Montreal Canadiens: Why Cayden Primeau, Cole Caufield Could Be Rushed To NHL
The Montreal Canadiens have rushed a few prospects to the NHL lately and it has not worked out great. They may have to get Cayden Primeau and Cole Caufield in the lineup quickly.
The Montreal Canadiens have been busy at the past two NHL Drafts and could be even busier at the 2020 draft, whenever that will be held. They have done well adding prospects at every positions and filling areas of organizational need with their 11 selections in 2018 and ten selections at last year’s event.
They are slated to make 14 picks at the next draft, though some wheeling and dealing could see that number change. General Manager Marc Bergevin has made a habit out of moving a few picks for selections at future drafts if he thinks he can still get the players he wants later on.
Still, without including the 2020 selections, the Canadiens have built up and impressive group of prospects. By all accounts, they have one of the deepest pools of talent in the pipeline. They have not just added a few high picks that look great, they have built up depth at every position in the system.
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Their prospect pool is headlines by Cole Caufield up front, Alexander Romanov on defence and Cayden Primeau in goal. We took a look earlier this week at the team’s five best prospects at forward, as well as on defence and Caufield and Romanov were tops at their position.
This trio of prospects promises to be impact players on the roster in the near future. How soon? Well, the Habs were not really in a rush to get them into the NHL lineup but they may not have a choice next season.
In the past few years, we have seen the Habs bring young players into the lineup with mixed results. Jesperi Kotkaniemi looked fine as an 18 year old but was not playing well this season before finally being demoted to the AHL in February. Ryan Poehling was given 27 games with the Habs this season but had only one goal and one assist.
Victor Mete made the team as a 19 year old defenceman in 2017-18 but probably could have used another year in Junior where he would have played huge minutes for the always contending London Knights. Nick Suzuki looked just fine as a 20 year old, but many of the others could have used some more development time in the minors.
That is why I thought it was great that Caufield announced he was heading back to Wisconsin for a second season of NCAA Hockey next year. He was great as a freshman, but he isn’t ready to dominate the NHL just yet. Let him dominate one more year of college hockey first.
Cayden Primeau battled for starts with Charlie Lindgren and then Keith Kinkaid this year with the Laval Rocket. That’s fine, he shouldn’t be handed anything, but once he was given the full-time starter’s role he played well. The Habs then went out and signed Vasili Demchenko and were rumoured to still be interested in adding a reliable backup for Carey Price next season.
Romanov sounds like he will be given every chance to make the Montreal Canadiens roster as soon as next season but the 20 year old should be well prepared after two full seasons in the KHL. Still, he said he understood he could need some time in the AHL and wouldn’t be running back to Russia if he was sent to Laval.
Finally, it sounded like all of the top prospects were going to brought along slowly. Then, the world was hit with a global pandemic and everything was thrown into chaos.
The NHL is still trying to figure out how to proceed with the 2020 postseason and really have no idea what next season is going to look like. The AHL, NCAA and Canadian Junior leagues might not even be able to operate. Without fans in the stands, AHL teams wouldn’t even make enough money to travel to all their away games and pay their expenses. NCAA can’t run sports leagues like nothing is happening while not being able to hold classes on their campus and Junior leagues can’t possibly run without the income earned from fans in the stands.
While the attention has primarily been focused on when the NHL will return to action and what it will look like, the bigger question might be, what do teams do with prospects next year? If there is no CHL, no NCAA Hockey and no AHL, what will their NHL teams do with those players?
While rushing prospects to play in the world’s best league isn’t ideal, it is certainly better than having them not play at all, isn’t it? If the AHL is cancelled next season, we will likely see Primeau serving as Carey Price’s backup. Starting 50 AHL games next season would be ideal for the 20 year old goaltender but getting 25-30 NHL games under his belt would be better than not playing anywhere.
Romanov may prove to be ready for NHL duty anyway, so having him on the roster if there is nowhere else to put him wouldn’t be a problem. Even if he struggles a bit at first, he could be put on a third pairing and form a rotation on the left side with Ben Chiarot, Victor Mete and Brett Kulak where someone sits out on occasion.
Caufield is the trickiest one. His shot, stickhandling, ability to beat a defenceman one-on-one and beating goaltenders in tight is definitely ready for the NHL. Is he ready for the full rigours of an 82 game schedule against the toughest competition in the world? He wouldn’t be embarrassed or in completely over his head, but he is a slight teenager and could struggle with the size and strength of his opponents.
However, is getting Caufield some power play time and using him as a third or fourth line winger worse than telling him to stay home and do courses online for the University of Wisconsin? Probably not. A 19 year old season is a key time for development, so even if he is a healthy scratch on many nights, having him skating with the Montreal Canadiens and practicing with the team regularly would be better than not playing at all.
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Hopefully the Habs won’t be forced to make these decisions with their top prospects. Best case scenario would be the AHL and NCAA Hockey schedules somehow are unaffected by the global pandemic and Caufield, Primeau and possibly Romanov spend the season developing there. If not, we could see the team’s top three prospects in the NHL a little sooner than is ideal.