Montreal Canadiens: Cayden Primeau Keeping Laval Rocket In Playoff Race
The Montreal Canadiens will not be heading to the postseason, but their AHL affiliate is in a playoff race. The Laval Rocket got two big wins this weekend thanks to some great play from Cayden Primeau.
The Montreal Canadiens are far the playoff race in the National Hockey League, but their American Hockey League affiliate is in the thick of a dandy playoff chase. Thanks to one of the Habs top prospects, Cayden Primeau, the Rocket got two big wins this weekend to give them a better chance at making the playoffs.
The Laval Rocket are in a deep North Division in the AHL where four teams qualify for playoff berths. The Belleville Senators, Rochester Americans and Utica Comets are fairly comfortably in playoff positions. The Binghamton Devils, Syracuse Crunch and Laval Rocket are tied for the final playoff spot and the Toronto Marlies are one point behind them.
The Rocket have played the most games of all four teams battling for one playoff spot so they have the least room for error. Luckily for them, their young goaltender made no errors all weekend as he carried the team to a pair of big victories to keep them in the divisional playoff race.
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On Friday night, the Manitoba Moose were in town. They haven’t had the most success of all the AHL teams this season but have some dangerous weapons in Kristian Vesalainen, David Gustafsson and Jansens Harkins among others. They arrived in Laval with the Rocket in the midst of a six game losing streak, including a 5-4 shootout loss on Wednesday to Manitoba.
Laval needed some positivity to keep them from falling to seventh in their division this weekend. They needed someone to step up and take control of the weekend games to ensure the team would be victorious. That person was Primeau.
The Moose fired 25 shots at Primeau and the 20 year old goaltender and he turned aside all but one of them. Laval pulled ahead 2-1 late in the second and then the Moose poured on the pressure in the third period but couldn’t get the tying goal past Primeau.
Less than 24 hours later, the Rocket were back on the ice. This time they were taking on division rival Toronto Marlies. Once again, Primeau faced 27 shots and allowed just one to get by him. The Rocket won the huge game 2-1, to stay just ahead of the Marlies in the standings.
It has been a bit of an up and down season for Primeau. He was taken by the Canadiens in the 7th round of the 2017 NHL Draft and had two fantastic seasons of college hockey for Northeastern before turning pro. He started the season well but had a really tough stretch during the five weeks before Christmas.
In seven starts, Primeau allowed five goals in five of them, allowed four in another and had a shutout in the middle of it all. Since then, the Voorhees, New Jersey native has a 2.23 goals against average and a .910 save percentage. Those aren’t jaw dropping numbers by any stretch of the imagination, but they show he is holding his own at the AHL level for the past two months.
The past two days he was more than holding his own. He stopped 50 of 52 shots and was the best player both games for his team when they really needed it to stay in the playoff race. Rocket coach Joel Bouchard is finally trusting Primeau more regularly with starts and not using Keith Kinkaid as often.
Primeau rewarded his coach for taking the risk of using him in two games that started 20 hours apart. Primeau’s backup during his college days started just 14 games in two seasons. Maybe Primeau wants to be playing nearly every game and we will finally see him turn this recent strong play into a lengthy stint of great play.
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He was named the best goaltender in college hockey last season so we know he has the potential to be a great goaltender at the pro level. We might have just seen the tip of the iceberg for Primeau.