Habs making MOVES… – Montreal gives MULTIPLE updates

Habs making MOVES… – Montreal gives MULTIPLE updates

The Habs are making moves after Jake Evans left yesterday’s game with an injury. We finally got an injury update status and the name of the person that will be replacing him in the lineup. But it’s not just that. We also got a big update on Samuel Monttoau that gives a lot of clarity into the Habs future goalending situation. And there’s a lot of implications on the roster, especially with the addition of Phil Deno coming in in a couple days with Jake Evans going out. We’re not sure for how long yet. There’s a lot of things moving around right now, but we’re here with all the latest updates. Look, we got the Pittsburgh Penguins again tonight, but we’re going to get into that a little bit later. I want to start with the update on Sam Monttobo. As Renolis tweeted this out, Monttobo came back to Laval with the Rocket last night. He will have a couple of practices in Brasal tomorrow and Tuesday with Jakob Doves probably getting the start tonight. As of the recording of this video, it is not confirmed, but you can assume that the way the Habs do things, it’s probably not going to be Fowler on a backto-back even with the shut out. But hey, we’ll see. Probably going to be Doash. Maybe you know by the time this video comes out. All parties involved believe it’s better for Sam Monttobo to have a couple of good practices. He will be with the Habs for the next trip starting in Tampa on December 28th. Now, he made 27 out of 28 saves, I believe, in his last start for Laval. His first start was rough, give up four goals, but looked a lot better in his second start. Laval did lose. They got shut out. It is what it is that the loss doesn’t mean anything for But this kind of raises a question, right? With the Habs having a bit of a roster crunch. Again, looking at the current roster, we’re right at that limit now of roster spots. If you include the guy you see there in Sammy Blade, who I’ll talk about in a moment, who’ll be replacing Jake Evans tonight, we’re right there at like the roster cap. So, if Sam Monttobo were to come back with the team, say after Christmas, cuz look, we’re on a big road trip right now. We played tonight in Pittsburgh. We play Boston on Tuesday. Well, by the way, we will be doing a live watch along for the Habs Bruins game on Tuesday. Tune in. We’ll be doing commentary. Got some highlights. got all kinds of stuff. Come in and join the conversation if you want a place to watch the game and share it with some people. It’s you can check it out on the channel. It’s in our live stream tab. But uh yeah, right now Sam Monttobo like you’d have to move someone out of the lineup. And again with Deno coming in, he is officially on the active roster right now. You might have to send down a guy like Angstrom. And I know that Angstrom has outplayed Jaden Strub. It’s been very clear Angstrom has been getting the minutes over Strubel and Jackie. But unfortunately, that’s kind of the price you have to pay. He is still waiver exempt. The other guys are not. So, I I would imagine that someone’s going to have to go down. Now, look, if it’s a short-term injury for Jake Evans, you might actually see someone like Owen Beck go down by the time Monty comes back, maybe after Christmas. There’s some interesting stuff, but yeah, had to give this update, right, the next trip starting in Tampa December 28th. He’s got a week to stay in Montreal. He won’t be with us in Pittsburgh or Boston. But the goalending situation is actually really interesting right now because look again like if you go purely based on the numbers standpoint Monty just isn’t it right now and the Habs it’s been made clear time and time again Kent Hughes Marty San Louie and the Habs really believe in Sam Monttobo and I’m going to be honest I do too. The only thing is he just hasn’t performed up to par this year and that’s okay too. Not everyone’s going to have a a great stretch of games all the time but if you look at this in terms of goals saved above expected. Now, the way this is presented here is not as a rate stat. It’s just as a cumulative cuz goals saved above expected is cumulative. If you save two goals above expected in one game and three the next, you’ll be at five. Domesh has accumulated five goals saved above expected in 19 games. Fowler has accumulated 4.6 in just four games. And if you look at the rate of any goalie that has played more than one game this year, there’s two goalies that are there who have played one game, so their their numbers a bit higher. But if you eliminate them, any goalie that’s played at least two games in the NHL this year, Jacob Fowler ranks third behind only Matt Murray, crazy, and Habs legend Casey De Smith in goal saved above expected per 60 minutes. So if you put this on a basically per game stat, Jacob Fowler is one of the best in the league right now. Again, small sample size of four games, but he passes the eye test certainly after what we saw last night, right? So incredible stuff from Fowler. And look, Dobish is I think around 30th, 34th in the NHL in terms of total goals saved above expected, which is not bad either again considering that like, you know, we’ve had three different goalies this year. But again, it just adds an interesting wrinkle. Now, I assume do go in this game versus Pittsburgh. And I would assume that regardless of how Do plays, it’s probably going to be Fowler versus Boston. So, really interesting stuff on the goalie front. Leave your thought down below. Who would you start versus Boston? And maybe let us know if the starting goalie is announced for today by the time you watch this video. But the other move that the Havs have made other than Sam Monttobo deciding what to do with him is Jake Evans. So he’s staying in Montreal. He did not accompany the team to Pittsburgh again. This is a big road trip. We don’t play back in Montreal until like early January. It’s it’s a tough road trip. And I’m going to be in Montreal and when I’m there all over Christmas, they’re not playing the game at home. It sucks. But hey, it’s what happens every year. So Evans is actually injured. put him on the IR. And what did they do to fill that role? Well, they immediately recalled Samuel Blé. Now, the cool thing is with Sammy Blle, unless I’m mistaken, and I know you guys will correct me if I’m wrong, and I would love it if you do, because I am not an expert on cap stuff, though I’m trying to learn more every single day. I believe that because of the circumstances of which we got Blade back when we claimed him on waiverss, he can actually spend I think up to what’s 30 days or or 10 10 games, whichever comes first with the Montreal Canadiens without having to clear waiverss to go back to Laval. So from my understanding, if Jake Evans is out just a short period of time, or even if he’s not, right, you can you just need Sammy Blade to be up until Phil Deno can take that spot in the lineup, which is still crazy to say, and you can send Blade back without any repercussions. So, I think this is just a low-risk move to insert a veteran presence, 29 years old, who’s physical, who’s having a fantastic season in Lval in the games he’s played there just to eat up some minutes and maybe play some PK. Probably not. We’ll probably see some PK stuff shifted around, but it is really just a stop gap until we get Phil Deno on Tuesday versus Boston, which is his anticipated debut. And look, if you take a look at Blaze stats, he’s been incredible. nine points in nine games in Laval, 40 points in 51 games for Abbottzford in the AHL last year, including 19 points in 23 playoff games as they went on route to the Calder Cup. And he did play eight games with the Maple Leafs this year with three points in eight games, some penalty minutes, but Sammy Blle, look, we know what he brings to this team, and I’m excited to actually see him play with Montreal, right? Like, he’s played with Laval. He was there in the preseason, but he got claimed on waiverss right away. We we’ve all been calling to see him get his shot with the Habs, right? And again, we could have called up someone like a Florian Jack guy. Could have brought Jared Davidson right back up, but no, it’s going to be Sammy Blle this time. And I like that Montreal is kind of rotating a lot of these guys given some of the veteran guys and some of the younger guys. But BL undoubtedly brings a bit more of that maturity to his game that some of the younger guys sort of lack. And that’s been a clear motif for Kent to use. You need maturity. You need leadership on this team. And look, with Jake Evans going out 10 points in 34 games, you know, he’s not quite on pace to do as well as last year. He’s still picked it up a little bit as of late. And look, he’s straight up one of our best penalty killers all the time. He gets all of our best defensive assignments. And outside of Owen Beck, which even though his sample’s really small, Jake Evans is our best faceoff guy at about 53 54%. Suzuki’s below 50%. Everyone else is below 50 except Jake Evans. He’s right now Phil Deno is 53, which is awesome. But Evans is our best faceoff guy. This is a pretty big hit. Vento is going to have to take more, but I’m actually really excited to see Owen Beck probably take some more faceoffs in this game and whatever games that we have with Jake Evans out. You know, even once Phil Deno joins the roster, I would expect Beck to take faceoffs maybe over Joe Valeno. Beck is taking faceoffs at a 62% clip right now. And I think Beck is just kind of that Jake Evans prototype, right? And I don’t know if I see top six upside in Owen Beck. There’s some flashes for sure, but I definitely see where that bottom six kind of player could come from. Look, I think he needs to, you know, work on his strength a bit and the speed at the NHL level, but he his the way of thinking the game looks really good. I I just think Beck still gets kind of worked on the board sometimes. He does have strength. He still wins some. It’s just, you know, you got to get that experience in the NHL before you really look comfortable doing it all the time. Look how long it took Slaf. So, I’m excited to see what Owen Beck can do in this increased opportunity, even if just for one night against Pittsburgh again before Deno joins the team in Boston. So, really interesting moves here today and I’m excited to see how it pans out. Let us know your thoughts on everything down below. Sammy Bl, Sam Montbo, the goalie situation, Owen Beck getting this chance to step up, and hopefully hopefully Jake Evans is not injured for very long. Listen, that’ll do it for this episode. I hope you enjoy the game tonight. Don’t forget, we’ll be right here right after the final horn. As always, thank you for tuning in every single day. Live stream tomorrow live watch along Tuesday night. Mark your calendars. Go check it out in our channel. Go to the live tab, set a reminder for that stream so you can join us as we discuss all things Habs Bruins. I’ve been your host, Josh Goss. We’ll see you later on tonight.

The Montreal Canadiens made some lineup moves bringing up Samuel Blais to replace Jake Evans who is now on IR, and we get a clear status update on Samuel Montembeault. Josh Gosse chats about all of it on this episode of Habs Digest.

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0:00 Montreal Canadiens News
0:30 Montembeault Plan Revealed
4:35 Jake Evans out, Blais up

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Arber Xhekaj,Zach Bolduc,Alex Newhook,Jake Evans,Brendan Gallagher,Mike Matheson,David Reinbacher,Juraj Slafkovsky,Josh Anderson,Cole Caufield,Nick Suzuki,Kirby Dach,Alex CarrierKent Hughes,Martin St Louis,Sam Montembeault,Kaiden Guhle,Owen Beck,Filip Mesar,Jayden Struble,Adam Engstrom,Sean Farrell,Lane Hutson,Ivan Demidov,Patrik Laine,Jakub Dobes