MONTREAL— It was a smooth redirect from Ivan Demidov. This one delivered in the room after he spent his night dekeing and deceiving every Toronto Maple Leaf in his path in a 4-3 overtime win for his Montreal Canadiens at Bell Centre.
It’s pre-season, but Demidov, who scored a goal on Saturday, is already in mid-season form both on and off the ice.
We asked him if anything he worked on during the off-season translated immediately for him through this first game back.
“You tell me,” the 20-year-old Russian, who paced all rookies in scoring with 62 points last season, retorted.
We were thinking on a rather granular level, so we suggested the way he smoothly picked the puck up off the boards and consistently turned those possessions into threats was attention-grabbing.
Demidov acknowledged that was one thing…
But only one thing, because this kid’s bag of tricks is overflowing.
The feeling he can access all of them now is palpable, even if the first glimpse of that came against Toronto’s B squad in a meaningless game.
What are the early signs Demidov can go from dangerous in Year 1 to lethal in Year 2?
We asked Martin St. Louis, and he delivered the type of insightful answer we’ve come to expect from him.
“If anything, maybe he’s gained a little bit of a step,” the coach of the Canadiens said. “Not that he was slow, (but) I feel there’s a little more jump, a little more power, a little more strength. I don’t know what it is, but I felt like I saw that tonight, I’ve been seeing it in practice, which always will help you get places quicker if you anticipate the right way. And you find better pockets if you have a little bit more of a step.
“I thought he was really good in space tonight. Demi’s able to create space for himself. He looks like he’s going to get closed off and he’s able to turn on a dime and go the other way. Very slippery that way. But you can be slippery and immediately create separation with that step I’m talking about it, and you get your eyes up and he has all the talent and the skill to execute the next thing, and he can do that. So, based on what I’ve seen so far, I feel like he’s just got another step.”
Combine that step with improved skill, closer attention to detail and increased comfort in the NHL, and someone that’s already great becomes special.
And if Demidov continues to do what he did on Saturday — he notched nine shot attempts — he could go from hard to stop to practically unstoppable.
He says he intends to have more of a shooter’s mentality, and St. Louis said that’s a natural evolution for the gifted playmaker.
“Demi’s a really good passer, but I think he’s learning to find that balance and make the best play possible instead of just making a pass,” said St. Louis. “I think with experience, he can make clearer reads on it instead of always thinking of passing. That always gets better with experience.”
There are several aspects of Demidov’s play that will improve with experience.
But Saturday’s game was just one sample of how fast he applies what he learns.
Jayden Struble and Arber Xhekaj battling more than just each other for spot
Through parts of this game, they were battling themselves, and that’ll have to change in a hurry over this shortened pre-season.
St. Louis still likes the potential of Struble and Xhekaj as a pair.
“They’re two guys that play a physical game,” said the coach. “You look at (Kaiden Guhle) Guhles can’t start the season, it’s a scenario that maybe those two play together… They’ve done it last year. We’ll keep evaluating, but I like what I saw.”
Struble didn’t, as he and Xhekaj were both caught out of position on goals the Maple Leafs scored.
“I definitely wasn’t happy with my personal performance,” he said. “I didn’t have it really tonight. The plays I was making, some decisions…”
They were questionable, and easily attributable to rust after just a couple of practices.
But Struble needs to shake it off immediately if he’s going to win the competition for a regular spot, which will be that much harder once Guhle returns in four weeks.
Xhekaj will be challenged, too, though he feels his edge — the physicality and toughness he plays with — can give him a leg up. At least the six-foot-four, 236-pounder exhibited that throughout this game.
St. Louis said he felt Xhekaj played to his DNA, and that’s a check in the plus column for him.
But there are many more boxes to fill for both he and Struble, who are on expiring contracts.
Both need to find consistency from shift to shift but also within each shift they play, and they have to do it in a hurry — and not just because Guhle won’t be out too long.
Our spies in Toronto said Adam Engstrom and David Reinbacher both fared well against the Maple Leafs’ A squad in a 4-1 win for the Canadiens B squad, and both players are pushing hard to unseat Struble or Xhekaj.
Give a couple clicks for Luke Mittelstadt
It’s premature to suggest Mittelstadt is a threat to any of those four defencemen at this stage, but at least he’s making himself noticeable.
That started last week, when Mittelstadt was a notch above the players at the prospects challenge in Gatineau, Que., last week.
Hey, he should’ve been at 23 years old, up against a lot of younger players.
But Mittelstadt was also anything but out of place in his first NHL pre-season game Saturday.
Former Canadiens defenceman and current development coach Francis Bouillon told us he liked the player’s competitiveness and smarts before the Canadiens signed him to his two-year, entry-level contract last spring and plugged him into their American Hockey League lineup so he could get his feet wet at the professional level. And we could understand Bouillon having a soft spot for a longshot, five-foot-11 defenceman, especially considering his own history.
But Mittelstadt lived up to Bouillon’s billing Saturday. He played hard, with a lot of poise, and his speed and puck movement enabled him to show as one of the best players on the ice.
A cynic would say it doesn’t matter that Mittelstadt stood out under these circumstances, especially with so many defencemen ahead of him on Montreal’s depth chart.
But try telling a kid who was drafted 197th overall that a strong showing in his first-ever pro game in a Canadiens uniform at the Bell Centre meant nothing.
“It was awesome,” Mittelstadt said.
We thought it was impressive.
We’ll find out in time if it was a strong first step towards an improbable NHL career, but at least Mittelstadt left us wondering about it.