Habs Daily: Demidov’s Goal, Xhekaj’s Gift, Trade Assets

Here are the Montreal Canadiens news items, highlights, and stories you may have missed during the weekend.

Montreal Canadiens News

Top prospect Ivan Demidov scored a nice goal in SKA Saint Petersburg’s scrimmage on Saturday. Most could easily see it was a nice goal via a great shot, but some folks on Twitter who purchased the ‘my little hockey analyst’ kit think otherwise. Either way, we’re not going to spend too much time discussing an intrasquad goal, because, well, it’s an instrasquad goal.

Ivan Demidov opened the scoring today in an SKA intrasquad game with this sweet snipe goal 🔥 pic.twitter.com/BaafCaoB6O

— /r/Habs (@HabsOnReddit) August 17, 2024

Great kids are often the result of good parenting, and that definitely seems to be the case for the Xhekaj family. Arber and Florian surprised their father with a brand-new car.

Today was one of those moments that you can’t forget.
Boys surprised papa Jack with this beauty, his dream car.
You know, you raised good humans when they think about others before themselves ❤️
Proud mama right here 🙋‍♀️💯🙏#xhekajfamily❤️ pic.twitter.com/EG1b4IGlxH

— Simona Xhekaj (@SimonaXhekaj) August 18, 2024

The Montreal Canadiens are just a month away from the start of training camp, and they still have the assets and cap space to make some moves. With roughly $5.5M in actual cap space, notwithstanding putting Price’s $10.5M contract on LTIR, the Canadiens are in a good spot to remain flexible and make some last minute moves from teams looking to shed salary or open up roster spots. [Top Canadiens Trade Assets Going Into Training Camp]

Lane Hutson is one of the most exciting players the Montreal Canadiens have had in their prospect pool in the last few decades. We must avoid setting the bar too high as he begins his professional hockey career in earnest, but the numbers he produced in the NCAA eclipsed the production from three recent Norris Trophy winners, which is quite encouraging to say the least. [Canadiens Prospect Rankings: Lane Hutson The Phenom]

National Hockey Now Network

The Pittsburgh Penguins could profit a second time from an offer-sheet situation. Former Hab Brett Kulak is a 30-year-old stay-home defenceman who had big offensive totals in juniors. He has some power play skills and makes $2.75 million for two more seasons. Ceci, who spent one season as a Penguin (the short 56-game COVID campaign in 2021-22), will make $3.25 million this season before hitting free agency. [Pittsburgh Penguins]

The NHL Network released their ranked Top 20 Wingers ahead of the 2024-25 season. The state of Florida is well-represented in the top 10. Leading the list was Nikita Kucherov of the Tampa Bay Lightning, followed by Matthew Tkachuk of the Stanley Cup champion Florida Panthers. When it comes to Alex Ovechkin of the Washington Capitals, he ranked 19th out of the 20. [Ottawa Senators]

The Philadelphia Flyers turned a few heads when they went outside the box and drafted Swedish centre Jack Berglund with the 51st overall pick in the second round of the 2024 NHL Draft. [Philadelphia Flyers]