Bottom Six Minutes: Cayden Primeau deserved better

The Canadiens dropped their fourth straight pre-season game, through no fault of their goaltender.

Still chasing their first win of the pre-season, the Montreal Canadiens took a short trip down the highway to face the Ottawa Senators on Saturday night. They didn’t get that win, and though they made it to their first overtime of the pre-season, it was hard to do much when they did so having to kill a penalty once there.

In a 5-4 loss, normally a measure of blame can be laid at the feet of a given team’s goaltender, but this wasn’t the case with Cayden Primeau on Saturday.

This was arguably his best outing of the pre-season thus far, despite the five goals against. He made a number of high-quality saves, and the game could have been out of hand well before overtime if not for his efforts.

Primeau’s contract extension essentially mirrors that given to Jake Allen. The message he should get from this is that he has the opportunity to take over the Habs crease at the close of that extension, provided Carey Price is still out of the picture. If he keeps performing like he did last night, he’ll have a shot at being a starter in Montreal down the road.

BONUS HIGHLIGHTS

Justin Barron with the snipe.

Jesse Ylonen with a beautiful sauce over to Rem Pitlick.

Kaiden Guhle ain’t fun to play against.

Click the play button below to listen to your full Bottom Six Minutes, also available on your podcast platform of choice. We have just one day off before another back-to-back, with the Habs hosting the Leafs and Sens at the Bell Centre on Monday and Tuesday.

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