The Rocket went into last week with one tough matchup and two games that could be classified as ones where they were the clear favourite to win. Naturally, they lost both of those while winning the tougher one against a quality Syracuse squad.
The woeful start to 2020 continued for the Habs this past week as they dropped three more games before managing to snap their second eight-game losing streak of the season in Ottawa.
2020 continues to bring good fortune for Laval as they picked up two more wins to double their win streak while they’re also poised to get some help on the injury front.
The Habs completed a swap of minor leaguers on Tuesday, acquiring centre Laurent Dauphin from Nashville in exchange for Michael McCarron. Dauphin has been assigned to Laval.
Last week, Marc Bergevin made some tweaks to his roster with the acquisitions of Marco Scandella and Ilya Kovalchuk. Having had some time to ponder both moves, our writers offer up their thoughts on the pickups.
It wasn’t a good end to 2019 for the Habs and 2020 hasn’t started off any better as the Habs dropped a trio of games to slip further out of the playoff picture.
Christian Folin has been the eighth defenceman on Montreal’s back end for most of the season and the Habs are giving him a chance to play in Laval after he cleared waivers on Monday.
The Habs have been hit hard by injuries as of late and they’ve dipped into the free agent market to try to help in that regard as they’ve signed winger Ilya Kovalchuk to a one-year, two-way contract.
In advance of Thursday’s game against Tampa Bay, the Habs swung a pair of trades. They acquired Marco Scandella from Buffalo for a 2020 fourth-round pick and flipped Mike Reilly to Ottawa for a 2021 fifth rounder and minor leaguer Andrew Sturtz.
Laval didn’t get off to a great start in their final stretch of 2019 but they ended the year on a high note with a pair of victories against division rivals.