Author: Dose

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Brady Tkachuk: “Honestly, I wasn’t even aware of the rumours”.

Photo by Chris Tanouye/Freestyle Photography/Getty Images

It’s been a busy few days in Ottawa.

It all started with a rumour shared by Larry Brooks (New York Post) involving Brady Tkachuk and Alexis Lafrenière… And since last week, we’ve been hearing Tkachuk’s name in certain conversations about a possible trade.

What does the Sens captain think?

Tkachuk spoke to the media today to address the situation, and he said right off the bat that the rumours don’t bother him.

Because, according to the American, it “comes from a place where it’s obviously not true”.

But Brady goes on to say that he wasn’t aware of the rumors, and that it was Steve Staios (Sens GM) who called him with the “news”.

I find that hard to believe.

I would have been surprised to see Tkachuk say openly that he wants to leave (if that’s what he really wants) or that he doesn’t believe in his team’s future.

But to say that he wasn’t aware of the rumours and that it was his GM who had to call him to tell him about them is a lot of laughing.

Ultimately, there are two ways of looking at this.

Either Tkachuk decided to play the good game to protect himself, not to sully his reputation and so that it wouldn’t bother the rest of his teammates… Or Tkachuk shared the truth, saying that he’s happy in Ottawa and decided to sign a seven-year contract because he sees the club’s potential.

But one thing’s for sure: this story is starting to make a lot of noise.

And you know the saying: where there’s smoke, there’s fire… Especially in the context of his brother leaving Calgary because he wanted to play in the United States.

Overtime

– I love his reaction.

– Absolutely!

– Finally.

– They don’t call him “P’tit Cole” for nothing!

– Well done.

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Jeff Gorton identifies five key players coming to Montreal

The Canadiens need help on the ice. Everyone knows it.

Kent Hughes, on the other hand, is on the phone. In particular, he’s trying to find a right-handed defenseman who will help solidify the club’s defensive top-4in the short and long term.

There’s also the upcoming draft, which will add a good prospect.

(Credit: Tankathon)

But within the organization, there are several players who aren’t currently playing in Montreal, but who have a bright future ahead of them. So they’re part of the equation.

Who are they?

Jeff Gorton, the club’s VP, took advantage of a TV appearance on Prime, which was broadcasting the Canadiens game, to talk about these players who will be helping the Canadiens in the future.

He named five: Ivan Demidov, Michael Hage, David Reinbacher, Logan Mailloux and Jacob Fowler.

Of course, seeing Demidov on the list isn’t exactly a surprise. After all, he named all the Canadiens’ non-NHL first-round picks…

Except Filip Mesar. And it’s not just because he’s injured right now, since Reinbacher’s injury is worse than Mesar’s, who just started skating again today.

Nor is it surprising to see Jacob Fowler on the list. He dominates and the Habs have room for a goalie of the future.

Note that the players who weren’t named (Joshua Roy, Owen Beck, Adam Engstrom, etc.) aren’t necessarily rotten. But they weren’t named by the VP, which is… notable.

In brief

– 6.6 billion dollars in NHL revenues this season: that’s the projection.

– What does the future hold for Connor McDavid?

– Collective agreement: how will it affect the salary cap?

– Rob Manfred doesn’t like the Golden Rule. [MLB Passion]

– His number looked too much like Sidney Crosby’s.

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“It was an awful time”: Patrik Laine is never afraid to tell the truth

Photo by Minas Panagiotakis/Getty Images

Patrik Laine has been playing to his strengths since his return to the game.

It won’t always go so well for him, but the Canadiens winger is doing what he’s been asked to do for the past four games: he’s scoring and energizing the powerplay.

Just yesterday, in a 3-2 Habs win, Laine scored a powerplay goal. This is becoming a habit.

In fact, the Canadiens have three wins when Laine finds the back of the net and one loss when he doesn’t. So he’s clearly making a difference. So he’s clearly making a difference.

He’s quickly becoming a crowd favorite. Especially when he says he hasn’t had this much fun in years.

But what I really like about Laine is his honesty in front of the media. I don’t know if it’s going to stick, but since he’s come back, he’s been very transparent. We’re thinking in particular of his first game, when he said he “didn’t have it” even though he was the first star.

And we’re thinking of his intermission interview yesterday. Basically, he said he didn’t care if he scored, because his concern was that the Canadiens had played a terrible game.

And he’s right: it was hard.

In the grand scheme of things, the Habs are lucky to have played the Ducks and not a better club. Otherwise, the Habs would have been eaten alive… and they might not have gotten an early Christmas present. #ButDeKirbyDach

But back to Laine.

What I sense is that, in the Canadiens dressing room, he can be himself. That may not have been the case in Winnipeg, and he obviously wasn’t quite at ease in Columbus.

But in Montreal, it’s different.

On this subject, Juraj Slafkovsky reminded us that Laine, on the bench, is a guy who really makes you laugh. He says funny things that have nothing to do with anything, and that makes Slaf laugh.

It’s clear that on the ice, the line-up of Slafkovsky, Dach and Laine isn’t perfect. But as long as Laine continues to score with an extra man, it’s going to camouflage the club’s weaknesses.

Maybe not enough to bring the Canadiens back #InTheMix, though, but…

But it wasn’t just Patrik Laine who caught the eye during the game. After all, while the Finn may be the talk of the town these days, he’s not the only one on this team.

What do I remember about the game, which the Canadiens ended up winning in front of their home fans at the Bell Centre?

1. Kirby Dach and Juraj Slafkovsky didn’t play a perfect game (that doesn’t happen very often these days), but Dach took advantage of a gift from the opposing goalie to score.

He hadn’t found the back of the net since October 26 and clearly, even though it was an easy goal, it felt good. The proverbial monkey on his back was launched into the stands.

2. Samuel Montembeault stopped 27 of 29 shots and held the fort in the shootout. He picked up his third win in December and ninth this season.

Since learning of Team Canada’s interest in him, he has been stopping 94.4% of the shots he receives and averaging 1.72 goals per game.

3. Lane Hutson made history by earning a point in his seventh straight game. For a Habs rookie at the blue line, that’s nothing short of a franchise record.

But what’s most impressive is his increasingly complete game.

4. Kaiden Guhle put up a fight. And we got further proof that hockey fans love a good fight. It’s not as if we needed any more proof, though.

His teammates liked it too. And with good reason.

5. The Habs defense is more stable than it used to be. Seeing five defensemen (Arber Xhekaj, Mike Matheson, David Savard, Lane Hutson and Kaiden Guhle) having some success no doubt has a role to play.

You can’t blame the Sheriff for much these days.

Extension

The Canadiens won’t be practicing today. It’s a day off for everyone, and starting tomorrow, the club will be preparing on the heels of the Penguins’ visit for Thursday’s game.

So we won’t know if Jake Evans, who was injured in overtime, will need treatment. We’ll probably have details tomorrow.

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Top-2: Rangers booed by their own fans

Last night in the NHL, there were only three games, including the Canadiens.

Montreal won in a shootout against the Ducks.

Here are the results and highlights of the other two duels:

1. Rangers booed by theirown fans

Things have been going badly in New York for some time now.

Fortunately, the Rangers were facing the Blackhawks, one of the worst teams in the NHL, and could give themselves some energy.

However, they lost 2-1. First win for the Hawks’ new pilot.

Two points from Taylor Hall in the win.

First, he picked up an assist on the game’s first goal.

And in the second period, he scored the winning goal.

Since Chris Drury revealed publicly that he was ready to trade his big pieces, his team is 2-6-0.

The hosts were even booed by their fans at the end of the game…

What to do in New York

2. Sabres winless in their last seven games

Another team in trouble is the Buffalo Sabres.

Like the Rangers, they too lost yesterday: 6-5. Buffalo is winless in its last seven games.

Yet Lindy Ruff’s club took an early lead.

But Detroit needed just 41 seconds to take the lead.

Midway through the second period, Jason Zucker scored his second goal of the game to give his team a two-goal lead.

But… the hosts still let a lead slip and lost by a score of 6-5 in the shootout.

What a heartbreaking defeat!

Overtime

– A first game he won’t soon forget.

– Zucker leads the charge.

(Credit: NHL.com)

– 22 teams in action tonight.

(Credit: Google)
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Rumor: RDS and TSN could be sold

The sports media market is changing.

On the traditional media side, the costs of producing sports shows are rising, while program revenues are falling. This is obviously not a good combination.

This forces companies to think of different solutions.

In radio, for example, turning to on-air podcast formats with live sports may be a solution. It’s happening more and more, in fact.

But more drastic solutions also need to be considered for some companies.

And right now, Bell is considering divesting itself of its sports stations. We’re talking about numerous radio stations across the country (several TSN stations have closed overnight in the past), as well as RDS and TSN on TV.

Jonah Sigel, an insider who’s had some inside info in the past, says that the sale of RDS and TSN could be under active consideration right now.

Well-placed people have been talking to him about it.

Because sports aren’t paying very well these days (nothing good for increasing the company’s stock market dividends), one senses a desire on Bell’s part to detach itself from sports. One example is the company’s sale of its stake in MLSE.

We can also think about the fact that duels between Canadian teams (in English) on Monday nights are now the domain of Prime – and no longer TSN – until 2026.

And consider the next NHL TV contract, which may not include – from a Québécois point of view – the regional rights to the Habs for Bell customers.

With streaming platforms increasingly in the picture, is it illogical to think that a giant like Amazon might be tempted to buy RDS and TSN?

It’s not illogical to me, in any case.

It’s worth noting that we made a few calls on this subject to well-placed people at RDS. They denied the news (no surprise here), telling us that Bell had plans for several years with RDS in Montreal.

Obviously, with no clear buyer identified, it’s not likely that a sale will take place any time soon. But we’ll keep an eye on it.

Extension

Right now, in the world of sports, Bell seems to be betting on live sports on TSN and RDS (whether out of interest or to facilitate a certain transition, so as not to potentially sell an empty product) for the future.

As a general rule, however, Bell’s attention could turn to other projects (telecoms, for example), to the detriment of sports.

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Renaud Lavoie is convinced there will be discussions about Alexis Lafrenière and Brady Tkachuk

Photo by Bruce Bennett/Getty Images

Earlier Monday, there was talk ofthe Rangers poaching Brady Tkachuk. The Rangers want to make changes, and getting Tkachuk would be a big one.

Renaud Lavoie, who is in Florida for the NHL Governors’ meeting, spoke about the situation in his column on TVA Sports’JiC .

What’s interesting to note here is that Lavoie is convinced the Rangers will eventually drop a line to the Senators about Brady Tkachuk.

He thinks the Rangers will mention Alexis Lafrenière’s name in those discussions. He also said that adding K’Andre Miller to the discussion would be the talk of the town!

That would be very interesting indeed!

Lavoie also reported a funny story from the governors’ meeting. The representatives of each team are placed in alphabetical order, and the N for New York is right next to the O for Ottawa.

Let’s just say there was certainly a lot of awkwardness between these two representatives!

Cam Fowler could have gone the New York way

The Rangers aren’t just the talk of the Tkachuk rumor mill. Even though the Jacob Trouba deal is over and he’s now in Anaheim, they’re still the talk of the town.

In the latest episode of his 32 Thoughts podcast, Elliotte Friedman explained that the Ducks wanted to send Cam Fowler to the Rangers in this deal.

He’s also convinced that Fowler would have liked to be part of it.

The only problem was Fowler’s $6.5 million contract. The Rangers wanted to free themselves of a big salary, so Urho Vaakanainen was the player of choice with his small $1.1 million contract.

By freeing themselves of Trouba’s contract, the Rangers were able to offer a big contract to Igor Shesterkin, who will weigh in at $11.5 million per season for eight years.

Overtime

– Gretzky is a big Ovechkin fan .

– It would be incredible.

– It’s cool to play in front of family and friends.

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A third goal for Patrik Laine on the powerplay

You’ve often been told to limit expectations of Patrik Laine. Returning to the game after missing nearly a year of action is tough.

On the other hand, the Finn has become a real scoring machine since his debut with the Canadiens.

On Monday night, he once again scored on the powerplay.

It was his third goal with Montreal, in his fourth game of the season on Monday.

What’s even crazier in this story is that he doesn’t move. All three of his goals were scored from the left circle. You could say it’s really his office now.

And what about that Nick Suzuki pass? That pass really had eyes.

Lane Hutson also picked up an assist on the sequence. He breaks Chris Chelios’ record for most consecutive games with at least one point for a Canadiens rookie defenseman.

Number 48 has eight points in his last seven games.

More details to follow.

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Geoff Molson: Even with bad results, the Habs will stick to their plan

MONTREAL, QC - NOVEMBER 29: Montreal Canadiens owner and president Geoff Molson listens to a question from the media on November 29, 2021 at Bell Sports Complex in Brossard, QC (Photo by David Kirouac/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)

Geoff Molson is in Palm Beach, Florida for the NHL governors’ meeting.

It was a good opportunity to ask him what he thinks of his club’s start to the season… And let’s just say that Molson was rather modest in his comments.

The goal is to follow the rebuilding plan, and that’s not going to change, even if the Habs have struggled since the start of the campaign :

I love his comments.

It proves one thing: there’s no panic in the organization right now. It would be easy to advise Kent Hughes to move to improve his club to also advance the rebuilding process, but that would be illogical.

Again, the plan has to be followed.

That said, there’s another sentence that came out of Molson’s mouth that made me react.

It was when the Habs owner said he was encouraged by his team’s performance over the past few weeks.

Priyanta Emrith reported his words on Twitter:

The Canadiens have won four of their last nine games, but it’s not just the result that’s important.

For the past two and a half weeks, the Habs have been able to pick up points because they’ve been playing the right way most of the time.

There’s a level of effort that’s 100 times better than at the start of the season, the guys understand their respective roles… And ultimately, we can see that the players are starting to become more familiar with Martin St-Louis’ system of play.

It’s far from perfect, and we’ll all agree on that.

But it’s by continuing to play this way that the team will move forward, and that’s what’s important in the end. So it’s only natural that Geoff Molson is satisfied with his club’s performance, because it should only get better.

At least, if we follow the logic of things, that’s what should happen.

Overtime

– I like the style.

– Good point.

– Oh yes!

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Only three combined goals for Slaf and Dach this season

Photo by Minas Panagiotakis/Getty Images

When you think of the players who have disappointed so far this season, a few names come to mind.

Of the lot?

Obviously… There’s Kirby Dach and there’s also Juraj Slafkovsky, although I could have named others.

In the case of the former, we know he’s coming back from a serious injury and that it may take some time.

But still: Dach isn’t performing up to his talent level, and it’s also his level of involvement that’s got many doubting him.

As for Slaf, it’s a shame because we saw in the last half of the 23-24 season that he’s capable of being a good National League player.

But like Dach, he doesn’t turn up every night, and that’s what’s frustrating.

To get results, you have to work… #SchoolOfLife

The two guys, who have been playing in the top-6 since the very beginning of the season, combine for a total of three goals scored so far.

Not nearly enough:

If the Canadiens are to progress, they’ll need the support of Kirby Dach and Juraj Slafkovsky.

After all, we’re talking about two players who were selected in the top-3 at the draft, and we’re talking about two guys with great potential.

But it’s going to start to get worrisome(as Éric Bélanger said in Slaf’s case on BPM Sports) if the two guys aren’t able to get back on track.

The sample is “thin” this season because the Canadiens have played 27 games, and we know that a bad run can happen to any player… But if the results don’t start coming in, it’s normal to start asking questions.

Martin St-Louis tried to send them a message, but it didn’t have any extraordinary effect.

That said, the coach needs to find a way to get them back on track before the situation becomes a catastrophe in the eyes of the fans AND the organization’s management.

Overtime

– There are three games tonight in the National League, including the Canadiens against the Ducks.

– 🤣🤣

– Oh.

– Interesting!

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Mackenzie Blackwood in Colorado, Alexandar Georgiev in San Jose

Photo by Elsa/Getty Images

The trade deadline is only a few months away, but we can already see clubs starting to make moves.

For example?

Last week, the Rangers traded their captain to Anaheim. And now, it’s the Avalanche and Sharks’ turn to dance.

Both clubs have traded goaltenders: Mackenzie Blackwood heads to Colorado, while Alexandar Georgiev heads to San Jose.

Givani Smith and a 5th-round pick (2027) accompany Blackwood… While the Sharks also get forward Nikolai Kovalenko, a 2nd-round pick (2026) and a 5th-round pick (2025) :

In all this, it’s Yaroslav Askarov who can’t be happy.

He sees the Sharks’ number one goalie being traded… But Alexandar Georgiev is coming to San Jose to take his place.

We know that Askarov wants to play in the NHL and that he’s dominated the AHL so far, but his turn will have to wait, obviously.

I imagine he’s disappointed with the Sharks’ decision…

More details to come…