(Montreal) Does anyone in this room know what the Canadian intends to do with Cayden Primeau?
The question arises, even more so after this 5-2 defeat against the New Jersey Devils, suffered Tuesday evening at the Bell Centre.
The young goalkeeper was quite good – although he would probably put Tyler Toffoli’s first goal in his drawer of shots he would like to see again – but we don’t really know if it is really possible to draw any big conclusions. on this outing, its first of the season, without even knowing the date of its next one.
Primeau himself must not know much, since he knew the date of this first start only 48 hours before the initial puck drop on Tuesday evening. When asked if he knew the Canadian’s plans for him, the answer was quite brief: “No. »
Now, has he done enough to impress the coach?
We’ll let you judge.
“I thought he played a good game,” replied Martin St-Louis at the end of the evening. He gave us a chance… The Devils have a whirlwind offense, and he hadn’t played much lately. But he gave us a good match. »
However, this three-way committee cannot last forever; the Canadian already had success with such a scenario in 1985-86, but the world has changed a lot since then, and the shoulder pads, the ColecoVision and Jano Bergeron are nothing more than vague memories, like three-man waltzes in front of a net.
Moreover, it was Primeau himself who recognized that the mental load that takes over a goalkeeper in such a situation is not easy to manage.
“I feel good physically,” he added, “and as for the mental aspect, it’s a challenge, I’m not going to lie… but I want to play against the best.
” I felt good. It’s hard to stay sharp when you’re not playing, but I was just aiming to fight and be competitive. I didn’t think too much about the goals allowed, because there are going to be some. I just wanted to give the club a chance to win… you have to be ready for anything, and it was a good challenge for me. »
In any case, his teammates appreciated the performance.
“We wanted to play well in front of him,” said defender Justin Barron. The Devils have a good team, especially offensively. Cayden played very well, he made some great saves throughout the evening, and he kept us in the game. »
Meanwhile, Jake Allen, another member of this masked trio, himself the author of a good performance Monday in Buffalo, was not even in uniform Tuesday evening. This situation is not yet a distraction, but it won’t be long, because sooner or later there will be a disgruntled person.
As for the showcase theory, where guys like Primeau get starts in order to be “shown” to the rest of the league and maybe get a move down the road, it more or less holds water, firstly because that there were only three scouts at the Bell Center on this very busy NHL Tuesday evening.
Finally, if there was a little hope for the Canadian to be found somewhere in the haze of this gray Tuesday, we had to face it. These Devils, after all, were in the same place as the Montreal club not so long ago, and now here they are claiming something no worse.
Martin St-Louis took notes.
“We’re chasing that,” the coach imagined. We want to continue to get closer to that. There were moments in the match where we said to ourselves that we are not that far…”
He started the match on the first defensive pairing and scored the first goal of the match, his second of the season.
A very difficult evening for him overall, especially in terms of decision-making.
This is the number of goals from ex-Canadian legend Tyler Toffoli.
The Canadian confirmed Tuesday evening that David Savard would have to be absent for six to eight weeks after fracturing a hand. The day before, against the Buffalo Sabres, the defenseman was injured while blocking a violent shot from Tage Thompson. Savard is therefore unlucky for the third year in a row. In his first two campaigns in Montreal, he missed a total of 40 games. If his convalescence goes as planned, he should return to action during the month of December. In his absence, unanimously described in the locker room as a “heavy loss”, Justin Barron was promoted to the right of Mike Matheson. In all honesty, the duo had a tough match. Matheson is probably the one of the two who struggled the most, making blunders and risky plays, notably this pass between the legs on the power play in the first period which led directly to a turnover. “I’m really not happy with the way I played,” he analyzed afterwards. Barron said he was willing to “contribute in all situations.” In fact, on Tuesday, he was used on the power play as well as on the penalty kill.
Martin St-Louis caused a bit of a surprise by pulling his goalie with just over 10 minutes remaining on the clock in the third period and his team trailing 4-1. “I felt the guys deserved the chance to come back in the game, to reduce the gap to two goals,” explained the head coach. Bet successful: Mike Matheson, after crossing the ice from one end to the other, made his way to the opposing net and scored a goal that we will undoubtedly see until the end of the season . “It gave us life,” St-Louis concluded. Despite his achievement, Matheson said he preferred to focus “on the rest of the match” in his assessment of the match. “On the other 59 minutes and 40 seconds,” he said.
Just before the match, Martin St-Louis had good words for the performance of his men in the faceoff circle. He praised the work of his center players, certainly, but also that of their teammates. At that time, the team was the best in the league, with an efficiency of 58.3%. The coach would have wanted to cast a curse on his players that he would not have done it otherwise. Sean Monahan (3 for 15) and Jake Evans (4 for 14) had a miserable night in this regard, and the entire club finished the match with just 37% success. And again, Monahan more or less redeemed his cause in the third period, since he had been shut out during the first 40 minutes (0 for 9). In this single meeting, CH lost almost five percentage points for the entirety of this young season. Nico Hischier (13 in 19) and Michael McLeod (13 in 15) were the worst executioners for the locals.
