Great news everyone, the Montreal Canadiens are 2-0 in the preseason, completing two come-from-behind wins and are on pace to go undefeated the entire season. Finally, the season Montreal fans have been asking for since the birth of the franchise.
Seriously though, two fun preseason games in, things are looking pretty good for the Habs. I was lucky enough to go to the game tonight, and got to repay Laura for taking me on Tuesday, but it’s been a long day and I’m pretty tired, so I’m going to skip the reminiscing about the game that most recaps have and just get to some thoughts about the team going forward.
Alex Galchenyuk’s game winning goal was unbelievably beautiful. In a game where everyone is watching Nathan MacKinnon, it’s Galchenyuk who makes the best play, and that’s a nice feather in his cap. Every shift at center for Galchenyuk looks more comfortable, and the dude is just creating. He was even 50% on faceoffs!
Greg Pateryn once again started off really rough, and this time his partner was a worse player in Davis Drewiske, so it showed a bit more, but he got better as the game went on and made some nice plays. If preseason can work the nervousness out of Pateryn’s game, he could be a solid seventh defenseman. He has the skill.
One preseason game isn’t much to judge on, but Alexei Emelin does not look cut out to play with P.K. Subban. Subban carried him to a pretty great looking performance when you look at the numbers, but he was a giveaway machine and caused the second Avalanche goal by being too invested in laying the body and ignoring the puck.
Nathan Beaulieu on the other hand, might literally be a wizard. There’s no way this kid should be considered anything less than a regular, and I’d like to see him get some games with Subban on the top pairing. Imagine the puck movement capabilities of a Beaulieu – Subban, Markov – Gilbert top-four defense playing 45 minutes per night or more? Dammit man, wipe up your drool, this is a nice establishment.
Christian Thomas is extremely unlikely to make the Canadiens, and we’ll know more about him when the lineups get tougher, but he is earning every inch of ice he plays on, and the respect of everyone watching these games. I’d love to see him force Bergevin to trade a vet at some point. He has the primary assist on both game winners this preseason. Can you be clutch in preseason?
I guess P.K. Subban felt he needed to remind fans that his $9M per year contract doesn’t mean anything changes, because the guy put up an all-world performance in 30 minutes in a preseason game. One goal, two assists, 15 shot attempts… Unbelievable.
Speaking of all world, Pacioretty put nine shot attempts on goal, with seven hitting the net, and he made Laura and I laugh all night because they kept showing his face after every shot on the jumbotron, and he was swearing at himself like crazy. If you wanted any three players to score right away and start the season off right, it’s probably Subban, Galchenyuk, and Pacioretty, so to watch them all do it live on the same night was pretty great.
Brandon Prust really can’t pass. I counted four times during the game where Prust had an east pass to a teammate and time, and he just flat out missed by five feet. He did have some fancy dangles in the neutral zone though!
Nikita Scherbak was demoted off the Galchenyuk line towards the end of the game. I’m hoping the Canadiens keep giving him chances, and I think they will, since Therrien seems to like him.
I’ll close with this amazing quote from Arpon Basu:
Asked what he thought of his first look at the Subban-Emelin pairing, Michel Therrien said P.K. Subban played really well.
— Аrpon Basu (@ArponBasu) September 26, 2014
