News and Notes from the Season-Ending media scrums

On Friday, the Habs cleaned out their lockers and met with the media for the final time before parting ways for the offseason.  Here is some news of note from those discussions.

Injuries

Patrik Laine indicated that he suffered a broken finger in the second game of the Washington series which kept him out of the lineup the rest of the way.  Meanwhile, he also indicated that he won’t need knee surgery this summer.  Surgery was originally expected when he was injured back in the preseason but Laine eventually found a doctor who says it wasn’t required at the time.  Evidently, that turned out to be the right call.

Samuel Montembeault’s undisclosed injury sustained in the third game versus the Caps was a torn groin.  This is something that a handful of goalies have tried to play through in the past but most of the time, the netminder winds up on injured reserve so he probably wasn’t too close to coming back although no surgery is needed.  It also takes him out of consideration for playing at the Worlds.

Josh Anderson declined to go into specifics about the nature of the injuries he played through this season beyond saying there were upper-body and lower-body ones and that he wouldn’t have played through had the Habs not had a shot at making the playoffs.  The good news is that no surgery is required.

Worlds

With the World Championship still a week away from starting, several Habs have already been asked about playing in the event.  For Canada, Mike Matheson will be going while Kaiden Guhle took a pass to focus on fully recovering from his lacerated quad midseason.  Meanwhile, Nick Suzuki is awaiting medical clearance to see if he’ll suit up in the tournament.

For the Americans, both Lane Hutson and Cole Caufield confirmed they’ve received invites but are undecided about going.  Hutson’s brother Cole was recently added to the team so that could make the offer more intriguing.  Meanwhile, unsurprisingly given his prior criticism of the Slovak Hockey Federation, Juraj Slafkovsky took a pass on playing for Slovakia.

Savard’s Future

While David Savard’s playing career has come to an end, it seems as if there’s a possibility his time with the Canadiens hasn’t.  He indicated that he’d like to continue helping young defencemen (singling out Guhle) continue to navigate their careers, suggesting that he’d like to work in some sort of development role.  He didn’t specify that role specifically but he does have a strong desire to work with the club moving forward.

Extending Hutson

Hutson is eligible to sign a contract extension this summer and as we’ve seen from this management group, they’re proponents of getting something done early and often get something done close to July 1st, the first day players in this situation are eligible to sign.  Hutson indicated that he hasn’t given it much thought yet but would like to put pen to paper on a new deal this summer.  Speculatively, that could also play a role in his decision about the Worlds.

Other News

In terms of news not from the player interviews, the NHL announced that head coach Martin St. Louis is a finalist for the Jack Adams Award for Coach of the Year.  The other two finalists are Winnipeg’s Scott Arniel and Washington’s Spencer Carbery, the top two teams in the league so it’s quite likely that St. Louis will not be the winner but being in the top three is still a nice outcome for him.  He’s the first Montreal coach to be a finalist for the award since 2007-08 (Guy Carbonneau).

Meanwhile, the agent for Oliver Kapanen confirmed to TVA Sports’ Nicolas Cloutier that the forward will report to Laval to continue his season.  It will actually be his first time with the Rocket after splitting the season between the Canadiens and the SHL.  With the depth Laval has and the fact Kapanen was a key player at the Worlds last year for Finland, that tournament could have been an option for him as well.