Canadiens Training Camp Preview: Player improvement tops precedence checklist

MONTREAL — It’s Day 1 of a brand new Montreal Canadiens season with nowhere for the group to go however up.

They completed in 32^nd place final 12 months — within the unenviable place of getting to stare up at each different group within the NHL — and although the brass wouldn’t thoughts in the event that they repeated the feat for the very best odds at touchdown generational expertise Connor Bedard so as to add to what’s changing into one of many extra proficient prospect swimming pools within the league, the coach and his gamers haven’t any want to put on that stink for one more season.

Their course of is starting now, and the tales they writer will likely be wealthy and attractive. 

We can’t wait to dig into them. But earlier than we do, right here’s a glimpse at what’s at play over the approaching weeks of Canadiens coaching camp.

Current wage cap area: minus-$10,239,166 million

GM: Kent Hughes

Head coach: Martin St. Louis

Assistant coaches: Stephane Robidas, Alexandre Burrows, Trevor Letowski

Unsigned gamers: None

How will the inexperienced teaching employees guarantee participant improvement is correctly dealt with in coaching camp?

On a group that’s positioned improvement as its prime precedence and isn’t anticipated to compete for a playoff spot — by no means thoughts the Stanley Cup — this season, the method begins proper right here in coaching camp. 

It impacts so most of the attendees, from 2022 first-round picks Juraj Slafkovsky and Filip Mesar to younger defencemen Justin Barron, Jordan Harris, Kaiden Guhle, Mattias Norlinder and Arber Xhekaj, who’re all within the combine to play NHL video games over the approaching months. 

On prime of pulling this group collectively and creating a good bond throughout the room to get everybody within the mindset of defying significantly low expectations, Martin St. Louis and the Canadiens’ teaching employees must stability placing these younger gamers to the check whereas additionally placing them in positions to shine. They must guard them in opposition to snap public reactions to good or unhealthy pre-season showings whereas additionally truthfully evaluating the place they’re at of their improvement.

And whereas all of that appears pretty customary at any coaching camp, it’s nonetheless a fragile course of to navigate for a comparatively contemporary NHL coach and a employees that has much less expertise than simply about every other within the league. 

Every resolution they make, regardless of how small, looms giant within the massive image — particularly in a white-hot market like Montreal.

Think about Slafkovsky, who was picked first total in July and anointed a star from the second he pulled on a Canadiens jersey. Everything St. Louis and his employees do with him over the approaching weeks will likely be dissected to the nth diploma.

If they resolve to start out him on what appears just like the group’s third line and invoice it as easing him in, individuals will say they’re not getting a correct have a look at what he can do with gamers like Nick Suzuki and Cole Caufield, whom he’s more likely to play with as a developed NHL product. And, conversely, if the 18-year-old begins with Suzuki and Caufield and doesn’t pile up targets proper off the hop — even in much less structured and meaningless pre-season video games — the identical individuals will instantly decide him unfit for this highlight and say St. Louis and the employees rushed him. 

Never thoughts that Slafkovsky’s about to take his very first strides underneath that scalding highlight, and increasing him a grace interval to regulate to it appears apropos. Decisions with such extremely touted prospects are hardly ever digested as rationally because the individuals making them hope they are going to be.

It’ll be fascinating to see how St. Louis frames his choices and navigates all of that intense scrutiny as a result of what he says publicly can be an enormous a part of correctly creating prospects like Slafkovsky. 

Of course, the choices he and the opposite coaches make finally rule the method. There isn’t a lot else to say about it till they begin making them.

A coaching camp battle to observe:

The massive one is on defence, the place a number of spots are up for grabs and the gamers competing for them are principally underneath 23 years outdated. 

Joel Edmundson, Mike Matheson, David Savard and Chris Wideman are locked in as the one veterans on the place, and meaning this competitors would possibly lengthen past the opposite 17 defencemen who’ve been invited to camp — a topic explored in larger element within the part beneath.

Of the 17, nonetheless, it actually boils right down to which three of Barron, Harris, Guhle, Norlinder, Xhekaj and Schueneman will shine brightest in observe and in exhibition video games. 

Barron has a slight edge to one of many spots as a right-shot defenceman, given that every one the others shoot left and — other than Harris — can be enjoying out of place to fill one of many group’s largest holes. 

Both gamers acquired their toes moist within the NHL final 12 months, as did Schueneman, who’s been a professional for longer than all these younger defencemen and performed over 130 video games on the AHL stage.

The undeniable fact that the Michigan native is 27 years outdated and coming into the prime of his profession makes him a contender to lock down a spot on the Canadiens’ blue line. 

Guhle additionally seemed bodily prepared to take action a 12 months in the past, earlier than he was despatched again for what proved to be one ultimate dominant season within the WHL and on the junior worldwide scene. It’s not a stretch to counsel the 6-foot-2, bodily defenceman is extra ready for a full-time function than every other participant he’s competing in opposition to at this camp. 

And then there’s Xhekaj, who impressed the Canadiens’ brass at rookie camp over the previous week and brings a well-rounded — and very punishing — recreation that caught sufficient of Hughes’ consideration all through his ultimate season within the OHL to have the GM point out him as one of many gamers he feels will assist mitigate the lack of Alex Romanov by way of commerce at this previous draft.

You might say it doesn’t matter all that a lot how this performs out in camp as a result of there’s a powerful probability all of those gamers are going to be rotating by way of the lineup this season at one level or one other. 

But a season-long competitors on the blue line begins proper now and nothing will likely be extra compelling than to see how the primary leg of it will get settled.

Projected lineup out of camp/depth chart: 

Note that this can be a free projection based mostly on the present depth chart and the uncertainty that gamers are, in truth, wholesome sufficient to start out the season. It’s being made previous to the gamers even subjecting to medical evaluations, so nothing is a given till that occurs and, naturally, this image is sort of fluid.

It’s going to be fluid all through camp, and fluid all through the season. As it all the time is. 

We’re solely basing this on what the Canadiens have proper now, even when we are able to envision a number of modifications on the horizon earlier than the significant video games get underway. 

For occasion, with the group missing expertise on the blue line and wanting to guard the arrogance of all of the younger gamers competing for spots there, it’s fully conceivable the Canadiens flip to the waiver wire to fill the void. They have prime precedence on claims after ending in final place final season, giving them ample alternative so as to add to their roster with out subtracting.

Not that they gained’t be subtracting. 

Be it by way of commerce or waivers, the Canadiens probably have a physique or two to shed up entrance to create each roster and salary-cap flexibility, so maintain all of that in thoughts as you ponder these traces and pairings.

Forwards:

Juraj Slafkovsky-Nick Suzuki-Cole Caufield

Evgeny Dadonov/Jonathan Drouin-Christian Dvorak-Josh Anderson

Rem Pitlick-Kirby Dach-Brendan Gallagher

Mike Hoffman-Sean Monahan/Jake Evans-Joel Armia

*Paul Byron is listed as injured and is questionable to start out the season on time.

Defencemen:

Mike Matheson-David Savard

Joel Edmundson-Justin Barron

Kaiden Guhle-Chris Wideman

*Jordan Harris and Corey Schueneman in rotation

Goaltenders:

Jake Allen

Samuel Montembeault

Cayden Primeau

*With full information that Primeau would possibly outshine Montembeault in camp after a stellar exhibiting within the 2022 Calder Cup Playoffs with Laval, his eligibility to be despatched to the minors with out being subjected to waivers places him at a drawback within the competitors — particularly given the shortage of NHL depth the Canadiens possess on the place.