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Week two of the season was a strong one for the Habs who got Carey Price back in their lineup and won all three of their games.  St. John’s wasn’t quite as successful but they picked up five of six points and saw some considerable offensive improvement.

Spotlight Players

Brian Flynn: Part of the reason he was placed in the lineup was Montreal’s struggles on faceoffs.  Putting him in made sense as he has quietly been their best faceoff option.  However, he took just ten draws in three games (winning only three, as it turns out).  If the logic for pulling Daniel Carr was in part to help the team at faceoffs, shouldn’t they actually have him taking more than a handful per game?  Don’t get me wrong, I think he’s playing well but it seems like a bit of waste to pull Carr for a faceoff guy and then not have that guy take faceoffs.

Jeff Petry: Boy, what a difference a healthy hip makes.  Petry struggled in the second half last year in large part due to the fact he was playing through an injury.  Now that he’s back to 100%, he’s a completely different player than he was later last season.  He gives the Habs some much needed depth on the back end and in particular, helps give the team a second pairing that can be confidently used in all situations.  I don’t expect the offensive production to be sustainable but even then, he’s still a nice player to have on the second pairing.

Alexander Radulov: I like what he has brought to the table for the most part even though the production isn’t there.  He’s creating chances and eventually, some of them are going to start going in.  I am starting to get a bit concerned with the amount of penalties he has taken, six already through just five games (seven when you consider one was a double minor).  He had just four minors in his last stint in the NHL with Nashville back in 2012-13 (spanning 17 games).  A lot of them haven’t been the right type of penalties either, either stopping a key play or just getting a little too aggressive.  That’s something he’ll need to correct as things go along.

StatPack

Skaters:

# Player GP G A +/- PIMS SOG TOI
6 Shea Weber 3 1 2 +5 6 6 77:41
8 Greg Pateryn 1 0 1 +1 0 0 14:16
11 Brendan Gallagher 3 1 1 +3 4 14 45:35
14 Tomas Plekanec 3 0 2 E 0 7 50:55
17 Torrey Mitchell 3 2 0 +4 0 3 38:49
22 Mikhail Sergachev 2 0 0 +1 0 2 19:29
24 Phillip Danault 3 1 0 +2 0 2 37:02
26 Jeff Petry 3 0 2 +2 2 4 65:09
27 Alex Galchenyuk 3 1 2 +3 2 6 48:26
28 Nathan Beaulieu 3 0 1 +2 2 7 62:24
32 Brian Flynn 3 0 0 E 2 5 37:02
41 Paul Byron 3 1 2 +3 0 4 37:45
47 Alexander Radulov 3 1 1 E 10 6 49:52
51 David Desharnais 3 2 1 +1 0 7 36:58
62 Artturi Lehkonen 3 1 0 E 0 7 41:48
65 Andrew Shaw 3 0 0 +2 0 3 40:04
67 Max Pacioretty 3 1 3 +4 4 11 49:03
74 Alexei Emelin 3 1 0 +2 6 3 54:58
79 Andrei Markov 3 0 3 +3 0 7 63:41

Goalies:

# Player Record GAA SV% SO
31 Carey Price 2-0-0 2.01 .920 0
35 Al Montoya 1-0-0 0.00 1.000 1

Team Leaders:

Goals: Brendan Gallagher (3)
Assists: Galchenyuk/Pacioretty/Weber (4)
Points: 4 tied with (5)
+/-: Shea Weber (+8)
PIMS: Alexander Radulov (14)
Shots: Brendan Gallagher (18)

IceCaps Corner

After an awful start to the season, the second week of the road trip was much better for the IceCaps who picked up five of six points and scored at least four goals in every game.

News and Notes:

– The IceCaps signed goaltender Yann Danis to a one year contract and released Bryan Pitton from his PTO.  The team plans to carry three goalies for the time being.

– Michael McCarron received a two game suspension for a head-butting incident against Providence last Sunday.  He served those games on Friday and Saturday and returned to the lineup Sunday afternoon.

– Ryan Johnston has the worst plus/minus rating of all defencemen in the AHL at -7 through just six games.

– Lines from last game:

Forwards:

Andrighetto – McCarron – Terry
Farnham – de la Rose – Friberg
Matteau – Audette – Gregoire
Hudon – Eisenschmid – Scherbak

Defence:

Hanley – Barberio
Samuelsson – Lernout
Parisi – Didier

Results:

October 21: St. John’s 4, Providence 1
October 22: Springfield 5, St. John’s 4 (OT)
October 23: St. John’s 5, Hartford 2

StatPack

Skaters:

# Player GP G A +/- SOG PIMS
3 Josiah Didier 1 0 0 +1 0 0
4 Philip Samuelsson 3 0 1 -2 3 0
5 Tom Parisi 1 0 0 E 0 0
7 Ryan Johnston 2 0 0 -2 1 2
8 Mark Barberio 3 0 3 +6 3 4
10 Charles Hudon 3 4 1 E 7 0
12 Max Friberg 3 0 0 -1 1 0
14 Brett Lernout 3 0 1 E 5 2
15 Joel Hanley 3 1 0 +1 5 6
16 Mark MacMillan 2 0 0 +1 1 0
17 Nikita Scherbak 3 1 1 +1 5 0
19 Bobby Farnham 3 1 0 E 3 0
20 Jacob de la Rose 3 0 1 E 3 4
21 Stefan Matteau 3 0 1 E 3 2
22 Chris Terry 3 1 4 +1 8 4
24 Daniel Audette 3 0 0 -3 4 2
25 Michael McCarron 1 0 2 +1 2 0
27 Sven Andrighetto 3 3 3 +2 11 4
29 Jonathan Racine 2 0 0 -1 2 2
34 David Broll 2 0 0 E 1 2
37 Jeremy Gregoire 1 1 0 E 3 0
38 Markus Eisenschmid 3 1 1 +1 6 2

Goalies:

# Player Record GAA SV% SO
31 Yann Danis 0-0-1 4.86 .857 0
35 Charlie Lindgren 2-0-0 1.50 .961 0

Team Leaders:

Goals: Charles Hudon (5)
Assists: Mark Barberio (5)
Points: Chris Terry (8)
+/-: Andrighetto/Didier (+1)
PIMS: Michael McCarron (24)
Shots: Charles Hudon (19)

Upcoming Schedule:

October 28: Rochester vs St. John’s
October 29: Rochester vs St. John’s

Final Thought

We’re only two weeks into the season and the constant game-to-game comparisons for Shea Weber and P.K. Subban already seem excessive.  Is one players’ production in one game going to drastically reshape anyone’s thinking about the trade?  Hardly.  So why get too worked up about the fact that Weber has a better +/- or that Subban has one more goal so far?  It’s five games, or 6% of the season.  That’s hardly a relevant sample size to draw any sort of conclusions from.  I get that people will want to make comparisons, it’s part of the fun when looking back on trades.  But how about waiting to do so until enough time has passed by for the numbers to actually matter?  How about, say, mid-April?  By then, comparing the stats for the two of them might actually mean something compared to now when looking at them means absolutely nothing.