All goalies dream of playing as often as possible, but Jake Allen may dream of playing a little less.
Allen couldn’t have predicted what would happen to him when the Canadiens got him from the St. Louis Blues in September 2020. After all, he was coming here to be Carey Price’s reservist, period. . With any luck he might play something like 20 games a season.
As things have changed, haven’t they?
Price hasn’t put on the pads once this season, and no one knows when he’ll be back. Meanwhile, all the work falls to Allen.
Well, almost everything; he has played 12 of his club’s 14 games this season. That’s a total of 696 minutes and 48 seconds spent in net, and among NHL goaltenders, no one other than him has been employed more often. After him, the busiest Robin Lehner of the Vegas Golden Knights spent 639 minutes and 41 seconds in front of his net.
If this continues, and at this rate, Allen would be in about 70 games this season. In the Montreal camp, the last masked man to have been so busy is Price, who was in charge of a season of 72 games in 2010-2011.
But the 2010-11 Price was 23, while the present-day Allen is 31. Will he be able to hold out like this for a long time?
“You have to know how to listen to your body, you have to know how to recognize the good times to give yourself a little more rest,” he replied Wednesday at noon in Brossard. I have to try to stay on top of my form as much as possible. That’s the situation I’m in until we can find Carey, and we can get back to normal rotation. But it’s a great opportunity for me. ”
The veteran goalkeeper is no longer used to such a workload. In his case, we have to go back to his 2016-2017 season with the Blues to find him such a high pace, when he had taken part in 61 games. This Jake Allen there had known very good times, with an efficiency rate of .915, but this one sometimes knows difficult evenings, like that of Tuesday evening.
The problem is that while waiting for Price’s return, coach Dominique Ducharme does not have the luxury of multiple choices behind Allen. We can guess that if he was ready, the young Cayden Primeau, in whom the club management has very high hopes, would have started the season at the Bell Center, but obviously, Primeau is not yet ripe for the big stage. .
To compensate for all this, the Canadian got Samuel Montembeault from the Florida Panthers on waivers in early October, but obviously, the Quebec goalkeeper was unable to win the confidence of his new bosses.
“We know Jake’s experience compared to Samuel’s experience,” replied Dominique Ducharme. It is certain that Samuel has less experience, and also, we are in a situation where in each game, we need a victory. You have to manage it on a day-to-day basis. ”
With all that, one can well wonder if the return of Carey Price will be more important for the Canadian than for the Canadian formation for the next Winter Games. When Price is finally ready, will the Canadiens’ chances for a playoff spot still be alive? If the answer to that question is no, then Price’s games in the Montreal net will basically serve as a training camp for the Games.
In the meantime, the Canadian is preparing to welcome the Calgary Flames on Thursday night at the Bell Center.
“You have to keep it simple,” Jake Allen repeated Wednesday. But that doesn’t sound that simple.
Therapists are busy
Dominique Ducharme needed to pause and reflect when asked to clarify the situation of injured players at his club. This list is growing every day. Thus, Cédric Paquette will be absent from the game for ten days, Joel Edmundson “progresses”, and Christian Dvorak should play Thursday. In the case of Jonathan Drouin, who suffered a puck to the head on November 2, he is still out of the game. “We don’t expect him to be in uniform Thursday night,” added the coach, who clarified that the Quebec striker was struggling with headaches.
Norlinder is expected
Mattias Norlinder, recently ceded to the Laval Rocket for conditioning, is expected to be back at the Brossard training center on Thursday morning. The young defender, only 21, is not expected to face the Flames on Thursday night, but Dominique Ducharme has certainly not closed the door to the possibility that he could play his first game with the Canadian in the next meeting, that on Saturday. evening in Detroit. “We will see which of these moments will be the most opportune,” replied the coach. For him, the odds are better for Saturday. ”