“There seems to be a lot less pressure (elsewhere), admit it or not,” says the former captain.
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Max Pacioretty played for 10 years in Montreal and there was a time when the former Canadiens captain thought he would spend his entire NHL career there.
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That didn’t happen and Pacioretty was traded to the Vegas Golden Knights on September 10, 2018 in a deal that brought Nick Suzuki, Tomas Tatar and a second-round pick to Montreal.
“Montreal is an incredible place and I am very proud of what I accomplished there,” Pacioretty said this week on the Agent Provacateur podcast with his agent Allan Walsh. “I feel like everyone has a useful life there.
“Everyone told me … former players, current players, fans, and I was stubborn,” added Pacioretty. “I listened to myself: No, that won’t happen to me. I will be here for the rest of my career. I like it here. I live in Westmount, I’m in town with the fans, going out to dinner every night. And even when they changed me, I still thought that I could be here forever and that it wouldn’t affect me.
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“But then when I saw the difference in Las Vegas, I understood what everyone was talking about. There seems to be a lot less pressure, whether you admit it or not. You just go about your daily life in such an easy way that it really affects you a lot less. If you are a leader, if you are a young boy, and even if you don’t read the media in Montreal, you know what is being said.
“Brian Burke’s phrase was: ‘Playing in Montreal is so much more difficult than anywhere else because you suck in two languages.”
Pacioretty suffered a broken foot in the second game of the season this year and was out of the game for just over a month. In four games, he has totals of 2-3-5. Last season, Pacioretty posted totals of 24-27-51 in 48 games.
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New gear for Guhle
Kaiden Guhle, the Canadiens’ first-round pick (16th overall) in the 2020 NHL Draft, has a new junior team.
On Wednesday, the Prince Albert Raiders traded the 19-year-old defender to the Edmonton Oil Kings for a package that included Ottawa Senators prospect Carson Latimer and a first-round pick (13th overall) in the Prospects Draft. of the WHL of 2021.
It was also announced Wednesday that Guhle has been named to the Canada Youth National Team Pick Camp, where he will be joined by Joshua Roy, the Canadiens’ fifth-round pick (150th overall) in the NHL Draft of this year.
In 17 games this season with Prince Albert, Guhle had totals of 2-13-15. Roy, a left winger with Sherbrooke Phoenix, leads the QMJHL in scoring with totals of 15-24-39 in 21 games.
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In exchange for Guhle, Prince Albert also receives a first-round pick in the 2023 WHL Prospects Draft, a conditional third-round pick in 2025, and a sixth-round pick in 2022.
“Today is full of mixed emotions. I want to thank Kaiden for his commitment to the organization and to Prince Albert as a community, ”Raiders general manager Curtis Hunt said on the WHL website. “This ends an era for the Guhle family and their direct involvement with the club, although they will always be Raiders.”
Guhle’s older brother, Brendan, also played for Prince Albert and is now with the San Diego Gulls of AHL.
“The hardest thing is differentiating what Kaiden’s biggest contribution was,” Hunt said. Was he the person, the leader, the intangibles, the player, or the pride he had in being a Raider? We certainly wish him the best in his quest for gold with Team Canada and in the next phase of his career with the Edmonton Oil Kings and then in Montreal. “
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Poehling’s Progress
Ryan Poehling has only played 10 games for the Canadiens this season, but is tied for third on the team in goals with four.
Josh Anderson (seven) and Tyler Toffoli (five) are the only two Canadiens with more goals than Poehling, who is averaging just 10:41 of ice time per game.
Poehling started the season with AHL’s Laval Rocket, where he posted 3-3-6 totals in seven games.
“It’s always a process,” Canadiens head coach Dominique said of Poehling, who was selected in the first round (25th overall) of the 2017 NHL Draft. “He had to go to Laval. There he had ups and downs. He grew up. We talked about him on the (training) field … he came back, he was playing solid hockey. He comes here and one of the first things he sat down with was: Make sure you stay yourself. There is a reason he was successful at AHL. This was the part we talked about before he returned to Laval and what he did there.
“In dealing with adversity, he faced many different situations and seems to be finding his way and working things out for himself,” Ducharme added. “He has been playing quite well. I told them I liked what I was doing so by the end of the last game I was playing more with (Jonathan) Drouin and (Joel) Armia and the power game. Again, it’s up to him to keep playing that way. When you do good things, good things happen to you. “
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Injury report
The Canadiens held an optional practice Wednesday morning at the Bell Sports Complex in Brossard with the participation of 10 players.
Poehling, Cole Caufield, Cédric Paquette, Mathieu Perreault, Michael Pezzetta, Brett Kulak, Sami Niku, Mattias Norlinder, Chris Wideman and goalkeeper Samuel Montembeault participated.
Ducharme said after practice that Perreault, Kulak and Wideman are close to coming back from injuries and could be in the lineup Thursday at the Bell Center against the Colorado Avalanche (7 p.m., TSN2, RDS, TSN 690 Radio, 98.5 FM) . Joel Edmundson, who has been out of the game since the start of training camp, needs to see the team doctors again and there is no clear answer as to when he could return.
Carey Price, who is still recovering from off-season knee surgery and also spent 30 days in the NHL / NHLPA player assistance program dealing with substance use, skated without a team with athletic therapist Matthew Romano.
Ducharme said Price will meet with the team’s doctors in the next few days for more tests.
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Whats Next?
The Canadiens have a morning skating scheduled for 10:30 am Thursday before their game against the Avalanche.
The Canadiens are scheduled to practice at 10:30 a.m. Friday before flying to Nashville, where they will face the Predators on Saturday (7 p.m., SNE, CITY, TVA Sports, TSN 690 Radio, 98.5 FM).
Next week, the Canadiens will play the Tampa Bay Lightning on Tuesday at the Bell Center (7 p.m., TSN2, RDS, TSN 690 Radio, 98.5 FM) and the Chicago Blackhawks on Thursday (7 p.m., TSN2, RDS, TSN 690 Radio, 98.5 FM) before taking on Blues Saturday in St. Louis (7 pm, SNE, CITY, TVA Sports, TSN 690 Radio, 98.5 FM).
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Reference-montrealgazette.com