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Anderson Out 2 Games, Pitlick on Waivers |
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Follow me @KarineHains for all updates about the Montreal Canadiens and women's hockey
Last night, the department of player safety issued its ruling; Josh Anderson will sit out for two games for boarding Alex Pietrangelo in Saturday night’s game against Vegas. It’s hard to argue with that sentence, the video evidence is damning. I initially believed that this would buy some time for Kent Hughes as he tries to comply with the 23-man roster limit, but Montreal Hockey Now pointed out this morning that a suspended player does still count against the roster. Unless the team makes a request to Gary Bettman and the commissioner agrees to designate the suspended player as non-roster, which he did with Washington’s Tom Wilson back in 2018.
However, shortly after the start of practice this morning, it became evident that the Canadiens weren’t going to go beg the commissioner to help when they announced that Rem Pitlick wasn’t at practice and would be put on waivers at 14:00 today. The winger was not tendered a qualifying offer last Summer, became a UFA and shopped around for offers from other clubs but eventually circled back to the Canadiens who gave him a 2-year deal with a $1.1 million cap hit.
After the Habs picked him up on waivers last season, Pitlick managed to produce 26 points in 46 games and when he decided to re-sign with the team for less than his qualifying offer would have been, it looked like he would be in management’s good books. This season though, he’s struggled to find a regular spot or role on the team and has been in and out of the line-up.
With Evgeni Dadonov set to come off the IR list and Juraj Slafkovsky clearly sticking around in Montreal, a decision had to be made and Pitlick got the short end of the stick. If rumors are to be believed, Kent Hughes did try to move veterans Dadonov, Hoffman and Drouin but there were no takers. Considering Pitlick was a free agent this off season and no one bit, Hughes probably believes it’s a very low risk move to put him on waivers.
To be honest, I cannot argue that Pitlick has done well this season, but I would rather have seen the name of Dadonov or Hoffman on waivers. Clearly, Hughes is still holding out hope that he will somehow be able to trade them for an asset down the line. If that’s to happen though, they’ll have to perform. Both have been given plenty of opportunities and ice-time so far with no result, let’s hope it changes soon. At practice this morning, it looked like Dadonov would land on a line with Drouin and Monahan, I was kind of hoping that Slafkovsky would get an opportunity for more ice-time with more offensive minded players but looks like that will have to wait.
Kent Hughes might have to get creative again shortly since Mike Matheson skated with skills coach Adam Nicolas this morning and according to Eric Engels, he was really pushing himself out there and looked comfortable. Engels even added that he believes the veteran defenseman could be back much sooner than the initial timetable for his return indicated. He was meant to miss 8 weeks, which means that he should still be out for another 3 unless Engels is right, and his rehab is indeed ahead of schedule.
Montreal Canadiens Blogger • 
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