Montreal Canadiens place Michal McCarron and four others on waivers
By Omar L
The Montreal Canadiens continue to cut from their training camp roster placing five players, including Michael McCarron, on waivers.
It wasn’t only regular cuts Claude Julien spoke of when he said there would be subtractions from the training camp roster. After releasing Joel Ward from his profession tryout, sending Nick Suzuki to Owen Sound and Michal Moravcik and David Sklenicka to the Laval Rocket, the Montreal Canadiens have placed five players on the waiver wire.
With Michael McCarron, Rinat Valiev, Brett Lernout, Hunter Shinkaruk, and Byron Froese on waivers, the total of players at training camp is now at 33. There’s always a risk that runs with waivers as the names are available to the entire league to be picked up. Even if another team is at its full capacity, a certain player with potential could be worth the risk. But we’ll have to wait until tomorrow to see if all clear.
The Laval Rocket get their captain back if/when Froese clears. He was named the first player to don the ‘C’ for the Rocket early last season but was called up to play for the Montreal Canadiens and never looked back. The captaincy could change though seeing as how it’s a new group of players in the fold.
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Shinkaurk and Lernout aren’t surprises either. The Habs received Shinkaruk from the Calgary Flames in exchange for Kerby Rychel and it would’ve taken quite the performance for him to crack the lineup. We were able to see some of the speed that came with the 2013 first-round pick, and hopefully, it helps him succeed in the AHL in his third organization.
Valiev is in a similar boat but showed a lot of good things in the preseason. The recent and probably one of the better examples was his feed to Charles Hudon from the defensive zone that led to his goal. There is NHL potential there, most likely in a depth role of some kind. If the Habs find themselves on the wrong side of the healthy list, it wouldn’t be surprising to see Valiev get the call.
And then there’s McCarron. He needed to impress at camp and unfortunately didn’t do enough to escape the realm of waivers. McCarron now finds himself in a difficult position as he’ll have to stand out amongst the new names and work to be the first call-up.
Next. Kotkaniemi is Making Things Difficult. dark
The likes of Jesperi Kotkaniemi, Matthew Peca, and Kenny Agostino are still in the fold, so it’ll be interesting to see how the rest of camp goes for them. As for the five placed on wires, the waiting game is the first step before they determine how to proceed.