Harvey-Pinard with young people | The Press

Rafaël Harvey-Pinard may not have scored two goals in the Canadian’s intrasquad game on Saturday, but that didn’t prevent his trio from coming out for a second day in a row.

Guillaume Lefrancois
The Press

Sometimes it’s a pass from Juraj Slafkovsky to him in the slot. Sometimes it’s from Slafkovsky to Owen Beck, and vice versa, with a Harvey-Pinard not far from the goalkeeper’s semi-circle to grab a return shot.

Beck, choice of 2^e tour of the Habs and a member of the Mississauga Steelheads, admits he didn’t know much about Harvey-Pinard before arriving at camp. “But I knew he was like a mini Gallagher and I understood that this nickname is well deserved, commented the hope of CH, after training on Saturday in Brossard. He’s good at winning puck battles and setting up plays deep in offensive territory. He is constantly on the move, he always works hard and never stops. It’s good to play with him. »

From this unit piloted by Beck, we see that Harvey-Pinard plays the role of veteran. We have paired two 18-year-old players with the 23-year-old Quebecer who has two seasons of professional experience. If we wanted to allow the two youngsters to see up close the level of commitment required to excel among the pros, we could have found worse as an example.

On a sequence, at the start of the game, for example, Slafkovsky advanced on a forecheck towards defender Otto Leskinen in a corner, but without pressing him too much. A few seconds later, in the same corner, it was Harvey-Pinard’s turn to go, with much more confidence.

That said, Martin St-Louis did not go into detail about the logic behind this unit. “It’s a bit of everything. We have a lot of good players and we try to make equal teams, combinations that will give them a chance to show their qualities. It went well, they played very well, ”summed up the head coach at the end of the day on Saturday.

No invitation

Nevertheless, Harvey-Pinard continues to climb the ladder. One clue among many others: he was not invited to the rookie tournament in Buffalo, even if he is still running out of his NHL entry contract. Jesse Ylönen, a player with similar experience at Harvey-Pinard, was also exempted.

Harvey-Pinard made his NHL debut last season. He now has 105 games of experience in the American League; With the exception of Michael Pezzetta, who spent the majority of last season in Montreal, no CH hopeful has had so much experience in the minor circuit. There too, he rises in the hierarchy.

However, the figures are not to his advantage this fall. He still does not have to go through waivers if he is sold to Laval, which could make him an “easy” player to sacrifice at the end of the camp, in the event of congestion. In fact, according to CapFriendly, he still has 66 NHL games to play before he has to go on waivers. It will be necessary to see if the management will at least want to ensure that it does not reach this figure this season, so as not to lose flexibility in the management of the workforce.

Except that Harvey-Pinard has nothing to wax about the stories of waivers and surplus attackers. “I come to the camp to force the hand [de la direction]. I am aware that there are many attackers,” he said.

There are certainly many, but the injuries to Nick Suzuki, Paul Byron and Josh Anderson could allow players in his situation to see a little more action during the preseason calendar. And therefore to prove themselves more. Let’s also not forget the possibility of a veteran on offense being traded; if Joel Edmundson’s absence were to be prolonged, the pressure would be greater on Kent Hughes for help on the blue line.

St. Louis has been through this before as a player, lost to too many forwards with the Flames early in his career. His message for the Harvey-Pinard in his locker room?

“I would tell the guys to control what they can,” he said. If they continue to do so, they will always improve their lot. Contract situations make things difficult for some, but there’s always a way to boost your value. »