Montreal Canadiens goaltender Cayden Primeau has been sent back down to the minor leagues.
He will join the American Hockey League’s Laval Rocket just in time for a big game against their rivals.
Primeau was called up earlier this week when it was announced that Carey Price would not be suiting up on the trip to New York with his teammates. The Habs star goaltender is getting checked out by his surgeon instead. He was back in the lineup for four games, but obviously took a step back after his latest game last Saturday against the Ottawa Senators.
Primeau served as Sam Montembeault’s backup for the Habs past two games, a win over the Rangers last night and a 5-3 loss to the Boston Bruins on Sunday. The situation was not ideal for Primeau, who would be better served at this point in his career by playing more in the minor leagues rather than watching NHL games.
Primeau, and the Rocket, will continue their quest for the best possible playoff seeding. They current sit third in the AHL’s North Division and will want to remain there. The #4 and #5 seeded teams face-off against each other in a Best-of-3 series to see who takes on the top seeded Utica Comets. That’s a tough situation to start a lengthy playoff run.
The Rocket would much prefer finishing third, or even second overall and heading straight to the AHL’s traditional opening round of the Calder Cup playoffs.
The Rocket take on the Toronto Marlies, one of the teams chasing them in standings. The standings are a bit trickier to sort out this season because not everyone plays the same number of regular season games. Seeding will be sorted by points percentage, and the Rocket only have two games left to determine if they will finish anywhere from second to fifth.
Primeau likely gets the start tonight against the Marlies, before being called up again on an emergency basis to backup Montembeault tomorrow night against the Florida Panthers. It is still possible Carey Price plays that game but we won’t know that for sure until we hear an update from his meeting in New York.
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