After a rough first quarter of the season, the second wasn’t any better for the Habs. Nevertheless, there are still some decent grades in our report cards, beginning as always with the goaltenders and defencemen.
In this third group of prospects in our 2021-22 rankings, we have some later-round picks that have slowly upped their value over the past year or so.
Who were the top performers for the Habs in January? Make your selections for Montreal’s three stars of the month.
Laval kicked off a two-week road trip with a pair of games in Texas last week. While the Stars are among the weaker teams in the AHL, they were bolstered by the return of Anton Khudobin. In the end, the Rocket picked up a split by eking out a win in the second game.
Goaltending is an area that can often go underappreciated. It can be taken for granted sometimes and the end result is that when a team is missing both netminders, things can go sideways in a hurry. That’s exactly what happened with the Habs last week.
Samuel Montembeault had a terrible first period and his teammates tried hard to bounce back but simply weren’t able to as they fell 6-3 to Columbus on Sunday night.
Montreal was able to hold Edmonton to well below their season average in shots on goal on Saturday night but it didn’t matter much as some defensive breakdowns proved costly with the Oilers skating away with a 7-2 win.
In our second group of prospects, we have some players who are longer-term projects plus a couple that have already made their NHL debut but have a questionable long-term fit with the team.
The Habs outworked the young Ducks on Thursday night but got subpar netminding for the first half of the game and some questionable decision-making from the bench in the final moments that ultimately sealed their fate in a 5-4 loss.
With Sami Niku having played just four times in basically the last two months and the fact he has dropped to no better than eighth on the depth chart, the Habs placed him on waivers on Wednesday for the purpose of sending him to Laval.