ROCKET SPORTS MEDIA | LAVAL, QC. — With formal training camp opening as early as July 13th, Canadiens players traveled from their respective homes last week. Carey Price, Tomas Tatar, Artturi Lehkonen, Joel Armia, Christian Folin and Dale Weise have all returned to Montreal. Jonathan Drouin, Paul Byron, Charles Hudon, Laurent Dauphin, and Michael McNiven have taken part in the voluntary training activities of Phase 2 in Brossard.
Training camp is expected to last approximately two weeks before teams travel to their hub city. Toronto has been reported to be the city hosting the Eastern Conference clubs, while the Western Conference will be hosted by Edmonton.
The official green light will be given once the National Hockey League (NHL) and the National Hockey League Players Association (NHLPA) sign off to an agreement. A tentative agreement for Phase 3 and 4 protocol was reached on Sunday.
Included with the Return-To-Play protocol is a new six-year Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA.) It is hoped that the package will be voted on by the players this week.
Draft Lottery Results
The results of the NHL’s Phase 1 of the Draft Lottery that took place on June 26th were quite disappointing. The format of the lottery was modified compared to previous years due to the pause of the season. Since April, Gary Bettman had been pushing for the draft to be held before the resumption of play. The league had its reasons to proceed this way, that weren’t clearly articulated to the public.
I like the lottery rules that are normally in place, however this year’s results was disappointing for the non-returning teams as none of them were awarded the number one selection for the next draft. The results placed the 16 teams participating in the qualifying round in an awkward position. Losing their best-of-five series would reward them with 12.5 percent chance of obtaining the first overall pick.
Win or Tank?
The Canadiens had virtually no chance of clinching a playoff spot when the regular season was paused in March. All the various playoff projections had the team’s chances to under one percent.
From what I have seen on the various social media platforms, it looks like there’s more Habs fans that are hoping a first round loss versus a playoff run. It’s hard to blame them. Alexis Lafreniere would fit right into the Canadiens lineup right now, and for a long time.
From a long-term perspective, there’s no doubt that a 12.5 percent chance to draft a franchise player is appealing. In practice, it’s not as simple. “I would say it makes things pretty interesting, without a doubt. There are several teams right now who are licking their lips thinking of that opportunity,” Claude Julien said during a conference call on Thursday.
It has been reported that there are a significant number of players around the league that aren’t excited about returning to play under these conditions. With reports of outbreaks at the St. Louis Blues camp, from the rest of sports world and the recent increase of positive tests in the United States, I can understand why players would hesitate to returning on the ice.
“Well, obviously, health and safety is the biggest [concern.] Being able to come to a situation where you don’t have to worry about contracting COVID-19 is huge. Being able to bubble the players and feel safe in your work environment is going to be probably the most paramount,” Carey Price said on June 25th via conference call.
It has been reported that the new agreement will allow any player to opt-out from returning to play this summer without any penalties. Players need to advise their team by Tuesday.
Once the laces are tied, I believe that all of the focus will be on winning, as it engraved in these athletes since they started playing the sport. They will perform their best in order to win the game. Tanking isn’t in their vocabulary as they are competitive by nature.
Carey Price and Shea Weber‘s windows are closing, and they have both publicly expressed their desire to win. Brendan Gallagher hasn’t taken a shift off, and you can bet that he won’t against Pittsburgh.
I have no doubt that Jonathan Drouin wants to have success in the qualifying round in order to wipe away doubts on his lack of consistency since joining the organization. Max Domi has to sign a new contract as a restricted free agent before the start of the 2020-21 season, therefore has a vested interest to be engaged in helping the team win if he chooses to play.
Nick Suzuki, Jesperi Kotkaniemi, and Ryan Poehling will put the skates on to perform in hopes of securing a roster spot for next season. I can go down the roster list and find a reason for every single player that the upcoming games are important for them.
The same can be said about the coaching staff. “We’re professional athletes. We’re competitive. There’s no reason in the world to think otherwise. So that’s the direction we’re going,” said Julien.
Julien has brought a team to the playoffs only once in the last five seasons behind the bench, a record that he would like to improve. The last year that Julien brought a team to the playoffs was in 2016-17, when he took over from Michel Therrien with 24 games remaining in the regular season.
Marc Bergevin won’t want his name associated to building a team that would miss the playoffs for the fourth time in five years. In an interview with Pierre Houde that was aired Friday on RDS, the general manager said that it’s important that the team go as deep as possible in the playoffs. Any kind of success would buy Bergevin some extra time to keep his job.
