Canadiens: Max Domi Has Toughest Decision of Any NHL Player

The Montreal Canadiens are scheduled to get back to training camp in a couple weeks. Max Domi will have a very difficult decision to make at that time.

The Montreal Canadiens haven’t played a game in over three months. At that time they appeared to have almost zero chance of making the playoffs and were just playing out the string on another non playoff season. This was made more evident when they sold several veteran players at the trade deadline.

Since then, we have seen the league shutdown its schedule because of the global pandemic and eventually settle on a controversial return to play format. We still don’t know where they will play, but 12 teams will gather in two separate cities to crown the eastern conference and western conference champions. Those two teams will then meet for the Stanley Cup Finals.

We have an idea when it will take place as training camps are currently scheduled to begin on July 10. Following that camp which will take close to three weeks, we could see NHL games taking place at the end of July.

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The controversial part about this return to play is that 24 teams will be in the running when we finally do see NHL teams in action. The Canadiens were the 24th ranked team in the league at the time of the hiatus so they will show up with their 31-31-9 record and play a best of five series against the Pittsburgh Penguins with a playoff berth on the line.

With the rumoured hub cities being Vegas and a Canadian city, it sounds like the eastern conference teams will all head to Vegas while the western conference will be in either Edmonton, Vancouver or Toronto.

That means the Canadiens are likely headed to Nevada to play the Penguins. Several states in the southern part of the United States are getting hit harder than ever by COVID-19 at the moment, but Nevada seems to be doing okay, even with their casinos open for the past couple weeks.

Still, there is some risk for NHL players who are going inside the NHL bubble to take part in the play-in series and NHL Playoffs this summer. It will be a difficult decision for many players, but no one has a tougher choice to make than Max Domi.

The Habs 25 year old forward is a Type 1 Diabetic and has been carefully managing it since he was first diagnosed at age 12. This would surely put him into a higher risk category among all the athletes that are considering the pros and cons of returning to play in the midst of a global pandemic.

On one hand, it would make sense if Domi just decided it is too dangerous and not worth trying to win five playoff series with the 24th best team in hockey to take the risk to play. His health status would leave no one questioning his decision if he were to go down that road.

But it isn’t the best timing for Domi to take time off. The scrappy son of former NHL heavyweight champion Tie Domi is not known to be the type of person who could easily watch his team from the sidelines. Plus, he is going to be a free agent whenever this playoff concludes.

A year ago, Domi was coming off a 72 point season for the Habs and looked like he could possibly be the first line centre capable of scoring a point per game that the Habs have sorely needed since the team gave up on Pierre Turgeon more than two decades ago.

If the Toronto native were to repeat that performance this season, he would be in line for an enormous raise on his current salary of $3.15 million. But he didn’t. After leading the team in scoring during his initial year in Montreal, he dropped to 17 goals and 44 points in 71 games this season.

No one can question his heart, desire, grit, skating, playmaking or determination on the ice. But is he a 72 point player like he showed once, or a 45-55 point player which he was in his four other NHL seasons?

Had Domi scored at a 70 point pace again this season, he would be looking for $7 million per season – at least. But if he is just another 50 point guy he isn’t worth much more than $5 million per year.

This play-in scenario gives Domi the perfect opportunity to show what he can do when the games matter most. Though he has played well in five NHL seasons thus far, he hasn’t played a single playoff game yet. A win or go home situation, even in these odd circumstances would have given Domi a chance to prove he is worth what a 70 point player makes. He plays the kind of style that should lend itself in a positive way during the postseason. He would be the last player – well maybe Brendan Gallagher – to back down in a tough, sometimes dirty, playoff series.

But until he actually proves that at the NHL level, it is all speculation. He did scored 51 points in has last 39 playoff games at the OHL level, including 32 points in 21 postseason games as a 17 year old. He also led Canada to a gold medal at the World Juniors with fives goals and ten points in seven games back in 2015.

Can he play at that level in a playoff scenario at the NHL level? Probably. But we don’t know until we see it. Will we see it this summer? Well, it’s a terribly difficult decision Domi has to make, but when he was diagnosed with diabetes his first question for the doctor was whether he could still play hockey or not.

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He is going to have to ask himself that same question in the coming weeks. Though I would hold no ill will toward him if he decided to sit out and not subject himself to the risks associated with playing hockey in a bubble during a pandemic, I’m guessing we will see him playing his heart out like he always has when his team’s season is on the line.

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