It was only a matter of time before the season-ending injury to Cole Caufield weakened Montreal’s offence. That happened this past week as the Habs were only able to muster up five goals in three games with just a single point to show for it in the standings.
The Habs couldn’t muster up much offensively on Saturday night against Ottawa. While they were able to get through the first period tied, things went downhill from there as they fell 5-0.
Topics in this edition of the HW Podcast include Cole Caufield’s season-ending injury, the strong performances from Samuel Montembeault and Kirby Dach, draft talk, and much more.
When a player is sent back to junior, it is difficult for an NHL team to recall them but it’s possible if enough emergency recalls are used. That’s the case for the Habs and they’ve opted to pull someone up from the junior ranks, recalling Owen Beck from Peterborough of the OHL.
The Habs got some secondary scoring on Tuesday night led by a pair of goals from Rafael Harvey-Pinard but it wasn’t enough as Detroit skated away with a 4-3 overtime victory.
Despite the Habs struggling considerably in the second quarter of the season, there were a few forwards who had strong enough performances to land good grades from our readers and writers.
After a comeback victory over the Maple Leafs on Saturday, the Habs were in tough on Tuesday as they hosted the league-leading Bruins. They put forth a pretty good effort overall but came up short, falling 4-2.
While Laval’s roster currently features many players that have spent time at the ECHL level this season, they managed to put together one of their more successful weeks, picking up five of six points to move back into the final play-in spot for the time being.
Despite icing a lineup that is losing players by the day, the Habs actually managed to pick up a pair of wins last week which helped to take some of the sting off their one loss which was an outing to forget.
With the first half of the season now past, it’s time to grade the Canadiens players’ performances for the second quarter of the season. We begin, as always, with the goaltenders and defencemen.