Habs News: Bye Week in NHL, Price wins Molson Cup, Juulsen Injury Update, Players Returning too Soon After Injury, All Star Game Format
by Chris G, Senior Writer, All Habs Hockey Magazine
LAVAL, QC. — A successful Super Bowl weekend for the Montreal Canadiens as they obtained three of the possible four points in the pair of weekend afternoon games. On Saturday, New Jersey beat Montreal by a 3-2 score in overtime and on Sunday, Jonathan Drouin scored the game winner in overtime to give his team a 4-3 win against the Oilers.
The Canadiens continue their seven game home stand with three games this week. The struggling Ducks will be at the Bell Centre on Tuesday night, before the Jets visit on Thursday night and the Leafs are in town for a Saturday night original-6 match-up.
My top-5 Canadiens takes of the week
Bye week necessary?
Saturday’s game against the Devils, was the Canadiens first game after nine days off. The team was on the All-Star break followed by the five-day bye week mandated by the collective bargaining agreement. All 31 NHL teams had their bye either the week before or after the All-Star game.
I can certainly understand the reason that the players negotiated the time off as part of the schedule. The NHL schedule is gruelling for the players and they take the time to take a break from the game and spend time with their family and loved ones.
From a hockey and fan perspective, there isn’t much benefit of the teams getting over a week off. After their first practice following their break, several Canadiens players mentioned how they felt rusty or uncomfortable. Fans may lose engagement with their team. This might be less of an issue in a traditional hockey fan base such as Montreal, but teams in non-traditional hockey markets may not benefit from these breaks.
A compromise that I think that would benefit everyone the most, would be to eliminate the bye-week and spread the games more to reduce the amount of back-to-back games that each team plays in a season. How many times do we see teams play drop in the second game of those situations?
Price wins January Molson Cup
Prior to Saturday afternoon’s puck drop against the Devils, Carey Price was presented the Molson Cup for the month of January. Price had two shutouts and was named a star in six of the eight games that he started in the month, which shows the impact he had of the team’s success during the month.
Price ranked second in the league for save percentage (.953) and goals against average (1.51) for the month behind Juuse Saros of the Nashville Predators.
If he continues to put up similar numbers for the remainder of the season, not only will Price be considered for the Vezina Trophy, awarded to the best goalie, but he will also help his team to potentially cause surprises in the playoffs.
Juulsen Injury Update
Ron Fournier mentioned a little over a week ago on his radio show that Noah Juulsen was suffering from a potential career-threatening eye injury. On Friday, Richard Labbe of LaPresse+ posted a story following his conversation with Craig Oster, Juulsen’s agent. Oster confirmed that his client is suffering from a left eye injury suffered on November 19th against the Washington Capitals but said that it’s too soon to consider it career-threatening.
After missing three weeks of play, Juulsen returned to play four more games for the Canadiens before being assigned to the Laval Rocket, where he played three more games before being sidelined once again due to the same injury.
Later in the day on Friday, Canadiens confirmed that Juulsen is suffering a vision related issue and will be out indefinitely.
In terms of transparency, the organization dropped the ball on how they handled this situation. Instead of proactively announcing an indefinite absence, they were forced to react to speculation put forward by the media.
Returning From Injury
When Juulsen returned to play on December 11th, he clearly wasn’t fully recovered from the injury he suffered. He wasn’t playing well in the four games he played when he returned, which led to the team assigning the defenceman to Laval to work on his game. The injury also affected his play in short stint with the Rocket.
On Friday, Andrew Shaw said that he felt ready to return from his injury, but Claude Julien quickly dismissed that possibility, advising that the decision will be made by the medical staff and not by the player or coach.
We don’t know the details of process that led Juulsen to be cleared to return, but it affirms that it’s preferable to be overcautious than to hurry back to play.
Muzzin trade
Last Monday, Toronto acquired Jake Muzzin from the Los Angeles Kings. Marc Bergevin was certainly interested in acquiring him, as Muzzin was part of the reported trade between the Canadiens and the Kings at the draft that involved Max Pacioretty.
On L’Antichambre on RDS, Stephane Leroux said that Jake Evans, Cale Fleury, and a first round draft pick would be the Canadiens equivalent of the price the Maple Leafs had to give up. I wouldn’t have approved if Bergevin would have made that trade.
During a press conference at the beginning of the month, Bergevin mentioned that he would not give up prospects for a rental player. I think Muzzin would have been a short term solution.
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