Making the final cuts to a roster is never easy. Especially when you’ve got an overabundance at all positions and on all fronts. The Montreal Canadiens have players who need to go through waivers to be assigned to Laval. That was another factor to consider on top of players’ performances during training camp, but it wasn’t a trump card which meant that they immediately got to stay with the big club. On Sunday, both Joel Armia and Gustav Lindstrom learned that the hard way.
For Armia, this was a long time coming. He arrived in Montreal in 2018 and ever since then, his path has been made of a few highs and a great many lows. In the last five seasons, he’s never managed to play more than 60 games and only skated in 40 twice. Even when he was healthy though, he often looked uninterested and disengaged, including during this season’s camp. Martin St-Louis mentioned that he got injured during camp and he just couldn’t catch up to other players, but that felt like a ready-made answer.
For Lindstrom, it shouldn’t have come as much of a shock for anyone really. The 24-year-old right-shot defenseman was acquired from Detroit in the Jeff Petry deal, but he spent the last season in Michigan as the Wings’ seventh defenseman. His camp wasn’t awful, but other blue-liners shone much more brightly and the fact that the coaching staff knew the others might have also played against him.
Neither player was claimed off waivers and today, the Montreal Canadiens, just like the 31 other teams, made the final cuts to their roster sending Mattias Norlinder and Emil Heineman down to Laval. If the waiver decisions looked like players were made accountable, this one must have been harder to swallow for the two Swedes. Norlinder looked like he had a legitimate shot at making the team and quarterbacking the second power play, he certainly made a better impression than Justin Barron, but in the end, the latter’s experience in the NHL was the clinching factor.
As for Heineman, if he had managed to stay up with the Habs, he would have found himself on the fourth line and it was felt he would be playing a more suitable role to his abilities in Laval since he would have been stuck on the fourth line.
In the end, both Jesse Ylonen and Cayden Primeau have made the 23-man roster, for now anyway. Clearly, the Montreal Canadiens felt that they could potentially have been claimed had they been waived, and it wasn’t ready to take that kind of gamble.
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With the roster decisions made, the focus turned to which lines and pairing would be used in the first game against Toronto on Wednesday night. All through training camp, St-Louis and Co. held auditions to know who’d be playing on the right side of Nick Suzuki and Cole Caufield and for now at least. It looks like the lucky winner is Josh Anderson.
To be fair, the power forward has had a great camp and ended up on the scoresheet in every game he played. The Canadiens’ bench boss also stated that his speed is an asset that needs to be exploited and reminded reporters that he had more than his share of breakaways playing with the captain at the tail end of last season.
Personally, I would have liked to see Sean Monahan in that spot, but his experience at center and the fact that Christian Dvorak is currently injured weighted heavily in the balance when it came to deciding how to best deploy him. In the end, he’ll be centring the third line, flanked by Tanner Pearson on one side and Brendan Gallagher on the other.
As for the second line, as expected, the Kirby Dach–Juraj Slafkovsky duo wasn’t broken up and following an impressive performance on Saturday night, Alex Newhook landed on their left wing. In the only game the three players had together, Newhook’s speed gave defenders headaches, created opportunities for his linemates and drew a couple of penalties.
As for the fourth line, it will be home for Harvey-Pinard, Evans and Ylonen/Pezzetta in alternance. Harvey-Pinard showed last season he’s got the talent necessary to play elsewhere in the line-up, but he’s done very little this training camp (aside from the last preseason game) to deserve a seat in the top six. Should injuries occur in the top nine, there’s little doubt that it’s on his shoulder that the coaches will tap.
On the blue line, the first pair will be made up of Mike Matheson and David Savard, the second of Guhle and Kovacevic and the third of Xhekaj and Harris. It’s expected that Justin Barron will be the odd man out to start with, but it’s highly likely that a rotation will be put in place at the blue line, just like last season.
Is this roster better than it was a year ago? I believe it is yes, but will it be good enough for the Canadiens to be more competitive? That’s hard to say considering how their fellow divisional rivals are miles ahead in their own reconstruction. Still, even if the results aren’t great, there will be plenty of interesting storylines to follow with the Montreal Canadiens this season.
How well will Alex Newhook adapt to his new team? Will Juraj Slafkovsky be able to make the most of the opportunity he’s been given in the top six? How many goals will a healthy Cole Caufield be able to score? And last but not least, how long will the Canadiens juggle three goaltenders? Watch this space to get the answer to these questions and much more as the season marches on.