Canadian 4 – Ducks 5 | Guardians problem, nth chapter

The Canadiens have a goalie problem.

Simon Olivier Lorange
The Press

Richard Labbe
The Press

The most cynical will get carried away by retorting that there is virtually always a goalkeeper problem in Montreal, but let’s stay focused.

This is not the issue that fully explains the 5-4 loss to the Anaheim Ducks. But he justifies it at least in part.

The clues were piling up, and the conclusion is increasingly clear: Cayden Primeau is not ready to play in the NHL.

He can certainly have good times, sporadically. Against the Colorado Avalanche last Saturday, he was solid and had nothing to reproach himself for. But against the Minnesota Wild, the day after, it was difficult. And against the Ducks, Thursday, it was no better.

Seeing his night at work end after just one period, the 22-year-old goalkeeper has now been substituted after four of his seven starts this season.

When Dominique Ducharme released the hook, ten days ago in Arizona, it was, he said, to change the pace of the meeting. In Minnesota, he explained that he wanted to “protect” Primeau, who was being bullied without his teammates seeming inclined to make his life easier.

It is somewhat in this vein that Ducharme justified his decision on Thursday evening. His assistant Éric Raymond, responsible for the guards, and he saw “signs”, at Primeau, that something was wrong. “Signs that he is showing nervousness and that he is not quite comfortable,” he said. Under these circumstances, “Do you leave it longer and it gets worse? he wondered. We know the answer.

The coach added a layer of it by affirming that being three goals behind, he “above all did not want [ses] players give up”.

At this point in the match, Primeau was no longer the man for the job.

Banal… or not

Basically, the situation is banal: one can hardly blame a goalkeeper for not being ready to face NHL shooters every night when he has not yet played 80 professional games. It would be unfair.

However, as we understand, the case of the masked men is obviously highly complex for the Canadian.

The decision to entrust the net to Primeau after the defeat in Minnesota was poorly justified. However, Ducharme admitted it, he didn’t really have a choice.

Samuel Montembeault, the big revelation of the season, is injured, probably in the wrist. The team medical staff allowed him, after a few days of rest, to resume training, but he himself said, after the meeting against the Ducks, that he still felt pain.

As he hadn’t played for a week and had only trained once, we first preferred to make him skip his turn before the weekend matches. His respite lasted only a period.

He frankly has nothing to complain about with his performance on Thursday: Trevor Zegras’ first goal will be in all the top-10 by the end of the season, and on the next, the same Zegras waited for four red jerseys block the Quebecer’s view before firing a precise shot.

Montembeault had good words for his young comrade: “He is still young, he is just 22 years old and he is very good technically. He has a lot of talent, I’m not worried about his potential. »

The solution in net definitely goes through Montembeault, at the very least until Jake Allen recovers from his lower-body injury and Carey Price gets back to form. The problem is that it is also, for the time being, the only option for his trainer. Primeau obviously needs to find his bearings and his confidence. And Michael McNiven is much more of a safety net of last resort… although one can legitimately wonder if giving him a few games would not allow Primeau to take a step back.

Node

But there again, there is a knot: if the Canadian wanted to give Primeau to the Laval Rocket, he would no longer have a goalkeeper in his reserve squad.

Wouldn’t the best avenue be to find a veteran at a low price to play relief in Montembeault until further notice? Remember that the CH is always last in the general classification: no need, in these circumstances, to look for a rare pearl. Simply concrete help for his team on the ice. It’s probably easier said than done. But, at the risk of insisting, the problem is real.

Earlier in the day, Ducharme stressed that such a decision would be up to his new bosses, general manager Kent Hughes and senior vice president of hockey operations Jeff Gorton.

However, Gorton has already given up on turning to this scenario this season during the perilous journey at the end of December. Primeau had contracted COVID-19, and with players falling daily, he bet Montembeault and McNiven would stay healthy for the final games before a long break.

Faced with Primeau’s shortcomings and his obvious lack of confidence, will we take a different path this time? We almost end up wishing it… Cayden Primeau himself.

Up: Jake Evans

Two goals, for which all the credit goes to him. Each time, he drove straight to the net and scored from a dive. Casually, his total of six goals this season now places him just two from the top with the Canadian.

Down: Alexander Romanov

His coach admitted earlier this week that the defenseman’s play had “slipped,” and it continued against the Ducks. Several awkward games and lost one-on-one battles. Witness one of his lowest ice times of the season.

Match number

13

In eight games since returning to action in mid-January, the Canadiens have now allowed 13 goals in the first period.

They said

In details

A match in front of no one

The game was played in front of empty stands.

There were people Thursday night at the Bell Center: members of the media and also arena employees. But officially, the Canadian played this game against the Anaheim Ducks in front of absolutely no one. It is that the Bell Center will be closed to fans until February 7, and then the Canadiens will be able to accommodate 500 people… until this measure is replaced by another measure, which should lead to another number of spectators , hopes the management of the team. But in the meantime, it’s pretty quiet at the Bell Center. Which might be a good thing after all, because at least there’s no one to boo.

Still problems in defense

Of course, we could talk about the problems in net for hours and hours, and in particular, we could talk about the troubles of young Primeau, who came out of his net prematurely once again on Thursday evening. But with all that, we should not forget this small detail which is not insignificant: with this other defeat, the Canadian allowed at least 5 goals on 16 occasions since the beginning of this season. Jake Evans, however, tried to see the positive side of things. “You always have to try to see the positive, because it’s a difficult year and you have to build on something,” added the young forward. But I think the team still showed great strength of character during this match by not giving up. Who knows, if the puck could have bounced differently a few times during this ice hockey game, the result could have been different. »

A goal that we will see often…

It doesn’t often happen that a player succeeds the “Michigan”. You know, that type of goal a bit like lacrosse, where a player places the puck flat on their stick, goes behind the net, and inserts the object over the shoulder of the goaltender on the other side. Well, it happened Thursday night at the Bell Center, when Trevor Zegras allowed himself this fantasy against poor Samuel Montembeault, who had just taken the place of Cayden Primeau in front of the Montreal net. It was also the first shot the Quebec goalkeeper received when he positioned himself between the posts, at the start of the second period… “It’s impressive, it happened quickly. I saw him place the puck on his paddle and he outspeeded me on the other side, commented Montembeault. I would have liked to face a different pitch as the first pitch, but it’s a super nice goal and we have to tip our hats to it […] I’m going to see myself again all week on TSN and ESPN, so I’m not so happy about that…but hats off to him. »