After finally stopping their losing skid at San Jose on Tuesday evening, it was a more difficult test on Wednesday in Los Angeles. The Kings are a solid hockey team supported by the recent return of Drew Doughty.
Montreal Canadians needed to maintain the momentum, but they were never there. The final score of 6-3 kings was flattering for Canadians.
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Alex Newhook teases us that he could be at the edge of a higher level. Newhook finds silent areas for gunshots. He patina beautifully. Its level of competition is higher than it has ever been. Newhook was the best Night Montreal striker.
Newhook used its speed to create the third goal of Canadians. Newhook won the area, then transmitted it to Logan Mailloux who has torn a blow. This is what Mailloux can do. He makes mistakes defensively, but in attack, he has all the tools.
Alexandre Carrier counted the second goal, but he did more than that. He makes many smart decisions. Carrier works as a good partner for Lane Hutson. Some may say that the partnership is small, but the carrier does not play at the very small.
The positioning of the carrier is strong. It works when Hutson is roaming. It’s probably not going to last, but it was intriguing to see them work together.
Hutson made a sublime pass in the third period when he put a 100 -foot pass into the bank. There was only one way for Hutson to connect the pass to the break, and he found it. The child has a special vision.
Josh Anderson had highlights. He loads with the net using his size and speed. Brendan Gallagher had his usual formidable work rate. Some glimpses of good in another.
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The Kings have succeeded in nine shots in the first 90 seconds. It was a mess. Several nights, the Canadians seemed to be ready to get up and set up a level in the NHL hierarchy, then to other evenings, a reminder that there is a distance to cover again in reconstruction.
Better players like Ivan Demidov must arrive, and players like Juraj Slafkovsky must improve. In the first two minutes, it is not fair to point a finger on anyone, because everyone was dominated.
Jakub Dobes was forced to make difficult stops from the first seconds. Los Angeles achieved five shots in the first 45 seconds. It was a shooting gallery, and it was difficult to look at. The Kings were hungry from the first moments, while the Canadians hoped to relax slowly in the game.
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The ice was so cool at the end of Los Angeles after the first 10 minutes of the contest, if you only looked there, you would not yet think that the game started.
Remarkably, even if Montreal was surpassed after two periods, they were in the game only one. This optimism only ended 15 seconds in the third period. Kirby Dach has lost a washer battle properly along the boards. This led to another count and the hopes were destroyed.
It becomes obvious that Dach is simply not strong enough in defense to be a center. Owen Beck has only five NHL games and he already makes more sense than Dach in the central position.
At first glance, this may seem a bad comparison since Beck plays the wing, but as anoil, Beck instinctively helps the center on his line all the time. It is in the right position by correctly reading the game correctly.
I do not know what Beck can bring offensively to the NHL after success in juniors and minors, but it should, at least, in Jake Evans.
Overall, Canadians spent an extremely difficult night on a defensive level. Kings easily made side passes in the high slit. It is such a difficult backup for a goalkeeper. Whoever looks at the summary may think that Jakub Dobes had a difficult night allowing five. It would have been ten, if Dobes was not sharp.
The final shots were 38-21 for the Kings. Long live reconstruction.
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When Cayden Primeau had trouble with Canadians in December, many thought it was the end of the line for him. Primeau had lost all confidence. It appeared that he did not have the courage or the talent to stop the washers.
It may be a goalkeeper who needs a lot of action to excel, and as a backup only begins once a week, he could not have an idea of the washer. After being demoted in Laval in the AHL where he played most of the competitions, Primeau is suddenly the best goalkeeper of minors.
Primeau was recognized as the goalkeeper of the month in the American Hockey League for January with absolutely stellar figures. He won his first eight departures in AHL this season. Primeau finished January with an eight victories record and no defeat.
Primeau achieved a remarkable objective of the average of 1.73. His safeguard percentage was .932 for January. It is fascinating to look at the apparent heir in the numbers of Montreal Jakub Dobes in Laval. Dobes had a safeguard percentage of only 0.910 for the rocket, but in Montreal, it has a .927. The percentage of primer stops in Montreal is 0.836 this season.
Who has the intelligence to understand all of this? What mystery why these two guards work so differently from each other in each league. The first supposition would be the pressure element for Dobes which produces better concentration. The second supposition would be the need for a play action to make yourself comfortable for the primer.
The main thing is that Canadians have a good primer goalkeeper. It’s just about trying to understand how to get the most out of him at the NHL. The trick is that a goalkeeper cannot simply be put back to the enclosure at the NHL. The backup is the backup until he earns more work. Primeau must understand how to be of the Laval type in Montreal.
Primeau’s excellence has propelled the rocket into the ranking. The rocket is first in the North Division with a single defeat in its last ten games. They are one point ahead of the Americans of Rochester with Laval having a match in hand.
It is a team effort in Laval, the depth being the key. The top scorer in the rocket is Alex Barré-Boulet. He is the only scorer of the top-60 in the league. They launch four lines and are well trained by Pascal Vincent.
Soon David Reinbacher will join the team to find health after his knee injury. Dobes and Primeau will be available to treat the net in April. The list will have no play in Montreal like Michael Pezzetta, Owen Beck or Rafael Harvey-Pinard. They can just have a long race in the playoff series.
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