Montreal Canadiens prospect Cayden Primeau has a bright future in front of him.
The Canadiens drafted him in the 7th round of the 2017 NHL Draft. He was a depth prospect when it came to any rankings in the Habs system at the time but he quickly showed himself to be an excellent goaltending prospect.
Primeau had two phenomenal seasons for Northeastern University, taking home the Mike Richter Award as college hockey’s best goalie in the 2018-19. He was also terrific for USA at the World Juniors that year, helping them win a silver medal.
This season, Primeau has been the starter for the Laval Rocket of the American Hockey League. It is his third consecutive season with the Habs top affiliate and he has shown some promise each year that he is a future NHL net minder. Unfortunately, every one of his hot streaks have been ended by unforeseen circumstances.
In his rookie season with Laval, Primeau was a 20 year old goalie battling with veteran Charlie Lindgren for starts. He put up decent numbers for a young rookie pro, ending the season with a 2.45 GAA and a .908 SV% in 33 games. Not bad numbers, but he certainly saved the best for last.
In Primeau’s last eight starts that season, he went 5-3-0 but allowed just 13 goals. He stopped 197 of 210 shots in that period. That is a 1.63 GAA and a .938 SV%. Unfortunately for Primeau, the season was then canceled because of Covid-19 rearing its ugly head for the first time. There was still about a months worth of games left on the schedule and Primeau has just taken on the starter’s role full time and was running with it.
But, due to unforeseen circumstances, the season was ended and so was Primeau’s hot streak.
The same thing happened again last season. It was an odd year for the AHL with five teams playing games against each other in Canada. The Rocket had a great season, winning the Canadian Division and Primeau was a big part of that. He finished the year with a 2.10 GAA and a .909 SV% in 16 contests.
Once again, Primeau got hot near the end of the season. From March 15th to April 2nd, Primeau won all seven of his starts while allowing just 11 goals. He stopped 150 of 161 shots in those games which gave him a .932 SV% to go with his 1.57 GAA.
The problem was, due to the odd scheduling, the Rocket only played three games in the final three weeks of April that season. Since there was such a long pause between games, Primeau was called up to backup Jake Allen while Carey Price was injured. His hot streak was ended once again by scheduling circumstances that could only possibly happen in a Covid year.
This season has turned out to be no different. Primeau is playing well once again, and has a 2.77 GAA and a .912 SV%. Once again, he was running hot lately before an unforeseen shutdown. Primeau has a 4-1-0 record in his last five starts, which includes a 2.40 GAA and a .934 SV%.
Primeau was also called up after that hot streak to get a start against the Philadelphia Flyers on December 16th. He stopped 37 of 39 shots and won the game in a shootout.
Of course, as soon as he gets hot, the AHL and NHL both pause their schedule due to increasing Covid cases once again.
Primeau’s last start for the Rocket was on December 12th and they won’t play a game again until January 5th. By then, his hot streak will be history once again. That’s three straight years that his great play was interrupted by something you would never expect.
Let’s hope Primeau gets on another heater right away and it isn’t stopped by a global pandemic again. At some point in his career, he will have an uninterrupted schedule and based on what we have seen from him before that will just give him more runway for his great play to stretch out longer.