This morning, on the sidelines of CH training in Ohio, there weren’t many people on the ice.
The reason is simple: the club traveled to Columbus yesterday after the match. This means that training was reserved only for the club’s reservists, to allow them to loosen their legs.
And only two guys skated, as reported by Anthony Martineau: Michael Pezzetta and Patrik Laine.
In both cases, it makes sense. Pezzetta has been an extra for weeks and he will not play more tonight. I really wonder how he feels about all this.
And Wool? He’s not ready yet. We knew he was traveling with the club, but he won’t play against his former club tonight. We have to expect it in more or less a week, obviously.
We should therefore not expect a change in attack this evening – unless it is in the composition of the trios, of course.
Defensively, no one skated this morning since of the seven defensemen with the club, six played yesterday and one (Mike Matheson) was not in good enough shape to play yesterday. He is currently a doubtful case for tonight’s match and we will see what the coach says.
Because Samuel Montembeault played yesterday and Cayden Primeau played tonight, neither was skating this morning. But for Pezz and Laine, it still took a goalkeeper.
So according to what Anthony Martineau tweeted, it was Reid Robertson who put on a goalie uniform to face the shots of Laine (a former Blue Jackets) and Pezzetta.
The former university goalie works as a hockey operations assistant, according to the club’s website. To see him practice with a sweater in the CH colors is therefore special, but he collaborated to help out the CH.
If it had been in Montreal, perhaps Karel St-Laurent would have been present. But on the road, without a threesome, it takes a different solution.
In burst
– Good question.
– Auston Matthews: not yet ready to return to the game.
– Nick Suzuki, a real first center?
– He becomes the club’s starting quarterback.
