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In Hainsight: The Sens Wanted it More and Dadonov off to Dallas |
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Follow me @KarineHains for all updates about the Montreal Canadiens and women's hockey
With 23 games to play, Montreal knows its favorite sons are not making the playoffs, there will be no meaningful hockey in town this Spring and none to close out the winter either. In Ottawa though, all hope has not yet been lost and the Senators are still hoping to qualified and it showed on the ice, DJ Smith’s men just wanted it more. The Habs hung on through the first 40 minutes of the contest, but they ran out of gas in the third as is often the case during the second game of a back-to-back.
Ottawa didn’t paint a masterpiece either mind you, it was a game that dragged on with lots of broken plays and plenty of whistles. To put five goals on the board, the Sens only had to fire 22 shots on Samuel Montembeault’s net and the goaltender ended the night with a .773 save percentage. The game did nothing to help the value of the few players GM Kent Hughes is probably praying to find a way to move out at the deadline; Jonathan Drouin and Mike Hoffman were on the ice for 3 of the Senators goals.
If you want to find some positive aspects to this game, you once again need to look Mike Matheson’s way, the blue liner put six shots on net and scored on a 1 on 3, a beautiful individual effort in which he buried his own rebound with three Sens looking on. As for captain Nick Suzuki, he scored for the third game in a row, and it looks like Harvey-Pinard was the medicine the center needed to get over the loss of Cole Caufield. Whatever happened next season, Harvey-Pinard has done enough to show that he should be the one to inherit one of the roster spot left behind by a departing veteran (trade or no trade Dadonov and Drouin won’t be here come September).
After the game, the Canadiens issued some health updates on a few players. Very few of those news could qualify as good, but we’ll start with the most promising one; Joel Edmundson is progressing well, will be joining the team for it’s trip on the West Coast and will be practicing with the team tomorrow. Notice that nowhere did the team dare to say he’ll play and the fact that the Habs sent back Schueneman to Laval is most probably linked to Kaiden Guhle being ready to return. In any case, at this stage, which GM in their right mind would take a gamble on Edmundson to help in his team’s playoffs run when his health status remains uncertain? Even if he does get into the couple of games left before the deadline, I just can’t see it happening.
As for Sean Monahan, he won’t be on the trip and that pretty much settles the question of whether he’ll be traded or not. What should the Habs do now? Well, there’s an argument to be made for signing him to a one-year deal and try to move him again at the next deadline, but will he want to stick around in Montreal for that purpose? At 28 years old and an unrestricted free agent, he may be hoping to get a longer deal and that’s one move the Canadiens shouldn’t do, they’ve got enough money committed to players with health issues.
Kirby Dach won’t be getting on the plane today either, his mysterious lower-body injury will keep him out of the line-up for an indefinite period of time. The worst update of them all though has to be the fact that Arber Xhekaj’s season is over and that he’ll be going under the knife for shoulder surgery. At the stage, it was pretty much expected. Hopefully, he’ll be ready to go at the start of next season as the Canadiens said he would, but for some reason, I’m finding it hard to have much faith in the Habs’ medical staff these days.
The Habs will take off for a 4-game road trip out west today and they’ll take on the Sharks Tuesday, the Kings Thursday, the Ducks Friday and the Golden Knights on Sunday. Generally, Montreal struggles on the West Coast and at this stage of a lost season, that’s not necessarily a bad thing.
Kent Hughes is clearly hard at work these days, the Canadiens announced this morning that Evgenii Dadonov had been traded to the Dallas Stars in return for winger Denis Gurianov. The Habs are retaining 50% of Dadonov's salary, in 50 games with Montreal the Russian gathered 4 goals, 14 assists for 18 points and a -10 rating. Considering the Canadiens had acquired him when they got rid of Shea Weber's contract, getting an asset back is a win.
Gurianov is 25 years old and was a first round pick, 12th overall in 2015. He's a winger who can play both sides and has 257 games of experience in the NHL with 103 points to his name. He's currently signed to a 2.9 M AVV contract which expires at the end of the season at which time he'll become a restricted free agent. If he manages to find his footing in Montreal, the Habs could keep old of him, if he doesn't they don't have to qualify him and they can let him hit the free agency this summer.
Montreal Canadiens Blogger • 
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