Bottom Six Minutes: Time to put Cayden Primeau on waivers
No strangers to centennial celebrations, the Montreal Canadiens participated in that of the Boston Bruins on Sunday afternoon. On the heels of a very frustrating loss to the New York Rangers, Josh Anderson proclaimed pre-game that it would be a hungry Canadiens squad looking to spoil the celebration in Boston. That didn’t happen, as a few goals in a bunch would quickly put the Habs out of this game, digging a hole from which they could not emerge.
One thing they should have learned, if they didn’t know it already, Cayden Primeau is not an NHL goaltender right now.
This loss wasn’t solely Primeau’s fault by any stretch, but this take isn’t just about this game. He hasn’t looked like an NHL goaltender at all this season, and he doesn’t appear to be playing his way out of it whatsoever. The defensive structure, or lack thereof, hasn’t done either of the team’s netminders any favours, but everything appears exacerbated when Primeau is in net. The smallest mistakes end up in their net quickly, and they don’t have any reasonable expectation of getting a save, even in situations where you would expect one.
If this season is about evaluating who is and is not a part of the future, we’ve seen enough from Primeau to know that he isn’t. Both Jakub Dobes and Connor Hughes have played well enough for Laval to deserve a chance at some NHL action, and frankly, Primeau seems like he could use the reset of a stint in the AHL as a benefit to his career.
He is still only 25 years old, and plenty of goaltenders in NHL history have found their stride at an older age than him. Maybe going back to Laval, a place where he has had some success, could benefit him as well as the Rocket. It seems highly unlikely that he would get picked up by another team on waivers, so maybe some good game action in the AHL would rehabilitate his game enough to package him in a trade at the deadline. At any rate, the likelihood of him being offered a contract with the Habs this offseason seems near zero.
Given that the Habs seem be in a holding pattern at the goaltender position until Jacob Fowler is ready to go, it is time to give someone else a shot over Primeau in the meantime.
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