Montreal Canadiens: NHL’s Most Improved Team? | w/ Jeff Marek

Montreal Canadiens: NHL’s Most Improved Team? | w/ Jeff Marek

Now you’re good.
Don’t rehearse your adlibs. Welcome to episode 398 of the DFO rundown. As always, brought to you by Bet 365. Get in the game. And uh right now MLB, place to be at Bet 365. I am uh Jason Greger as we continue on uh the rundown episode 398. and uh we’ll have uh a few more uh special guest hosts and then we’ll take some time off and then we’ll we’ll be back uh as always uh full steam for the next season. We’ll do some bi-weekly stuff uh throughout the summer. Uh today we welcome in from the sheet at Daily Face Off. Jeff Merrick joins us. Jeffrey, good morning.
Hello. Hello sir. It’s nice to chat again. Uh we normally have our conversations on your show on Thursday. Good to be with you today. How are you my friend?
I’m good. I’m good. It’s uh it’s hot here in Alberta right now. Scorching hot. Uh heck, they had a tornado warning just outside, but thankfully I didn’t saw a sighting. Nothing touched down, so it’s a little hot uh right now. Good.
Um free agency, I don’t know if it’s been as hot because a lot of the big names stayed with their teams, but let’s kind of go around. We’ll go around a few teams that I find interesting. And you had mentioned, I know when we were talking beforehand, you want to talk about the Canadians because you feel that they might be one of the teams like because I looked and I said, man, out of all the playoff teams, did any of them really improve? A lot of them just kind of kept their same guys. I know Vegas made a big trade with Marner, but they lost their best defenseman and they lost Nick Heg and Petraelo and Heg. So, I’m not sure they’re different. I’m not sure how much better they are. Like, of all the playoff teams maybe in the East, did did Montreal do the most? Uh I I I do like what listen Montreal did their their heavy lifting um a week before uh a week before the uh the free agent window open and that was picking up Noah Dobson. Like first pairing defenders really don’t emerge, right? Like it’s one of the hardest things to catch. You know, good luck catching that butterfly with the net. It’s tough, right? And Noah Noah Dobson emerges and and they grab him, you know. I’m curious your thoughts on this one, too, because when I saw them send, you know, two first round picks, you know, which turned into two really good players here for the Islanders, even though they’re trying to get the the big fish, James Hagens in the top 10, that didn’t work out. But they by by sending two first round picks, I wonder if that’s Kent Hughes signaling to the marketplace that this rebuild is over or, you know, as Winston Churchill said, it’s the end of the beginning right now for the Montreal Canadians because that’s the way it feels. And I think a really really good sneaky move is bringing in Zack Bulldock. Now it cost them Logan Mayu. Um but you know as we’ve seen before like the Montreal Canadiens are absolutely loaded uh when it comes to defense prospects. So that’s fine. And with you know with making the trade for Noah Dobson, Logan Mayu puts another speed bump in front of him getting to the NHL. So this one makes sense too. St. Louis has a lot of wingers specifically on the right side led by Jimmy Snugroot. that made him available. I thought that Bulldock had a really good season last year for the St. Louis Blues. You know, he’s got a really good shot, really good one-timer. He’s a robust player. I don’t think it’s lost on anybody that he’s French Canadian as well, uh which will always play good in the in the Montreal market for the obvious reasons. Um, you know, losing Arma is is going to be tough for their uh for their penalty kills certainly, but I look at this team now and you can make the argument that they still need a legit 2C on the team. But of all the all the Canadian teams right now, and again, like we’re doing this on July 3rd. Um, but right now, if I looked at all the Canadian teams and I said which one pulled ahead more than any other team, I’d probably have to go with the Montreal Canadians
from from where they were last year. Yeah, I I would agree. I I still when I look at their defense core and I look at the playoffs and I I think eventually that they’ll they’ll retweak some things and they’ll get a little bit more size and a little bit more physicality back there. But Dobson, Ghoulie, Mat, Kerier, Lane Hudson, they can move the puck. There’s going to be no question about Montreal being able to to move the puck uh effic uh effectively and efficiently up the ice. I agree with you on a on a second line center. Um, you know, Patrick Line, I I I’m guessing this is probably his last year uh in Well, definitely at that cap hit. He’s going to be taking a big cap hit afterwards. So, or reduction, I should say. Yeah, I don’t mind what what Montreal did, but you’re right about the this the 2C. I I think, you know, the rebuild, it’s probably fair that’s over, but they still got a ways to go. I think there’s still a few pieces. They’re going to have to get a second line center. And really, a lot of a lot of their stuff is going to come internal just in development. And as as younger guys get better and they get stronger and they get more experienced and so they’ll become a threat. I will say like,
you know, I I talked to people on both sides because it was a fascinating trade, the Mayu for Book trade and, you know, Bald Duke’s obviously being in the NHL already, had a pretty good rookie season at 19 goals. I talked to a lot of people who think Mayu’s ceiling is a lot higher and they like to trade for the Blues. Um, guys, you know, in the American League, looking good is one thing. Can you do it in the NHL is another thing. So, you know, I’ll have to wait and see on that, but it’s it’s both teams feel like, hey, we really improved our guys. So, we’ll find out in three years who actually was right. Yeah. you know, um Mayu’s got the uh the bomb of a shot from the point, can move the puck, can skate the uh the one thing and and this happens to young players like in that series against Rochester, like Rochester drove him to distraction to the point where, you know, there were there were times where he was sort of running all over the ice trying to get at guys and just got, you know, a couple of different times. And credit to Michael Leone, the head coach of the Rochester Americans for for getting under getting his guys to get under the skin of Logan Mayu. He really got distracted in that series. I mean, Laval ended up winning it. But at the same time, I think a lot of people came away from that series and said, “Eh, you want to see a little more hard focus from Logan Mayu, but no doubt like this guy is supremely skilled, supremely gifted.” And if you have a look at the draft history of the St. Lewis Blues of of recent note. The one area where they’ve kind of fallen down and haven’t found the guys is on the back end. So that one that one does make sense. You know, they have the Dallas Devorski up front. I mentioned Jimmy Snugger as well. So they have a lot of young forwards specifically on the right side. So this is one of these areas where you say, “Okay, we need some reinforcements on the back end in our prospect pool here to graduate to the NHL. We can sacrifice a right winger, even one that’s already had some success at the NHL level.
Well, I’ll give the Blues credit. They went out and got Broberg and Mayu. So, if you don’t draft them, you can go find different ways to get young defenseman and seems like it works. So, yeah, I’ve like
I think I think they also, if I can, I think they also tried to get Granland as well, and then they ended up grabbing grabbing Sudter at a at a at a cheaper price than Granland obviously got with with Anaheim, but I do believe that St. Louis was in on Granland. I don’t think they were prepared to pay the, you know, the three time seven that the Anaheim Ducks did, but they were they were, I believe, in on uh in on in on Grandland. And listen, and they were they were, you know, they were they were swinging with the uh with the Montreal Canadians as well um on a couple of different things. But listen, the thing about Habs, too, is the wild card to all of it is how good is Ivan Demadov going to be next year?
Like, are they going to go back to back, hold their trophy? I mean, already the kid looks phenomenal. Yeah, he looked really
HS go like this could be this could be really good for a long time.
Their first unit power play looks pretty exciting and their second unit isn’t bad if you throw line back on their second unit with with Noah Dobson, you know, to make that a centerpiece of it. So the Montreal, I’ll say this, the Habs are going to be one of the more exciting teams to watch in the NHL. I think there’s going to be lots of nights where you’re you’re seeing them on the highlight reel for sure. uh sometimes offensively and defensively, but I think maybe more offensively. They’re going to move the puck a lot. I think they’re still going to give up some, but the the Habs are going to be enter and I’m I’m a big fan of entertaining teams, especially in the regular season. And you know, you can learn how to win later on. Uh, you got to learn how to compete and make the playoffs a few times in a row and then you can kind of build out your your playoff intensity, shall we

With a couple MAJOR additions this offseason, are the Montreal Canadiens the most improved team??

How far will these change make them next season?

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