Headlines: Price, Budaj, Waite, Gomez, Stone, more

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All Habs Headlines: Saturday August 29, 2015
On this day in hockey history… 1901 — Aurel Joliat was born. 1964 — Bill Durnan was inducted into the Hall of Fame. 1994 — Mario Lemieux announced that he would sit out the 1994-95 NHL season, due to fatigue from his previous illnesses.
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► Price is top goaltender

  • EA Sports has revealed the top 10 goaltenders in NHL16 and to no one’s surprise Carey Price stands alone at the top with an overall ranking of 94. According to EA Sports the ranking is based on reflexes, puck control, and athletic ability.
  • Following Price are Henrik Lundqvist and Jonathan Quick with a ranking of 93. The rest of the top 10 goalies are: Tuukka Rask (92), Pekka Rinne (92), Braden Holtby (91), Sergei Bobrovsky (90), Cory Schneider (90), Semyon Varlamov (89) and Frederik Andersen (89).
  • In a long-overdue move, the Penguins Marc-Andre Fleury was dropped out of the top-10.

► Buds gets another chance

  • The Los Angeles Kings have invited Peter Budaj to their training camp on a professional tryout contract. Budaj will compete for the backup position behind Jonathan Quick with Jhonas Enroth.
  • It was a tough 2014-15 season for former Canadiens backup, Peter Budaj. The Slovakian goaltender attended Canadiens training camp with Carey Price and Dustin Tokarski only to be traded to the Winnipeg Jets on October 5th along with Patrick Holland for Eric Tangradi.
  • One day after the trade, Budaj was assigned to the St. John’s IceCaps, then the AHL affiliate of the Jets.  Budaj had a 0-9-6 record in 19 starts with a 3.55 goals against average and a .888 save percentage.

► Better than the best?

  • Canadiens goalie coach Stephane Waite was currently at the Habs’ goalie camp and the media took advantage to ask the accredited coach some questions.
  • “Carey is one of the most talented players I’ve coached without a doubt.”
  • “That’s one of the reasons that he’s got to be the best in the world, that’s the reason he’s a big perfectionist, he’s never satisfied there’s always something we can correct every day. That’s the reason we do video almost every day and we practice every day. There’s always a little thing we can perfect.” said Waite.
  • The two time Stanley Cup champ on the importance of individual trophies: “Trophies aren’t what we strive for we try to be good every day. We aren’t trying to recreate what he did last year, that’s not something we are concentrating on we are going to concentrate on him being good every day. “
  • The former goaltender on the challenge 3-on-3 overtime will pose to the goalies: “3-on-3 is the goalie’s worst nightmare it’s going to be pretty hard, the stats will go up, save percentages will drop. It’s not good news for goaltenders but it’ll be good for the show, it’ll be fun.”

► Names enshrined

  • The Canadiens’ Twitter posted this cool video of a Zamboni passing over the base of the ice before they put names of people from the Canadiens club on it.

► Eager to prove his worth

  • Senators winger Mark Stone signed a 3-year $10.5 million deal this offseason and is ready to prove he is worth it.
  • “I tried not to think about (the contract) but it’s one of those things where it’s almost impossible not to. When I was in Vegas, to hear some of the numbers they were throwing around I was really happy to get to finally get it finalized.” Stone said in an interview with the Ottawa Sun.
  • Stone noted that the deal was a compromise for both sides: “It was something we were both comfortable with. It keeps me an RFA when it’s done and it gives me the chance to prove that I can do what I did not only for one year but a number of years. I’m happy with the dollars and happy with the term.”
  • Stone’s micro fracture is healing well according to the 23-year old: “It’s felt great out there the last couple of skates. The shot feels good. The hands feel good. My legs are starting to come along. I feel good and I feel like I’m 100%.”

► Gomez gets another shot

  • Former Canadiens forward Scott Gomez will be attending St. Louis Blues camp on a tryout basis following the injury to Patrik Berglund.
  • Last season Gomez joined the Devils mid-way through the year and did well, lighting the lamp seven times and having 34 points in 58 games. Had he played the full season Gomez would have been on pace for a 10 goal, 48 point season, his best since 2009-10 when he had 59 points with the Canadiens. In 2010-11 he had 4 more points than he did this season, in 24 more games.
  • Gomez was a former teammate of current Blues assistant General Manager Martin Brodeur.
  • The Anchorage, Alaska native spent some time in the ECHL during the 2012-13 season and was eventually called up to the San Jose Sharks after recording 6 goals and 13 points in 11 games with the Alaska Aces.
  • He went on to score 4 goals and add 23 assists over the next two seasons before reviving his career with New Jersey.

► Berglund down

  • The St. Louis Blues have lost a key piece to their bottom six as Patrik Berglund is out for minimum the next four months after undergoing surgery yesterday.
  • According to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch the original injury occurred in April 2014 when he dislocated his right shoulder in a game versus the Dallas Stars. He re-aggravated it while training this offseason.
  • Blues GM Doug Armstrong was caught off guard when notified about the injury “I thought he was fine. It was a little surprising. I was traveling in Europe and I talked to him for a little bit in July. He was having a really good summer. Then I get the call that he injured it while training.”
  • The chances are the recovery process prolongs his absence considering the four month time table the Blues gave is only the time in which he will be re-evaluated.
  • This injury is the second one to a Blues forward this offseason as Jori Lehtera needed ankle surgery for an injury that was re-aggravated from the season.
  • Both these injuries prompted Blues management to give Scott Gomez a training camp tryout.

► Richards charged

  • Former Los Angeles centre Mike Richards was charged with possession of a controlled substance. The substance he was caught with was
  • This investigation was sparked when Richards was detained at the Canadian border and as soon as the investigation was launched the Kings terminated his contract.
  • When the LA Times reached out to NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daley they were met with this response “We are aware of the legal situation relating to Mike Richards. We will have no comment on the matter unless or until the situation warrants.”
  • The former 24th overall pick’s production had been deteriorating up to the incident and this could put the final nail in the coffin.
  • Last season Richards had 5 goals and 16 points with the Kings.

► Lindholm signed

  • The Carolina Hurricanes have signed centreman Elias Lindholm to a two-year bridge deal worth $5.4 million.
  • The former 5th overall pick has already played 139 games in the NHL in which he has scored 26 goals and added 34 assists.
  • ‘Canes GM Ron Francis is pleased with the 20-year old development to this point “Elias played well last season, nearly doubling his offensive numbers from his rookie year. We expect he will be a very important part of the Hurricanes as he continues to develop as a professional.”
  • With Eric Staal’s future in Carolina uncertain Lindholm will be heavily depended on in the upcoming years should the Olympian leave Carolina.
  • Lindholm was sandwiched between Seth Jones (4th) and Sean Monahan (6th).

► Who wears the C?

  • Michael Ham-Fan sums up his top 5 picks for the Canadiens’s vacant captaincy.

► Midwest logjam?

► Big Bird beats cancer

  • Caitlyn Golem looks at the career of Larry Robinson and the battle of his life.

► Prospect preview

 

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