All Habs Headlines: Monday October 19, 2015
	On this day in hockey history… 1946 — Detroit’s Gordie Howe picked up his first NHL assist  and his first fighting penalty as the Red Wings lost 6-3 at Toronto.  1966 — Rookie Bobby Orr played his first NHL game and picked up an assist as the Bruins beat Detroit, 6-2 in Boston Garden.  1980 — Paul Coffey picked up the first assist of his NHL career, on a goal by Dave Semenko, in the Oilers’ 4-2 win over the Rangers, in New York.
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► Habs practice

• The Canadiens practiced at the Bell Centre on Monday morning prior to their game with the St. Louis Blues on Tuesday night.
• It was an upbeat skate withe the Canadiens still basking in the glow of their impressive 6-0-0 start to the season. You can read our game report about their win on Saturday night here: Recap – Red Wings vs Canadiens: Habs Answer Questions, Extend Streak
• Michel Therrien is not interested in changing a winning formula. No lineup changes are expected for the matchup against the Blues.

Forward lines, defense pairings and goaltenders at Monday’s practice

Pacioretty – Plekanec – Gallagher
Eller – Galchenyuk – Semin
Fleischmann – Desharnais – Weise
Flynn / Byron – Mitchell – Smith-Pelly

Markov – Subban
Emelin – Petry
Beaulieu – Gilbert
Tinordi – Pateryn

Price
Condon

► Price takes top honours

• As members of the media outdo each other in trying to show that Carey Price is playing a minimal role in the Canadiens recent success, the NHL says otherwise.
• Price was chosen as the league’s First Start of the Week on Monday posting a record of 3-0-0 with a 1.00 goals against average and a lofty .963 save percentage.
• Tyler Seguin of the Dallas Stars and Vladimir Tarasenko of the St. Louis Blues were the second and third stars of the week respectively.

► Been there, done that

• In his presser following Saturday night’s win Michel Therrien was asked if this was the best start to a season that he has experienced as a professional coach? A rather curt “No” was the unexpected reply. Therrien then mumbled something about the minor leagues.
• So what on earth was the Canadiens bench boss talking about? At the start of the 2005-’06 season, Therrien was behind the bench of the AHL’s Wilkes-Barrie/Scranton Penguins who opened the year with a 21-1-2-1 record.
• As a reward, Therrien was promoted to the head coaching position of the Pittsburgh Penguins on December 15, 2005. He wasn’t as successful in the NHL with the Penguins going 14-29-8 under Therrien that season.

► Rejecting a star

• Most could’ve guessed that Marc Bergevin was in on Brandon Saad when the Blackhawks were shopping him with the oncoming threat of an offer sheet, and they would be right.
• As it turns out, according to Renaud Lavoie of TVA Sports, Bergevin rejected a deal that would’ve brought Saad to Montreal in exchange for Alex Galchenyuk and Nathan Beaulieu.
• The Columbus Blue Jackets ended up acquiring the former 43rd overall pick in exchange for Artem Anisimov,Jeremy Morin, Corey Tropp and Marko Dano, and a fourth-round pick in the 2016 draft.
• Through six games with his new club his season; Saad has three goals and an assist along with a minus-six rating on the worst team in the NHL.
• In the 2011 draft when the ‘Hawks selected Saad 43rd overall, the Canadiens chose Nathan Beaulieu 18th

► Close to signing?

• Canadiens prospect Martin Reway created a bit of a stir this long-weekend when he sent out a vague tweet about a possible contract.
• The first tweet Reway sent out seemed optimistic for Habs fans “Contract talks can begin. Difficult decisions are a good one”.
• But then the situation completely turned on its head “sorry if i confuse you guys, i am not talking about Montreal. I am with talks with Sparta” which could be very detrimental to his future in North America considering that would be a contract extension.”
• Reway is following up on his excellent rookie season in the Czech Republic last season, in which he had 37 points in 34 games, by leading his team in points this year with 16 in 13 games.

► Off to a good start

• After a strong training camp Michael McCarron is starting his professional career on the right foot.
• In the team’s fourth game of the season McCarron scored his first professional goal and followed that up by putting two more in the net and recording his first pro hat-trick.
• McCarron is now tied with Christian Thomas for the team’s goal scoring lead.

► What a resemblance

• Max Pacioretty graces this month’s issue of the Canadiens’ magazine with a resemblance to another captain that plays the same position.
• The Canadiens recreated a cover from an old Canadiens magazine with Bob Gainey, with the “C” on his chest, as it’s cover boy and recreated it with Max Pacioretty.

https://twitter.com/CzechNHLfan/status/652652973483536384

► One game at a time

• The Canadiens are off to the best start in franchise history but head coach Michel Therrien is still sticking to his mantra.
• “I take games one at a time. Players will enjoy a well-deserved Sunday off and resume the job Monday morning in preparation for our next game. That’s my philosophy …” said the Canadiens’ bench boss.
• Evidently, Therrien only ever takes it one game at a time and is standing beside that “We never speak about our streak, we only ever think about the next game.”
• The powerplay struck twice and as could’ve been predicted, Michel Therrien was happy about it “The power play was very good. It scored us two big goals. We had the chance to practice a bit this morning [Saturday morning]. I think it was good to return to base. It’s good to talk about it, it’s nice to do the X’s and O’s but the best recipe is to practice it. Guys have applied the basic principles we wanted. But it was also very aggressive. We were very aggressive to go to the net, to direct pucks to the net, so that we got the desired success.”

► Theodore called up

• The Anaheim Ducks have called up former 1st round pick Shea Theodore from San Antonio of the AHL.
• The defenceman, along with fellow “dman” Korbinian Holzer were called up following the losses of Simon Depres (head) and Clayton Stoner (lower-body) to injuries.
• In 43 games last season with the Seattle Thunderbirds of the WHL the former 26th overall pick had 13 goals and 48 points with a plus-16 rating. In six playoff games last season the Aldergrove, BC native had three goals and nine points.
• Josh Manson, who was already up with the team, and Holtzer will occupy the spots left by Depres and Stoner for the time being but expect Theodore to get the call sooner rather than later.

► A young Bure

• By no stretch of the imagination is Scott Gomez inexperienced which makes his praise of Russian teammate Vladimir Tarasenko all the more impressive.
• Gomez had quite the high praise for the former 37 goal scorer “I think it’s safe to say I’ve been around a long time and I’ve seen some unbelievable guys. I got to play with (Alexander) Mogilny … but this guy might be at a different level. I don’t think we even know the potential. It’s almost scary. The closest thing I can think of is when Pavel Bure first broke into the league.”
• “When this guy gets the puck in almost any area, you’ve got to think goal almost every time. He’s a great kid, he’s got a smile on his face all the time and the guys just love him. You can tell he just wants to get better. It’s pretty neat. You don’t want to take him for granted. He’s great for our league. He’s a special one right there.”
• Tarasenko is currently on a line with Jori Lehtera and Alex Steen while Gomez has Scottie Upshall and Dmitrij Jaskin on his wings.

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