Montreal Canadiens

The Montreal Canadiens and veteran defenseman Karl Alzner have reportedly reached an agreement on a five-year contract.         

As TSN Hockey's Aaron Ward reported Saturday, Alzner's deal with the Canadiens will pay him approximately $4.5 million over five years. Ward's colleague Darren Dreger noted the contract is worth a little more than $23 million total.

How someone views this deal depends on whether they focus on the old-school or new-school way of thinking.

Alzner is a stay-at-home defenseman in every sense of the term. He's scored just 117 points in 591 career games since the Washington Capitals made him the fifth overall pick in the 2007 NHL draft. His highest point total for an entire season is 21.

His value comes from things like understanding defensive assignments, blocking shots and being one of the league's most durable players.

The 28-year-old British Columbia native ranked 12th among blueliners during the 2016-17 season with 162 blocked shots. That makes him particularly valuable when it comes to killing penalties, which figures to become a key part of his role in Montreal.

On the injury front, he has appeared in every regular-season game since the start of the 2010-11 campaign.

Alzner did miss some time during the Caps' 2017 playoff run because of an upper-body injury, and Stephen Whyno of the Associated Press discussed the impact:

Those who didn't look at the defender's absence as a major game-changer for Washington likely lean more heavily on advanced stats.

Alzner ranked seventh of eight Washington defensemen who played at least 100 minutes last season in Corsi percentage relative to the team, per HockeyAnalysis.com.

Meanwhile, Isabelle Khurshudyan of the Washington Post noted the longtime Caps stalwart said during the team's postseason journey he knew staying in the nation's capital wasn't a guarantee.

"I mean, I'm realistic, and I know it's pretty rare for someone to stay in one place their entire career," Alzner said. "So, I'm making the best of it because this is a heck of a team, on and off the ice."

It's no surprise Alzner received a more lucrative contract than the Capitals were likely capable of offering given their need to add depth to their roster. The bigger question is whether the high-profile addition can live up to his new deal with the Canadiens.

He's going to take up residence in Montreal's top four defensively and should also be on the club's top penalty-killing unit. The deal is going to get a mixed reaction from within a fanbase, but the front office felt he was worth the investment to bolster the defense corps.

After barely surviving Game 2, the Montreal Canadiens are back in control of the series.

The Atlantic Division winners took a 2-1 advantage in their first-round matchup thanks to a 3-1 win Sunday over the New York Rangers in Game 3.

Carey Price allowed just one late goal, but his defense deserves a lot of credit, as the Rangers had just 21 shots on goal all game. A pair of power-play goals from Artturi Lehkonen and Shea Weber helped the visitors take control, while Alexander Radulov extended the lead to 3-0 with his own score.

The Rangers avoided a shutout, but the Canadiens were clearly the better team in New York City.

Andrew Berkshire of Sportsnet made a bold statement after the game:

Montreal was on the brink of a 2-0 deficit in the series before tying things up with 18 seconds left in Game 2. Radulov came through with the game-winner to even the series. Two days later, the Habs have regained home-ice advantage and likely feel much better about their position going forward.

Meanwhile, the home struggles continue for the Rangers, as they dropped another game at Madison Square Garden.

The Rangers have had problems at home all year with a 21-16-4 mark that ranks as the worst among playoff teams. They seemed to once again lack energy and couldn't feed off the crowd for the win. The result was the sixth consecutive playoff loss at home.

ESPN's Linda Cohn summed up the difference:

Henrik Lundqvist continued his solid series despite facing an onslaught of chances for the third straight game.

As Douglas Gelevan of CBC Montreal noted, he did his best to keep the Rangers competitive early on:

He finished with 26 saves, but there was only so much he could do with so many scoring opportunities coming his way.

While power plays hadn't gone well for either team in the series, the extra-man advantage helped break the scoreless tie 37 minutes into the game. The Canadiens were 0-of-7 with the power play in the first two games, but they converted on their first chance in Game 3.

After Phillip Danault earned a delay-of-game penalty for using his hands on a faceoff late in the second period, Montreal responded with great passing that led to a Lehkonen goal.

NHL on NBC captured the puck movement leading to the score:

In the third period, a Mats Zuccarello high-sticking penalty led to a four-minute power play. Although it took almost the entire session, the Canadiens eventually broke through with a second goal, this time by Weber.

The Rangers finished 0-of-3 on power plays in the game and are now 0-of-10 in the series.

Radulov then continued his solid series with this impressive individual effort to make it 3-0:

One goal and one assist in the game gives him five points in the last two games.

New York finally got on to the board after pulling the goalie with three minutes remaining. A Brady Skjei goal broke the shutout and gave the squad some life in the closing minutes. But it was too little, too late as Montreal closed out the victory. 

The teams will have one more game in New York before returning to Montreal for Game 5. Game 4 is scheduled for Tuesday at 7 p.m. ET at MSG. The Rangers will hope to even things up, while the Canadiens will try to effectively put the series away.

Thanks to the late-game heroics of Tomas Plekanec and Alexander Radulov, the Montreal Canadiens earned a 4-3 overtime win over the New York Rangers in Game 2 of their NHL Eastern Conference playoff series.

Plekanec sent the game into overtime with a goal that tied the score at three with 17.3 seconds remaining in the third period. 

The score would stay that way deep into the first overtime period, when Radulov was able to put the puck past Rangers goalie Henrik Lundqvist in a scramble in front of the net to send the series to New York tied 1-1. 

Following the Canadiens' dramatic win, the internet shared its hot takes about what just happened:

After the Canadiens took a 2-1 lead into the first intermission, the Rangers got goals from Rick Nash and Mats Zuccarello within a span of five minutes to take a 3-2 lead that nearly held for the rest of the game. 

Lundqvist took over after giving up those first-period goals. Even in defeat, he was brilliant by stopping 54 of 58 shots in the game after recording a shutout in Game 1. 

Even when the Canadiens were applying pressure to Lundqvist by getting behind New York's defense, Adam Herman of Blueshirt Banter noted that's when the Rangers goalie is at his best:

One reason Montreal kept getting opportunities at the net was because Lundqvist seemed unable to corral the puck, allowing constant rebounds, prompting ESPN's Mark Simon to offer this humorous solution:

Herman offered an exclusive clip of what Lundqvist was facing while trying to keep the Rangers in the lead down the stretch in regulation:

As was the case with Hodor of Game of Thrones, the force against Lundqvist was too great to hold down. It was also a gut punch for the Rangers, who were so close to taking the series back home with two wins in hostile territory. 

HockeyStatMiner noted the amount of work Lundqvist was putting in throughout regulation made it impressive he held Montreal down for as long as he did:

Yet all of Lundqvist's efforts were for naught because the Canadiens were not going to be denied. This was a huge momentum swing for Montreal, which won the Atlantic Division with 103 points and went 24-12-5 at home during the regular season. 

The Rangers were a much better team on the road than they were at Madison Square Garden this season, going 27-12-2 away from home. This was a game there for the taking they let slip away. They will have to turn the page quickly if they want to defeat the Canadiens in the series.

The Montreal Canadiens announced on Tuesday that they fired head coach Michel Therrien and replaced him with former Boston Bruins head coach Claude Julien.

General manager Marc Bergevin spoke about the decision to make the change, per a press release from the team's official site:

I would like to sincerely thank Michel for his relentless work with the Montreal Canadiens over his eight seasons behind the bench, including the last five seasons when we worked together. The decision to remove Michel from his coaching duties was a difficult one because I have lots of respect for him. I came to the conclusion that our team needed a new energy, a new voice, a new direction. Claude Julien is an experienced and well respected coach with a good knowledge of the Montreal market. Claude has been very successful as an NHL coach and he won the Stanley Cup. Today we hired the best available coach, and one of the league's best. I am convinced that he has the capabilities to get our team back on the winning track.

Pierre LeBrun of ESPN reported that the Canadiens asked the Bruins for the right to interview Julien on Sunday. Therrien was not told about the decision until Tuesday afternoon, per Darren Dreger of TSN.

Still, the move wasn't expected by many. The Canadiens came into Tuesday 31-19-8 and atop the Atlantic Division, and as Bob McKenzie of TSN noted, the organization didn't give any indication a change was imminent:

The Canadiens did miss the postseason last year under Therrien, however, the first time since he took over as head coach in 2012.

As Ian Mendes of TSN noted, there was a certain familiarity to Julien replacing Therrien:

Julien, 56, spent the past 10 seasons as the head coach of the Bruins, going 419-246-94 in that time. He previously had stints as the head coach of the Canadiens (2003-06) and the New Jersey Devils (2006-07). He led Boston to a Stanley Cup title in 2011 and another appearance in 2013.

But the Bruins missed the postseason the past two seasons and found themselves on the fringes of the playoff picture this season, prompting the team to fire him on Feb. 8.

The Canadiens, meanwhile, clearly felt they had tapered off after a 13-1-1 start to the season, and Bruce Arthur of the Toronto Star believes the addition of Julien should help right the ship for the Habs:

Montreal's front office clearly feels that will be the case, and Boston fans will certainly be irked if Julien helps lead its rivals to a long postseason run the same season he was fired from the team. If nothing else, two of the teams battling for a postseason berth and the Atlantic Division crown have undergone major changes over the course of the past week.

Carey Price is a superb athlete. Already widely acknowledged as one of the NHL's elite goalies, his Hart Trophy win in 2014-15 established him as the best stopper in the game today. That standing was only reinforced when an injury he suffered last season led directly to the implosion of his Montreal Canadiens.

Thus, when saying that Patrick Roy's career accomplishments at the same age tower over those of Price, that isn't a criticism of Montreal's current starter. It's just a measure of how formidable Roy was.

Price is now 29 years old and in his 10th full NHL campaign. The following is a list of individual and team accolades that Roy had collected at the same age at the end of his 10th season in the NHL:

• four-time NHL leader in save percentage
• three-time Vezina Trophy winner (best goalie, as voted by NHL general managers)
• three-time first-team All-Star (best goalie, as voted by the Professional Hockey Writers Association)
• three-time William M. Jennings Trophy winner (team with the fewest goals allowed)
• two-time second-team All-Star (second-best goalie, as voted by the PHWA)
• two-time Conn Smythe Trophy winner (playoff MVP, as voted by the PHWA)
• two-time Stanley Cup champion

Five times in a row, Roy was named either the best or second-best goalie in the game of hockey—a legendary stretch which compares favourably to just about any goalie in history. He bookmarked that five-year run with a pair of championships in which he was named the most valuable player in the playoffs. If Roy's career had ended in the summer of 1994, he would already have been a Hall of Famer—a second coming of Ken Dryden.

Compared to Roy's accomplishments, Price's own achievements seem somewhat mundane.

Price did capture the Hart Trophy, something Roy never managed, but he has only been named to the year-end All-Star team once in his career. He hasn't come close to the same lengthy stretch of dominance over his peers that Roy managed in his prime.

Price also hasn’t been able to backstop the Canadiens to a Stanley Cup, and at this point in his career, there's virtually no chance of him surpassing Roy's playoff reputation. Dynasties are a rare thing in the modern NHL, and the combination of four championships and three MVP nods required for Price to equal Roy's career totals seems out of reach.

The regular season may be a different story, though.

Roy's furious departure from the Habs is the stuff of legend and rightfully casts a long shadow over then-head coach Mario Tremblay's hockey career, but with the benefit of hindsight, we can say he was already past his prime then. Roy would be an exceptional starter with the Colorado Avalanche and win two more Stanley Cups, but he would never again tower over his peers during the regular season the way he did in Montreal.

Roy won his last Vezina at the age of 26, but many NHL goalies continue to contend for such awards later in their careers. Martin Brodeur won his first Vezina at 30 and would eventually get his name on the trophy four times. Tim Thomas won at 34 and 36. Dominik Hasek collected the award six times between the ages of 29 and 36.

Not only is Roy's trophy case assailable, but so are his regular-season statistics.

Roy and Brodeur are the only goalies in NHL history to appear in at least 1,000 regular-season games and record at least 500 wins, but Price has a decent shot at joining that club.

Price has played 37 of his team's 50 games. If he plays the same portion of his team's remaining schedule and keeps winning contests at the rate he has so far this year, he'll conclude 2016-17 with 508 games played and 269 wins. That will put him right on the heels of Roy at the same age.

If Price can stay healthy and hold down the starting job for another decade, his all-time wins and games played should surpass those of Roy, who retired at age 37 while still capable of playing NHL minutes. As a side point, Brodeur is already well out of reach, particularly since he spent a half-decade padding his totals, even after he'd stopped being a good starting goalie.

To rival Roy's reputation, though, Price will need to be at the top of his game. Brodeur's best five-year stretch in the estimation of awards voters came between the ages of 30 and 35, when he was a first- or second-team All-Star every year. That run will be tough to replicate in an era when voters put more emphasis on save percentage than they used to; Brodeur managed to get himself named best goalie four times without ever leading the NHL in that stat.

It's likely that, when Price retires, he'll come up somewhere short of Roy. An elite five-year stretch and 10 seasons as a quality starting goalie would go a long way toward equaling the regular-season divide. Matching Roy's playoff achievements would be much tougher, requiring a Montreal dynasty starting almost right away.

All statistics courtesy of Hockey-Reference.com.

Jonathan Willis covers the NHL for Bleacher Report.

Nashville Predators defenseman P.K. Subban gears up for the NHL's All-Star weekend and the chance to kick it with Cali legend Snoop Dogg.

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Montreal Canadiens goalie Carey Price had been out since the team's season-opening game against the Buffalo Sabres on Oct. 13 due to the flu. However, he has been cleared to return.

Continue for updates.

Price Active vs. Coyotes

Thursday, Oct. 20

The Canadiens announced Price will start against the Arizona Coyotes on Thursday.

Price Among NHL's Elite Goalies 

On the heels of a 2014-15 campaign that saw Price register 44 wins, a 1.96 goals-against average and a .933 save percentage en route to winning the Vezina and Hart Trophies, huge things were expected out of the Canadian netminder in 2015-16.

While he was solid when he was between the pipes, posting a 2.06 GAA, a .934 save percentage and two shutouts, he appeared in only 12 games due to injury.

Price's injury woes started in October 2015 when he suffered a lower-body injury that kept him out of action for nearly a month. While the then-28-year-old goaltender returned to the crease near the end of November, he aggravated the injury three games later, and the team announced he would miss at least six weeks.

The ailment turned into a long-term issue, though, as Price missed the remainder of the campaign, and the Habs missed out on the playoffs.

Price seemed primed to return with a vengeance in 2016-17 after leading Team Canada to victory in the World Cup of Hockey with a 1.40 GAA and .957 save percentage, but his comeback has been put on hold.

Mike Condon largely struggled as Price's replacement last season, but he has since been replaced by Al Montoya, who was excellent in 2015-16 with the Florida Panthers, going 12-7-3 with a 2.18 GAA and a .919 save percentage.

The Habs need Price in order to return to contention in the Eastern Conference, and they are happy to see him back on the ice.

Follow @MikeChiari on Twitter.

The Chicago Blackhawks dealt Andrew Shaw to the Montreal Canadiens during the first round of the 2016 NHL draft on Friday, and the team agreed to a new contract with the forward Monday, according to Darren Dreger of TSN.   

The agreement is a six-year deal worth $23.4 million. 

The Canadiens were slightly strapped for cap space before the deal, and the team will now enter free agency with roughly $8 million to spend. The deal does carry some future flexibility should Shaw not fit, per SportsNet's Chris Johnston:

ESPN.com's Pierre LeBrun added that Shaw still has a nice annual salary and strong security if he plays well.

Shaw notched 14 goals and 20 assists in 78 games this season, adding four goals and two assists in six playoff games. In 322 games over five seasons with the Blackhawks, he's totaled 70 goals and 67 assists.

Shaw proved to be a well-rounded asset for the Blackhawks. He can play the irritant role, using his physicality and his tenacity to pester the other team, but he's also good in front of the net. Add in the fact that he's scored 19 or more goals in two of the past three seasons, and Shaw is a valuable forward who clearly made the Blackhawks better. 

Locking him up to a long-term deal for a Canadiens team that fell apart down the stretch should provide a spark to Montreal's lineup. Shaw is a feisty presence around the net on the power play, which should bode well for a team that likes to let P.K. Subban blast slappers from the blue line. 

Montreal tied for 23rd in the league last season with 42 power-play goals. Considering Shaw has potted 14 power-play tallies combined in the last three seasons, he should at least marginally help in this category.

He should also make an instant impact on the penalty kill, where his speed and his tenacity for shot-blocking should only improve a Habs unit that ranked 12th in penalty-kill percentage last season.

The Canadiens were dreadful last season, and with little money to spend in free agency, their chances do not look much stronger next campaign. The team may start to sell older players—such as 30-year-old Alexei Emelin and 33-year-old Tomas Plekanec—to create more spending room to acquire young talent.

Shaw is only 24 years old, so he should help in that regard. Still, the team is a few years away from competing again in the Eastern Conference.

Contract information is courtesy of GeneralFanager.com.

Statistics are courtesy of ESPN.com.

You can follow Timothy Rapp on Twitter.     

Montreal Canadiens defenseman P.K. Subban was forced out of a March 10 game against the Buffalo Sabres after colliding with teammate Alexei Emelin. Subban left on a stretcher and was taken to a hospital for further observation, where he was found to have a "non-serious neck injury."

He's since been released from the hospital but will not play again this season.

Continue for updates.

Subban Ruled Out for Season

Wednesday, April 6

The Canadiens announced Subban will not play in the team's remaining games this season.

Subban Comments on Status

Friday, March 11

Subban Stretchered Off 

Thursday, March 10 

According to Sportsnet's David Amber, Subban was lying on the ice "for a few minutes after taking a hit to the head" from Emelin. 

The team announced Subban was taken to the hospital for further testing on his neck but had "normal movement" in his extremities. 

NHL Network's Kevin Weekes relayed an encouraging update following the Canadiens' 3-2 win: 

Subban Among NHL's Best Defensemen 

Subban has developed into one of the NHL's premier defensemen over the past three years, and a major reason why has been his ability to stay on the ice. As NHL.com noted, prior to this injury, Subban had appeared in 274 straight games and had never missed a contest due to injury. 

Now in his seventh season with the Habs, Subban has recorded six goals and 45 assists. He's also posted a plus/minus rating of plus-four, which ranks second among all Canadiens players, per Hockey-Reference.com. 

Montreal has experienced defensemen in Emelin and Andrei Markov, but with Jeff Petry already out for the season due to a sports hernia, and with the Canadiens eliminated from the postseason, shutting down Subban was the smart decision.