There can’t be anyone more unhappy than Cayden Primeau with the Canadian at the moment. Fans looking for a scapegoat made him the Turk’s head for the Habs’ rout against the Penguins on Thursday evening. It wasn’t a pretty sound.
It’s true that Primeau did picpic in front of the net. It looked like Denis Lemieux in the last game of the Johnstown Chiefs against the Syracuse Bulldogs, in Slap Shot. He was all crooked!
However, his detractors went hard. The channel had arrived long before Martin St-Louis sent it to replace Samuel Montembeault. The Habs players were playing like chickens in front of Montembeault since the start of the third period.
Poor guards!
Roy would have gone crazy
Did you hear, by the way, Patrick Roy after the Islanders’ 5-4 victory at the expense of the Chicago Blackhawks?
Stung by a three-goal comeback by the Hawks in the third period, Roy said he would have broken his stick when he returned to the locker room, if he had been in Ilya Sorokin’s place.
Nobody doubts it.
“Times have changed,” Roy concluded with resignation.
Management must act
Like Sorokin with the Islanders, Montembeault gave the Canadian some victories this season. But why attack Primeau in a lost cause?
It’s true that he hasn’t been up to par so far this season. He has completely lost his bearings. But don’t they say that you shouldn’t hit a person when they are on the floor?
What is the Canadiens management waiting for to get him out of there?
A return to Laval would be in the order of things. The organization would not risk anything by submitting him to waivers, the step to follow to return him to the American League. Primeau certainly no longer possesses the value that was attributed to him last season.
And if a team decided to request his services, it would be a good thing for him.
The example of Charlie Lindgren
Look at Charlie Lindgren in Washington. The Habs let him leave at the end of the 2020-2021 season. The St. Louis Blues signed him as a free agent but only used him in five games in 2021-22.
Lindgren, however, did well with the Springfield Thunderbirds, the Blues’ farm club in the American League.
During the 2022-2023 season, he joined the Washington Capitals organization, where he has played since. He started 48 games last season, going 25-16-7 with a 2.67 GAA and .911 save percentage. He had six shutouts.
This season, he shares the task equally with Logan Thompson.
Proving that it’s never too late for a goalie to move up the ranks, Lindgren will turn 31 next Wednesday.
Primeau is only 25 years old.
Pig in Laval or elsewhere
If there is no longer a future for him in Montreal, the Canadian should do something for him. A stay in Laval could be beneficial if there were no takers for his services. His case could be re-evaluated at the end of the season, his contract will end at that time.
To replace him, the Habs could draw from the Rocket, where we find Jakub Dobes and Connor Hughes, who is doing well in his first campaign in a North American professional league.
The case of Hughes is interesting. Ignored in the draft, he played seven years in Switzerland before returning to America this year. At 28 years old, he is another example that there is no age for a goalkeeper to experience success.
Otherwise, there would remain waiver or a transaction. They say there are guards everywhere.
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