Montreal Canadiens season review: What happened with Jake Allen? | Is Primeau a bonafide NHL goalie?
hello everyone and inside the latest locked on Canadians it is player review season and we’re starting with the goalies your locked on Canadians your daily podcast on the Montreal Canadians part of the locked on podcast Network your team every day hello everyone and welcome to episode 1,082 of locked on Canadians today’s episode is brought to you by FanDuel and remember to make every moment more because right now new customers getting $150 in bonus Bets with any winning $5 bet that’s 150 bucks with any winning $5 bet just visit fanduel.com lockon to get started today I am your host of course I am Scott mat I am flying solo for today’s episode my co-host is off for the day and we are free and available wherever you get your daily podcast Google Apple Spotify or on youtube.com as well it’s easy you all you got to do is just look up lockdown Canadians you’ll find us and if you’re looking for another team lockdown has you covered there uh of course you’re wondering what are we doing here on this what is a rainy Sunday while I recording this in Buffalo New York but what are we doing here and it is getting to the point of the offseason that you know we’re waiting for the Stanley Cup final match up to be set Panthers versus uh either Dallas or Edmonton and the Canadians are relatively quiet at this point uh we’ll talk a little bit about Jared Davidson signing in tomorrow’s episode just to give that a little more depth I wanted to jump into player reviews because I realized you know some of our partner shows have started on that and I have slightly neglected uh taking care of that at this point so I wanted to take uh some time and slowly start peac mealing these in here we’ll do more throughout the summer but I thought goalies were the big one because we got some mailbag questions and that kind of what uh jogged my mind on this is that the Canadians this year had three goenda to be honest the three goalie system didn’t really work all that much here uh as I you know scroll through the numbers here where I’m uh on ESPN just heading over to goal tending now they had three goalies this year uh Samuel Bo played 41 games finished 165 and N 3.14 goals against 903 save percentage uh it does not I don’t see any shut outs on here but that is also ESPN site is terrible apparently for this anyways uh Kaden Primo played 23 games 8 n and four 2.99 goals against 910 save percentage and Jake Allen played 21 games six wins 12 losses three overtime losses 3.65 goals against 892 save percentage traded at the deadline to uh New Jersey we’re going to talk about Jake Allen at the end of this and kind of what’s next for the Canadians next year I want to talk about Kaden Primo specifically uh in the middle segment but uh in the first one the biggest thing that’s come out of this year that we kind of already knew last year this is Samuel MMO’s net and I think that everyone here kind of knew that already but this definitely established that overall why do none of these things wow Kaden Primo had two shout outs this year the more you know uh is that it’s uh this was an awkward year because you have Samuel mmbo who is coming off his deal and you’re wondering well what are we doing in terms of goal tending on this team now because Kaden Primo played his last full year in the NHL was eligible or would be subject to waivers in this upcoming season and the Rumor was straight from uh preseason and onwards is that if he has played based on waiver someone will claim him and that kind of leaves the Canadians in a rough spot because in the AHL and uh their goal tending was yakob doish a rookie Strauss man also technically a goalie and early on of the year they were sinking they were sinking badly and with that the question became well do you send Kaden Primo down through waivers and hope he makes it and then you have primo doish and the good news is they did not do that but the biggest issue I have or had with the three- tier system very quickly this year is Samuel mmbo played plenty 41 games I assume 45ish is about where you would want your onea goal tender to be at and this is not meant to be disparaging to Samuel Malo this is more that I am becoming a believer of 1 a 1B goalie than starter backup in the modern NHL that if you can have two guys who can provide you above League average quality goal tending you’re going to win just as many games as we’re going to play carry price for 80% of the games and uh hope and pray to Maurice for the other 20% of them uh and this year the the as it they wound out even last year it was very clear mmbo was the guy Jake Allen is the one be to that guy there maybe this year it all came down to who which one of the backup goalies performed better in their games and Jake Allen quite frankly did not look up to it this year he had games where the first two shots he faced you’re hoping and praying they didn’t go in and a lot of the time they went in and they were just little mental errors here this post isn’t sealed tight enough he’s misplaying the pass and this way sometimes these things happen I am not a goal tending uh Guru by any means here but you see the little things here and you look at this and you go I don’t think that’s what you were supposed to be doing on that play and the issue was he’s starting once every three games maybe and the same with Kaden Primo that would be M monmo would play two to three one of the backups monmo two or three other backup in there monomo is getting his reps and he’s fresh and he’s good to go neither of these other two goalies are playing enough to establish a rhythm at that point and the three tier and the three go system there really kind of hurt them in that regard is okay Kaden Primo had a bad game let’s say because he alternated bad starts and good starts we’re going to talk with him in the other one there and now he’s got to wait uh you know it could be a week it could be three weeks it could be a month before Primo starts again that’s hard to do when you’re a goenda blish a rhythm Primo was the guy in the AHL was playing and playing getting into that Rhythm he’d play four or five games back up usually Kevin pul comes in and plays the next one and then onward it’s so tough to establish that and figure out where my mistakes happening when you’re not playing that much and the thing is they wanted to play Jake Allen because he was their veteran guy they brought him in to be the backup to carry price a role he played very well a role that helped them get into the playoffs in 2021 and eventually to the Stanley Cup Final K or Jake Allen was not not a part of of in the playoffs a role part of that role but at the same time allowed Carri price to not have to start every single game because you had a quality goenda uh and like I said we’ll talk to Jake I talk about Jake Allen and stuff in the future but he got traded at the deadline to New Jersey played 13 games for the Devils there’s a condition attached to that pick that I believe he has to play 40 games in a season uh for and to make the playoffs and the Canadians third round the pick the Canadians get goes from a third to a second round pick I don’t hate it the biggest thing is I they can’t go back to a three-goal system it’s too hard to juggle the starts when you have a guy who is your established starter Samuel mmbo and I’m not saying that he is an elite all World he’s not Jake oer he’s not eigor shurkin Etc but he’s a very quality onea goenda year and his starts were I don’t have complaints with that I for Samuel molbo is you know he kind of got shelled a little bit down the stretch in some of these games where the Canadians are you know I don’t want to say out of it but you know out of it at this point like I’m looking down the stretch here 3-2 overtime loss to uh the Islanders uh three goals allowed on 31 shots face Detroit he faced 35 shots he had a really bad game against Toronto uh which did not help but then against Florida faced 40 shots 29 shots 28 shots 25 shots 32 shots 24 Shots 27 shots and as I just keep going down this there are nights 35 shots 38 shots 31 38 39 46 you know 30 41 35 48 33 42 their nights at Samuel monmo carried a weight that I do not think any other Year and be part of that is the defense you know struggled in front of him which understandably so and Kaden Primo face the same thing we’ll talk about his uh in the next segment here because I’m looking at the numbers he faced down the stretch this year a lot of losses but oh my God was he just absolutely Under Siege in some of these games going into next year Samuel monam was very clearly your anointed number one goenda Primo actually a Bonafide NHL at this point and if so what can we reason expect from him next year we’re going to talk about that more coming up next but first Passion drive and patience the winning formula for winning championships is also what keeps your ride or die alive and eBay Motors has everything you need to maintain your vehicle and level it 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is K Primo as I said Primo ended the year 89 and four 2.99 goals against 910 save percentage two shutouts which uh both I believe were against the Flyers which is very funny to me for a number of reasons this is by far the best professional season of Kaden Primo’s career uh he had a few cup of coffees where he didn’t look terrible uh but was you know a brief cup of coffee and then he would go down to dominate the AHL further and then some years where car price was injured or Jay Gallen was injured and the team wasn’t very good and they just went get out there buddy and gave him nothing there was a lot of questioning is is this going to be a guy we can count on in the future and I am looking over his game by game stats starting all the way this first start 1024 against the Devils four goals allowed on 33 shots against 879 save percentage a loss comes back to two weeks later against Detroit 27 saves on 29 shots gets a win in overtime 931 saage good start game against Vegas gives up six goals in a game where the Habs kind of collapsed in this one but face 42 shots gave up six goals not the best looking statline the next start a week later San Jose allows two goals in a 3-2 shootout win which anyways 939 save percentage good start the following week allows five goals on 29 shots against Florida 828 save percentage a loss bad start next week against Buffalo faces 48 shots makes 46 saves in a 3-2 shootout win good start next week uh the F or two weeks after that against Chicago 19 saves on 21 shots 5-2 Inn for the Habs decent start Carolina allows four goals on 30 shots 867 save percentage not a great start 3-2 shootout loss to Philadelphia face 39 shots 949 save percentage Good Start then bad start against Ottawa allows five goals gets Absolut well he came in in relief in a game where Boston won 94 in January uh faced uh he gave up a goal on the first shot he faced and then made the rest 833 save percentage wash not counting it as everything gets a shut out over the Anaheim Ducks where he face 13 total shots which is very very funny goes in Place Pittsburgh allows three goals on 26 shots 885 State percentage not a great start 43 shootout loss to Tampa Bay 897 save percentage on 29 shots not awful call it a wash gets a shutout win over Columbus where the Habs won three nothing he faced 41 Shots in that game gets a shutout win good Calgary gives up five goals bad then two good starts against Seattle and Philadelphia and then just nothing but losses straight down for the last month of the Season uh gives up six goals on 34 shots against Tampa Bay lost not a good start comes in in relief of Samuel monmo against the Leafs makes 18 saves on 18 shots a pretty decent relief appearance to get allow the Habs back into that game they still lost 4-2 uh against the Rangers faces 45 shots allows four goals 911 save perent you can say he has four goals against on there but I’m not going to call that a bad start uh against Ottawa 5-4 shootout loss faced 44 shots and made 40 saves against Detroit uh one of the last games of the Season faces 40 shots makes 36 saves so if you’re recognizing what I’m laying down here is that Kaden Primo started had this pattern of bad start Good Start bad start good start and that kind of continued as he settled in more and more comfortable some that I am more comfortable saying this is an NHL caliber goenda not and the thing about some of these games is the defense just let him out to dry in some of these and that’s really not fair to him this is the end of the year when we guys are beat up half of the lineup is you know either out or not back yet and the team is just trying to get to the end of the schedule here and I look at all these months he only had two months where he was below a 900 save percentage quality that’s a good thing couple of shutouts and when he faced volume against some good teams the Rangers won the President’s trophy Tampa Bay is Tampa Bay Toronto is a playoff team Detroit was fighting for their playoff lives in these games and in games where he faced a lot of uh adversity if he is up to it you can tell he has dialed in and the defense do not help him out here I feel more comfortable with Kaden Primo coming in as the backup next season knowing he’s going to get 30 to 35 starts potentially depending on how they manage Samuel mono’s load obviously with three goalies maybe monmo is getting more starts and it’s you know two to three mmbo primo and Etc and you put your schedule together like that I feel so much more comfortable with him now than I did coming into this season because I’ve watched a lot of Kaden Primo and this is not meant to be the appeal to Authority and everything with this but I’ve seen him at his best with the lval rocket where when the with the chips get down he is dialed in he is locked in and he is often being the reason why a game is not a blowout in the other direction with some more time with goalie training and more starts to get his rhythm there to get his timing down once he got his NHL timing in place this year Kaden Primo felt a lot more comfortable it l felt a lot more comfortable having him in net than it did Jake Allen at points and sometimes it’s just a hard you know it’s a mental reset kind of thing here that it’s like oh damn you know I’ve I had a really tough stretch here what was I doing wrong and learning from that he’s a guy who wants to compete and this is uh not to you know kind of hyperbolize this but the last chance for someone like him with yakob doish with Jacob Fowler coming we don’t really know what the next step is for yny vokin or Quinton Miller or whomever they might draft in this draft year because the Canadians love picking goalies they love having goalies in every tier of the system right now Ken Hughes loves that I would not be surprised if they are picking more goenda as route that they’ve gone and found great success with their goal tending so far I know we talked about Hayden hockey in a previous episode here but you found Kaden Primo you have Jacob Fowler you have yakob doish that’s a lot of recent success in NHL goal tending Emma CAU I know is younger I haven’t had a chance to watch much of them the games that they have played in so I won’t pretend to be an expert on that but if this was the Baseline for Kaden Primo to build off of for next year getting a 910 save percentage out of your back up goenda percentage out of their starting goenda say 905 is out of Primo next year and 910 to 991 15ish out of Samuel monmo this is a different looking Montreal Canadians team here I do believe that Primo is in fact a Bonafide NHL player at this point if they can smooth out some of those bad starts and get those back to just average you know I think we’re in a pretty good spot with him it’s it’s going to solve the problem heading into next year basically is that we know that coming into the NHL these are the two goendale uh 1.3 per year this is his last season on that deal and it is kind of a make or break because as I predicted I think Jacob Fowler’s coming uh in this next EP or in this next at the end of next season here and I don’t think that’d be unexpected for a lot of people uh to put a bow on this we are going to wrap up with uh Jake Allen here we’re going to talk a little bit about what’s coming up in the future and that’s all coming up next but first as I said off the top of the show today’s show is brought to you by the folks at FanDuel America’s number one sports book it’s win or take all time in the NBA the finals are set the NHL finals are almost set maybe at the end of tonight and fanduel’s giving you a shot to bring home a big win of your own because right now new customers get $150 in bonus Bets with any winning $5 bet that’s 150 bucks to bet on spreads money lines is you know Jason Robertson going to continue to be incredible Will Leon drle score again on the power playay because that’s all he does player props and more all at fanduel.com just visit fanduel.com / locked on and make every playoff shot count with FanDuel America’s number one sports book Hello friends back for our final segment here I’m not going to spend too long on this just because uh Jake Allen had a rough season a little bit uh for the Montreal Canadians and I got to be honest I don’t really blame him too much for that he things just didn’t really go the way the Canadians had hoped this year for Jake Allen uh some of it was a technicality or a technical thing where he’s just not where he needs to be um and sometimes that’s just kind of how it goes here I’m you know looking just through his game logs here uh he was traded uh he played his last game with the Canadians and it was a 43 win over over Nashville in overtime where he had 28 and even in that win it’s like the numbers don’t blow you away I’m just looking at his starts here he got the start against Toronto a game where the Canadians were cruising in this and then just in the final minutes could not hold it comes back pretty good win against Washington pretty good win against Buffalo pretty good shootout win against Winnipeg lost against Arizona gave up four goals on nine shots against uh Tampa Bay gave up three goals on 35 shots against uh Vancouver and it’s like watching Allen play it was almost a schedule loss in a lot of these games uh had a win over Colorado and then it’s just allowed seven goals allowed four goals allowed four goals allowed three goals he gets to New Jersey or and immediately starts with a 946 944 947 947 uh gets crushed against Ottawa 933 against Toronto in a win 912 against Buffalo in a loss then 750 893 967 895 844 789 when he’s on he’s on when he’s off he’s off and he’s unplayable and we saw too many times that there are games when Jake Allen’s not on the first like out of 10 shots three to four of them are going to go in and the game is basically over at that point and that’s hard thing for a Canadians team which struggled on the power play had you know struggle with depth scoring and everything this year they never could recover from that more often than not and I think that Jake Allen was perfectly fine but like I just look at some of these results here and it’s like it just wasn’t it and sometimes yes the defense is absolutely a problem you can absolutely say that the Canadians defense struggled this year in front of all of their goal tenders two of them managed to overcome that and one of them did not whether it’s a positioning thing or something else but it just maybe wasn’t the fit that needed to be he was traded for a third round pick that like I said could be upgraded to a second round pick excuse me this upcoming season in his time with New Jersey or if New Jersey also trades him he just has to play so many total games and make the playoffs I believe uh and that kind of leades him an interesting question is what is the future of the goal tending kind of look like for Montreal here uh Jake Ken now gone to New Jersey he’ll get a nice welcome back video I’m sure uh next season when the Canadians play the devils and it’ll be welld deserved Jake Allen was a completely was a very good ad to this team and a true Pro and a good veteran in a face of hey we brought you into be carry Price’s backup op carry Price’s career is over these Reigns are now yours do what you will with that uh you have primo and monmo in the NHL and as of right now you have yakob doish as your established AHL starter next year what they are going to do for a backup right now is up in the air I would prefer they bring back Kazmir kaskisuo as their backup goenda is pretty previous career high was 47 in uh the USHL with Omaha to playing 51 games for the Laval rocket this year 2.93 goals against 906 save percentage one shut out 248 and six honestly that’s a lot of games and that’s a lot to ask of a young goenda out the team because Strauss man was just kind of not the guy they needed him to be for the rocket this year Kazmir Casi came in established himself as a really solid uh backup option he played 13 games 7-4 record 909 save percentage uh he was injured to end the back half of the Season which makes things a little difficult understandably but I think that if you were to run it back with doish and kaskisuo next year you would have a perfectly fine Duo there it gets complicated from there because the Canadians have you know a lot of upcoming goal tending prospects and I’m just trying to look this up real quick I want to get I want to have make sure I have everyone uh correct in the system here and you have a guy like Emma CAU who’s playing at Dartmouth now you have you have Genny Volcan who is playing in the MHL right now these are guys who can be signed immediately they’ve Chang this a little bit but you have Jacob Fowler playing in the NCA you have Quinton Miller and you also technically have Joe verbic which is up in the air there Fowler is the future goalie for this team I absolutely think that he is the one that everyone is waiting on at this point uh Quinton Miller left the Quebec REM Parts at the qmjhl trade deadline he played 27 games for them this year 304 save percentage 901 say 304 goals against 901 save percentage 12 13 and one went to rusi uh in 15 games was 10 and four one shut out 2.60 goals against 917 save percentage he’s someone I was really impressed by in the rookie showcase I think that anybody who had to play under the watchful eye of Patrick W is uh someone who has the mental toughness to be a goalie at any level Patrick W is notoriously hard as a coach and a GM even more so as a there Quinton Miller is someone that I’m really intrigued to see what they do with him he’s got one more year in uh the CHL before I believe he has to be signed I don’t need to list all of Jacob Fowler’s uh accolades but damn if he isn’t an absolutely incredible goenda uh part of the us under 20 team that won uh World Juniors this year uh gold medal 326 And1 at Boston College this year played all 39 games 2.14 goals again against 926 save percentage three shutouts just an everything he’s won this year NCA East uh all all americ Team all rookie team for Hockey East all tournament team for Hockey East Hockey East champion hockey first team Allstar hockey regular season Champion uh New England D1 Allstar uh NCA first team and uh under 20 you know World Juniors gold medal kid thrive on being put in a position to have to win games you know he talked about how pressure is a privilege he’s a kid who gets it and he is going to be I think an absolute monster for the Canadians in years to come here and then there’s you have Genny volokin who admittedly I do not know much about it is hard enough to watch find KHL games to watch let alone their small under their Junior League as well in the MHL played 31 games for them uh on loan from his vhl team 1.57 goals against 938 save percentage five shutouts 22 4-4 put up a 33-1 record in seven playoff games 12 or 1.23 goals against 954 State percentage two shutouts the numbers look good I just don’t know what to make of these overall based on uh just trying to transpose stats from one League to another there I’m assuming that they might want him into the vhl next year uh Elite prospects has him listed on on uh the MHL roster for his team right now I’d say hey maybe at World Juniors or four nations but because of things outside of that it remains very hard to to get a read on this goenda with Emma CAU who has just not played a lot uh so he played six games for Clarkson last year two and three 3.53 goals against 835 save percentage transferred to Dartmouth this season we’ll see what that you know holds in store for him uh 6’4 209 uh also he had uh just someone that I haven’t seen enough of and it’s hard when you know at the same time that Clarkson is playing or now Dartmouth was playing is that uh Boston College or be were playing as well so uh that’s going to wrap up the goal tending uh player reviews for this year we will get into the forwards into the defenseman some of the other prospects and everything else this offseason I promise you my coach host will be back we’ll be back together for tomorrow’s episodes remember you can follow on Twitter _ Canadians lockon Canadians gmail.com if you have any longer questions you can follow myself at Scott matle you can follow my co-host at the Active stick you can find us whever you find your daily podcast Google Apple Spotify or here on youtube.com Thank you so much for tuning in and we will see you all next time [Music]
Inside the latest Locked on Canadiens
Scott is here to kick off the player review part of the off-season, and is starting with perhaps the most unclear position in the Montreal Canadiens organization…Goaltending.
The Habs went into this season with a three-goalie system and left it with just two players left between the pipes after a deal at the Trade Deadline. So, who stood out this year, and who disappointed in net for Montreal(and Laval), and what can we expect next season?
Scott also takes a look at why the risk of trying to run a three-goalie crease was a gamble that didn’t quite pay off for Montreal this season, but was understandably worth attempting.
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