If veteran goalie has played last game for Habs ahead of Friday’s trade deadline, the impact he had on his teammates will be long-lasting.
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Canadiens head coach Martin St. Louis had a great quote last season when asked about the role veteran goalie Jake Allen plays in the team’s rebuilding process.
“I read this quote the other day and it really resonated with me: You need guys that are willing to plant trees knowing they’ll never sit in the shade,” St. Louis said. “You need guys like that. And Jake is that.”
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Allen has continued to be like that this season after GM Kent Hughes decided to go with a three-goalie system, including Samuel Montembeault and Cayden Primeau.
When the season started, Hughes had yet to sign Montembeault to a contract extension (that was taken care of in December when the 27-year-old agreed to a three-year deal worth US$9.45 million that runs through the 2026-27 season) and the GM didn’t want to lose Primeau to another NHL team by placing him on waivers before being able to send him to the AHL’s Laval Rocket. Hughes was probably hoping Allen would play well enough that he would have good value ahead of Friday’s 3 p.m. NHL trade deadline.
The three-goalie system — which isn’t good for any of the goalies — has backfired somewhat. While Montembeault has shown he can be a No. 1 goalie, playing in only 14 games hasn’t been great for the 24-year-old Primeau’s development and Allen has struggled at times with a limited workload both in games and practices.
If Tuesday’s game in Nashville was Allen’s last with the Canadiens, it was very nice to see him get a win, stopping 25 of the 28 shots he faced in a 4-3 overtime victory over the Predators. The win improved Allen’s record to 6-12-3 with a 3.65 goals-against average and a .892 save percentage.
Road to the Cup
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With one more season remaining on Allen’s contract with a salary-cap hit of US$3.85 million, Hughes can’t expect to get much for the 33-year-old on the trade market. The thing that makes the most sense to me at this point is for Hughes to take the best offer he gets for Allen — if there are any — before Friday’s deadline and move on with Montembeault and Primeau.
Allen deserves a ton of praise for the role he has played with the Canadiens since being acquired from the St. Louis Blues by former GM Marc Bergevin on Sept. 2, 2020. Bergevin acquired Allen to be an experienced backup for Carey Price. But that lasted only one season with the Canadiens advancing to the Stanley Cup final before a knee injury ended Price’s career and Bergevin had to claim Montembeault off waivers from the Florida Panthers to be Allen’s backup.
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Montembeault has since replaced Allen as the No. 1, but Allen has never complained (at least not openly) about his situation since joining the Canadiens. Throughout everything (including the three-goalie system), Allen has remained a role model for his teammates — on the ice, off the ice and in the way he deals with the media. He has been a fantastic teammate and a class act, just like he was with St. Louis when he lost his starting job to Jordan Binnington in 2019 and the Blues went on to win the Stanley Cup.
Not surprisingly, Allen is anxious to find out what happens to him before Friday’s deadline.
“It’s been a long time coming, no question,” he told reporters in Nashville on Monday. “It’s been going on all year for me (the trade talk). So it’s a date — but at the end the day we’ll see what happens on Friday. Whatever happens happens but, yeah, honestly I think for the three of us — we had a meeting today — and we’ll probably be glad when these three days are over. … At the end of the day, trust me, I’ll be happy when Friday’s over.”
Allen has said all season he’d be happy to stay in Montreal, noting that’s what he signed up for when he agreed to a two-year contract extension on Oct. 1, 2022.
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“I get I’m not going to be here forever but, at the same time, I’d like to be one of those building blocks that starts this build,” he said after signing the contract.
Now stuck in a three-goalie system, Allen would be very happy to get a chance to win another Stanley Cup with a different team.
“I always think about it,” he said Monday in Nashville. “I just had that taste of being part of a team. I felt I was very fortunate because that’s the way I look at it. I think a lot of guys go through their career, they don’t even get an opportunity to do it and it’s not their fault. It’s not that they’re not great players … it’s just situational based. For me, I’ve already been a part of it once, but I’d love to be a part of it again. But I’d also love to see this team win a Cup in the future.”
If this rebuild works and the Canadiens do end up winning a Stanley Cup, Allen’s fingerprints will be on it.
He helped plant the trees.
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