Call of the Wilde: Boston Bruins shell Cayden Primeau and the Montreal Canadiens – Montreal | Globalnews.ca
The Montreal Canadiens started the weekend with one of their best games of the season in a loss to the Rangers in New York 4-3. They ended the weekend having trouble defensively and lost to the Bruins in Boston 6-3.
Wilde Horses
There was not a lot to get Habs fans excited in Sunday’s game in Boston, but Cole Caufield did continue his excellent season, marking goals 15 and 16 in his 24th game – he’s on pace for a 55-goal season. The Canadiens haven’t had a 40-goal scorer since 1994 with Vincent Damphousse.
Caufield was also notable in how he scored his goals. He’s the smallest player on the team – one of the smallest in the NHL, in fact – but there he was right in front of the Bruins goalie Jeremy Swayman working hard where it can hurt from body blows.
Arber Xhekaj threw a pass to the crease where it hit Caufield in the knee before going in. They all count and you get many like this if you are prepared for pain.
Caufield’s second goal was much better looking. He found space in the high slot and snapped it home to bring the Canadiens to within two goals. Nick Suzuki picked up two assists for 24 points as he is on a points-per-game pace season. The Canadiens haven’t hit that mark since Alex Kovalev in 2008 with 84 points.
Emil Heineman continued his strong rookie season as well with a sixth goal of the season. He one-timed a Jake Evans pass and ripped in a snap shot. Heineman can shoot. Six might not seem like a big goal total a little after the quarter-season mark, but considering how many minutes he has received, he’s showing a lot.
Heineman also plays a good 200-foot game, so he doesn’t cost the club either. It might even be time to move Heineman up the depth chart to help out a line that has issues defending. While there have been disappointments, some young players are showing they have a future, and that’s the point in a rebuilding season.
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Wilde Goats
After the good vibes of Saturday, Sunday was a disaster defensively. The Canadiens did not match the Bruins level of competition in any manner to start. In the first period, the Bruins scored three goals in 70 seconds. While one can easily point a finger at Cayden Primeau for being over-anxious in net, there are plenty of fingers remaining on both hands for pointing.
Nick Suzuki was outworked on the third goal. Mike Matheson got turned on the second goal. Lane Hutson got caught puck-watching on the third goal. Matheson sent Charlie McAvoy on a shorthanded breakaway on the fourth goal.
There are times that this young club appears not to understand the level of commitment it takes at the NHL level. No one lets up in the NHL. They don’t see a wounded player and take it easy – they go in for the kill. You don’t get 10 minutes to regroup, you must regroup immediately.
Head Coach Martin St. Louis called a time-out after the third goal. He looked more animated and angry than usual. The moment seems to have arrived that the head coach expects more, and that might be a bit premature considering how inexperienced this team is.
This team does not have a Shea Weber. It does not have a defender that the head coach can put on the ice and things settle down – no one on this corps can settle proceedings. That’s the mark of a young team and when it goes south, it goes south fast.
Nothing teaches like experience, and this group needs a lot more experience. On days like this, it feels like many defenders and forwards need another 160 games. That’s not being negative either. That’s simply what it has taken highly-ranked players before them in other rebuilds on other teams.
With all of that said, Primeau has a save percentage of .843 this season. That’s the type of goaltending that magnifies all the other issues that a team has. There is no hiding from any of your errors as a defender when the goalie doesn’t pick you up.
The Canadiens are in a tough spot. They don’t want to lose Primeau for two reasons: they don’t have a lot of organizational goalie depth, and he is still young enough that he may not have found his ceiling.
If they want him to find his game in Laval, he would have to clear waivers, and there is a chance he would get picked up. The club that would pick him up would have to keep him on their NHL roster, so if ever there was a time to try to send him down, this is probably that time.
It’s hard to see anyone clamouring for a .843 goalie from the 31st-ranked team in the league. Jakub Dobes is the young goalie prospect and more likely to get the first look, but Connor Hughes is a 28-year-old veteran who was excellent in Switzerland last year, and the better of the two this year.
Those two seem like a better option for Montreal. Primeau needs the American Hockey League to find his game. He has shone before at that level. Getting shell-shocked in the NHL is not a way to build a career.
Wilde Cards
The Laval Rocket are going through their first hardship of the season. The Rocket have lost three straight games after falling in Allentown to the Lehigh Valley Phantoms 4-3 Saturday. The Rocket led the contest 2-0 early and dominated the game, but lacked finish.
It’s not unexpected that the former best team in the league only a week ago would run into a little bit of difficulty considering they lost important players. Joshua Roy was called up to play with the Canadiens while Luke Tuch is out for a month with an upper-body injury.
Rafael Harvey-Pinard was also out of the lineup, having been put on waivers by the Canadiens. He cleared those waivers Sunday afternoon and will be available to Laval for their next contest.
The only positive in the last week is the continued excellence of Jared Davidson. Due to Davidson’s skating, he was long thought to be not a great prospect at the NHL level, but he continues to score at every level he plays hockey.
Sometimes a player finds ways to succeed despite a skating weakness, and Davidson may be one of those players. He leads the team with ten goals after a tally in Pennsylvania. This is Davidson’s first full pro season, so the runway to get to the NHL is long.
Despite the poor week, the Rocket are still in second place in the North Division behind only the Cleveland Monsters. The Rocket’s next game is Wednesday in Syracuse, before finally returning home for a Friday night contest against Toronto.
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