2023-04-28 23:55:13
Even if the 2022-2023 season for the Montreal Canadiens has not been easy, Stéphane Robidas is optimistic for the next campaign.
This is what he said during an interview with Jean-Charles Lajoie on Friday.
“With all the injuries this year, it’s hard to assess what we have. There are different ways to look at this. I prefer to see things in a positive way. The many injuries allowed to give a lot of mileage to players who could not have played as much. The misfortune of some has made the happiness of others. Next year, we start from scratch. I like the direction in which we are going with Martin St-Louis, Kent Hughes and Jeff Gorton. It’s exciting for us.”
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The man in charge of defenders for the Canadians draws up a satisfactory assessment of the progress of his young brigade.
“It was still good. We would always like to have better results. It is certain that the results were not always there, but if we look at most of the matches, we were practically in the game in all the matches. There was a bit more difficult end in December, but we had so many injuries. I think we can learn from that and use that for the future.”
The Quebecer is thrilled by a young person in particular, Kaiden Guhle.
“He’s a professional. Often, we will say that a young person must become a professional, but he is a professional. It happened and it’s rare that we see that. He knows how to play hockey and he understands how to play. He is a very intelligent player and he is very strong physically. He is able to stop and contain the best players in the league. To be able to do that at a young age is impressive.”
As for Arber Xhekaj, Robidas believes his absence was felt on many levels late in the season.
“He is a youngster who plays with passion, but he needs to gain experience. You can see that players from other teams respect him a lot. I confirm to you that the other teams would not have taken so many liberties, if he had been in the line-up at the end of the season. He has a presence on the ice and it’s not just at the physical level. He is a very good hockey player. He still has a good skate for a youngster with such an imposing size.
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