Montreal Canadiens: Let the prospects free on Friday night
By Omar L
The Montreal Canadiens have a chance to give their younger players the keys to the car and see what they can do with more freedom against the Buffalo Sabres.
The Montreal Canadiens may not be in the position to say this, but tonight’s game may be an easy one. It’ll be a fight between non-playoff bottom five teams with the Buffalo Sabres where the objective of Team Tank can be ignored for a night. Now you might be wondering why I have this mentality. The Sabres are last in the league, and a win over the Habs would bring their point total this season to 60.
Getting the two points wouldn’t raise them in the standings, but it would get them closer to the Arizona Coyotes and Vancouver Canucks who both have 61. As far as the Draft Lottery goes, that would be the ideal situation. However, here’s another option: win.
And not just any old win, but win with making use of the youth on the team. Every game it seems like a young player on the Montreal Canadiens is doing something impactful on the ice. Nikita Scherbak has four goals this season, each of which will be included on Habs top 20 goals of the year.
Noah Juulsen and Mike Reilly are continuing to be steady bodies on the backend, and Brett Lernout is coming into his own as an NHL defenceman. Additionally, we can’t overlook Jacob de La Rose who has improved on all fronts these last few weeks.
Claude Julien, like every game, will try to put together the best line and pairing combinations to win. However, if there were ever a night where he wanted to run the younger players on the team, it would be now. See what they all can do with a little extra ice time.
The goal isn’t to embarrass Buffalo at all, and they’ll still have to play a complete game. The Sabres have been in a worse situation all year, and the players on the team are just as tired of losing as the coaching staff is. They may be having the same thoughts on the other side in that this game could be a chance to score some points in the confidence category.
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