury delivered a hard hit to Kampf against the boards. Once Kampf got back onto his feet, Fleury greeted him with a cross-check to his back.
At the ensuing faceoff, Fleury accepted a pass from Mete, skated behind the net, and used the boards to make a pass to Nick Suzuki. Suzuki passed the puck to Artturi Lehkonen between Highmore’s skates and Lehkonen carried the puck to Chicago’s zone for a shot on Crawford.
Assigned to Laval
It wasn’t the best of nights for Fleury against the Blackhawks. With the Canadiens slipping to nine points out of a playoff spot following the loss, the coach decided to sit the rookie for the following four games and replace him with Kulak.
Two weeks later, Fleury was assigned to the AHL, where he played until the season was put on pause. “I think it’s normal for young players to hit a wall, first year NHL players. It’s not that we’re disappointed in him, he’s just hit a wall and you know, he’s a he’s a big time hitter, with the puck he struggled, you know, at times in the last little while,” Julien explained the demotion.
By Chris G., Senior Writer
All Habs Hockey Magazine
Copyright © 2019 Rocket Sports
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