Canadiens Daily
Habs Daily: Ivan Demidov Season, Dobes’ Excellence, Waivers
Here are the Montreal Canadiens news items, highlights, and stories you may have missed on the weekend.
Montreal Canadiens News
Top prospect Ivan Demidov continues his dominant ways in the KHL.
Let me rephrase that.
Top prospect Ivan Demidov continues dominant ways in the KHL now that he’s receiving a reasonable amount of ice time for an incredibly talented 19-year-old.
To be perfectly clear, he was only given 14:49 TOI on Sunday, but that’s much better than the ridiculous stretch that saw him receive between three and five minutes per game.
Demidov scored another very nice goal, though instead of cutting through the entire opposing team like a hot knife through butter, he set up the play with a few nice moves, made a very nice pass to Sergei Plotnikov, and then waited until his linemate returned the favour.
His two-point effort extended his scoring streak to six games (7G, 4A), while pushing his season totals to 13 goals and 18 assists in 40 games. It’s a great scoring rate for a rookie, especially since he was used very sparingly for roughly half the season.
The video below is timestamped to his goal, but do me a favour and check out his assist at 1:01. It looks like a goal to me, but I guess we shouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth.
Rookie goaltender Jakub Dobes followed up his impressive shutout performance to start his NHL career with a great effort against the Colorado Avalanche, including two key saves in the shootout, to secure yet another win for the Canadiens. The 23-year-old is sporting a .982 save percentage in his first two NHL games, and according to some that’s not a bad number. [Montreal Canadiens Highlights: Dobes Great, Caufield Goal, Slafkovsky Benched]
With Dobes’ recent play, there’s a debate about which goalie should start on Monday night versus the Vancouver Canucks. Even though Dobes has played quite well, Samuel Montembeault is still the team’s starter, and it’s probably too early to suggest Dobes should be given the reins.
Which Habs goalie should start tomorrow at home vs the Vancouver Canucks?
— /r/Habs (@HabsOnReddit) January 5, 2025
The Los Angeles Kings placed forward Arthur Kaliyev on waivers, and while there’s still some potential left to be tapped in his case, the lack of production is a concern. He projects more as a middle of the lineup player, and the Habs already have their fair share of those skaters.
From 2021-24, Kaliyev ranks second among Kings forwards by xGF%, though the actual goals are less flattering.
His scoring has been meh, he doesn’t PK or take faceoffs, and he isn’t physical, but maybe he’s young enough that someone takes a chance. https://t.co/PdE7ZJumOv
— Jonathan Willis (@JonathanWillis) January 5, 2025
Lane Hutson’s brother, Cole, joined the World Junior Championship Gold club on Sunday, as the United States defeated Finland 4-3 in overtime. With two goals and seven assists in six games, Hutson was tied for the tournament lead in points.
Shockingly, sending your best players seemed to be a sound strategy, as evidenced by the USA’s win. On the other hand, picking names out of a hat while indulging in bourbon was not a great roster-construction strategy from Hockey Canada. Go figure.
Lane Hutson & his parents as his brother Cole ties the game for Team USA 🇺🇸 vs Team Finland 🇫🇮 at the World Juniors gold medal game 🥇 pic.twitter.com/ORMVplibn7
— /r/Habs (@HabsOnReddit) January 6, 2025
Michael Hage produced points in back-to-back games against Ohio State. He had a goal and an assist on Friday, and followed it up with an assist on the University of Michigan’s first goal of the game on Sunday. After losing 4-3 in the first matchup, the Wolverines took their revenge, defeating Ohio State 3-2 in overtime in the second leg.
The Laval Rocket enjoyed a solid weekend, beating the Canucks’ AHL team on two occasions. Saturday’s 6-2 win over Abbotsford featured goals from Filip Mesar, Sean Farrell, Rafael Harvey-Pinard, Joshua Roy, Gustav Lindstrom, and Vincent Arseneau.
As per usual, the AHL game was quite physical, including a late-game fight between Make Friedman and Jared Davidson. Arseneau really wanted to participate, but Friedman made sure to avoid the bigger opponent.
We call that a business decision.
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This line is way offside: “On the other hand, picking names out of a hat while indulging in bourbon was not a great roster-construction strategy from Hockey Canada. Go figure.”
We all want to see Team Canada do well, and of course everyone has an opinion. Sometimes you win, sometimes you don’t. It’s worth remembering that the “World Juniors” are kids. Seeing fans doing drive-bys on line is one thing, but this is out of line for a professional writer.
Bell Let’s Talk Day is on January 22/24.
I honestly felt Marc was being quite funny.
The approach by team canada has been questionable at best… idiotic at worst.
There seems to be a lot of politics around the selections instead of assessment.
This tournament is basically dominated by kids about to graduate from CHL (18/19) yet TC chose 3 17 yr olds?
They also ignored some serious firepower – cristall (19), Hage 21 points in 17 games, yakemchuk 34 points (19), parekh 34 points (19 in feb), sennecke 59 points (19 yrs old).
The roster construction supports the bourbon comment (I would have said meth) but Im sure it was a light hearted intent.
Not sure why it triggered youso much..
Questionable at best idiotic at worst. Is that you being quite funny?
Gavin mckenna should have been selected. He will be first overall in 2026 entry draft, he’s a prodigy He was leading the WHL when he left for camp. Imagine the uproar if he’d been left home. And he played well.
Schaefer will likely go first overall in this years nhl entry draft. He’s an amazing player, likely the best skater in the tournament. Before his injury he was terrific. His injury hurt our prospects significantly.
Martone looked slow, I wouldn’t have selected him despite his great numbers and size and him being in the mix for top pick in the upcoming nhl entry draft. He was outstanding playing for Canada in the past and he was way ahead of sennecke in production when the decision was made, so I see the justification.
Which of those picks are idiotic?
Zane Parekh is an offense first guy but not a gifted defender. Based on the other guys selected, he would have been a risky selection without great reward as we had Dickinson, Schaefer and Mokendyk who offered all Zane’s offense and more.
The bad selection was Bonk- he had more pucks hop over his stick than the rest of the D corps combined. Cameron putting him in pp unit 1 was a big mistake. Carter Yakemchuk made more sense for the team for that role with his huge shot, but Bonk was a returnee.
Regarding Andrew Cristall, I was disappointed he wasn’t on the roster. He dominates at this level as the most productive junior player on the planet.
Hage did not belong on the team, usually only in the minds of Habs fans for obvious reasons. No real outcry about that outside of Habs nation. Heck of a player but not unique or superior compared to guys that were selected with similar skill sets- Nadeau who plays in AHL, and Ritchie and captain Yager or Luchenko who has a better two way game with 4 nhl games to his credit.
Was the team selection perfect, no. Did I agree with all selections, no but was it horrible, no. If cataford wasn’t picked and Gauthier- and neither were significant contributors no matter how generous the appraisal , imagine the uproar of no Q players. So yes politics plays a role. Beaudoin was a grinder type selection and Howe is also hard to play against but I was not thrilled with their contributions but I understand why they were taken, they brought different skills to the team- it’s not an all star team.
After two years with poor results, change the leadership. That’s the price of failure.
Yeah, let’s talk about how Hockey Canada is an embarrassment to this country, not just because they construct idiotic rosters based on archaic ideas from dinosaurs that refuse to evolve, but because they covered up sexual assault for decades and made Canadian parents pay for the legal fees.
Let’s talk about that.
Whoa, Pete. Your passion is admirable, but I think your criticism is misplaced, because unless I’m missing something, the writer in no way criticized the kids. His animus was directed at the bozos that run Hockey Canada. We all have nothing but respect and admiration for these young men that are placed in a very difficult situation every year. Carrying the weight of a nation’s hockey expectations at 17 or 18 is no easy task.
Team Canada had zero passion and zero emotion in that loss against Latvia. The players just mailed it in and because of their incredible lackadaisical ,arrogant, and self-entitlement attitude, they lost a game against a 2nd division team.. Maybe the coaches were to blame, but ultimately it’s the players lack of compete and lack of pride which caused the embarassing loss..