by Chris G, Senior Writer, All Habs Hockey Magazine

LAVAL, QC. — The Canadiens had a busy week on and off the ice. On the ice, the Habs collected five out of the eight possible points thanks to victories over the Islanders and the Golden Knights and an over time loss against the Sabres. The only game that they left empty handed was on Tuesday night against the Rangers.

This week, the team heads out to western Canada for games against the Oilers, Flames, and the Canucks. If you are on the east coast, you’ll have to adjust your sleep schedule to watch the first two games of the trip.

Here are my top 5 takes of the week:

1. 1. 1. Tough week for Price- Thursday night’s game against the Sabres was high scoring with A TON of defensive mistakes by both teams. Carey Price allowed six goals on 31 shots and even received the Bronx cheer from the Bell Centre crowd after a routine save. When Rasmus Ristolainen scored the game winning goal 1:38 into the overtime, some Canadiens fans and media blew the issue up. Whether it was on radio, television or social media, the talk was about the Canadiens goaltender. “It’s evident that he isn’t at his best right now. I think that everyone sees that. [..] We’re not playing well defensively in front of him. That’s pretty obvious,” said Claude Julien following the Sabres game. “Let’s just cut to the chase really. I just didn’t play real good tonight,” was Price’s opening statement at his post-game scrum.
      2. Price supporter or hater? – When I was a kid growing up on the streets of Park Extension, I was the one playing in goal. I have tremendous amount of respect and appreciation for goalies and the Canadiens have an elite goalie in Carey Price. Is he playing like one now? In my opinion, absolutely not. I think that Price had a bad season last year, and was off to a good start this season, up until his last five starts. Antti Niemi has a similar save percentage to Price. Am I saying that Niemi is equivalent to Price? No, but an elite goaltender needs to be a lot better than his backup. Has the defence in front of him played well? No, they have been well below average like last season. We can look at the 11 goals that Price allowed in his starts this week, and you can find a defensive breakdown on every single one. When Michel Therrien was coaching the team, people were saying that Price’s play was hiding a lot of the team’s issues. I wonder, where is that Carey Price?
      3. Plekanec retirement  – On Friday, the Canadiens announced that they would be placing Tomas Plekanec on waivers for purpose of terminating his contract. It has been a tremendous career for a hard-working and loyal player. Throughout his career, there never was any controversy surround him, which is rare for a player that spent his almost entire career with one organization. I rarely believe any conspiracy theories, but this is one that I think is possible. When Plekanec was traded to the Leafs, he said during his media scrum that he and Marc Bergevin spoke about a potential return to Montreal during the off-season and even posted a farewell message on the Canadiens website. That wasn’t the case when other of the team’s fan favourites were traded away. When asked on the timeline of the contract negotiations after re-signing in the off-season, he smirked and said that it was as soon as they were allowed to do so. After being honoured for his 1000th game at the Bell Centre, Plekanec was placed on injury reserve with a lower body injury. On his daily hit on 91.9FM Sports, RDS’ Pierre Houde said that the RDS team looked at the tape and they couldn’t find any play that could have led to the injury. “I think it was lower back” chuckled Plekanec about his injury during his press conference on Friday.
      4. Lack of scoring? – Prior to the start of the season, I was concerned on the team’s scoring as Bergevin had traded two of the team’s top scorers in Max Pacioretty and Alex Galchenyuk. Through Sunday night’s games, the Canadiens are tied for ninth (with three other teams) in the league with 3.29 goals per game.  That exceeds my expectations at this point of the season. Through 17 games last season, they had scored 43 times and had given up 60 goals. Adding 13 goals and giving up five fewer goals has generated six extra points in the standings relative to last season through 17 games. Max Domi, Brendan Gallagher, Jonathan Drouin, and Tomas Tatar are all on pace of having 20+ goal seasons, which would be two more players than the number of players that achieved that plateau last season. If they keep up scoring at this pace, and manage to get better defensively, this team will surprise some fans.
      5. Weber’s D partner? – David Schlemko played his first game of the season on Saturday night, and the coach was happy with his performance. Schlemko was promoted during the game to the first pairing with Jeff Petry. Was that because Schlemko was playing so well or was it Jordie Benn who struggled? Shea Weber has been on skates since the end of October and will be joining the team to western Canada this week to take part in non-contact drills at practice. I think the team will give the Schlemko – Weber pairing a shot when Weber is ready to return. Last season, Bergevin said that this is the pairing that he had written on his board, but they barely had an opportunity to play together because both of them have been on injured reserve for most of the last two seasons.

Leave your comments below. I am looking forward to interacting with all of you.