Episode143 of the Hockey Free For All Podcast 02-07-2025

Hello Hockey Fans Episode 143 of the Hockey Free For All Podcast is ready to listen to, topics include- #1. Everyone should be ready for another inevitable bottom 5 finish in the league for the Montreal Canadiens for a 3rd year in a row? #2. Why is has Kaiden Guhle’s injury effected the Montreal Canadiens to the degree that it has? #3. The Pittsburgh Penguins have lost and survived without Sidney Crosby, Kris LaTang and Evgeni Malkin.   #4. The Colorado Avalanche traded an elite level roster and star player in Mikko Rantanen and have been without their captain Gabrial Landeskog who if he misses the 2024/2025 season, has not played since game 51 of the 2021/2022 season and let’s do the math on that for a moment. That is 271 games consecutively missed, or 3 and 1/3 seasons without their captain, a key player, a cornerstone, and league star, and have remained a top level club?  #5. The Montreal Canadiens loose Kainden Guhle and go into a nose dive and completely fall apart? #6. Kaiden Guhle is a good, solid, but he is Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Kris LaTang, Mikko Rantanen’s or Gabrial Landeskog. Nor is he on that level of importance or impact to his team, sorry, let’s be brutally honest here. #6. The Montreal Canadiens do not have a team wolf pack mentality, clearly, as the St. Louis Blus, Dallas Stars and Boston Bruins do. #7 The Montreal Canadiens lack team resolve. #8. The Montreal Canadiens have no sandpaper element on their roster outside of Arber Xhekaj and Michael Pezzetta, and it’s very obvious. #9.  Kaiden Guhle’s injuries and injury history should be a major concern to the Montreal Canadiens, both in the short and long terms. #10. Kaiden Guhle’s Injury should have been simply mitigated by moving Mike Matheson back to his natural left side, so that the left side of the Canadiens defense would then consist of Mike Matheson, Lane Hutson and Arber Xhekaj. The right side of the defense has Alexandre Carrier, David Savard and Jayden Struble, that’s it. Nothing more radical than that. Not wholesale changes of any kind. #11. Why do the Montreal Canadiens have an entire team meltdown when any player on their roster gets hurt? #12. Why have the Montreal Canadiens remained such and extremely fragile team since the end of the 70’s? #13. Chris Nilan is 100% correct, the Montreal Canadiens severely lack bite, fight and unity on their team. #14. Why does an overwhelming amount of people want to make endless ridiculous amounts of trades and pay ridiculous amounts of contract money, when highly skilled players, such as David Reinbacher, Ivan Demidov, Logan Mailloux, Michael Hage, Adam Engstrom, Owen Beck and Jacob Fowler haven’t even arrived yet, or the sandpaper grit players, such Florian Xhakaj, Tyler Thorpe, Luke Tuch and Owen Protz have no even arrived yet?