Sport-scan daily brief

Tuesday night, there were glimpses of an improved rush with defensemen jumping into the play, but it didn't happen more than a few times. Yeo said that was partly because the team wasn't able to get out of its defensive zone early enough into shifts.

"I don't know that we executed well enough coming out of our own zone on our retrievals and even on the wall to give us that opportunity," Yeo said. "Sometimes we'd pin ourselves in our own zone and (when) the D had an opportunity to jump in, they were too tired and had to get off the ice."

Yeo noted the team's lackluster performance in the Wild's first preseason game.

"You could tell this was (our) first exhibition game -- it was blatant that it was," Yeo said. "Every aspect of it -- defensemen playing defense, skating forwards giving up 2-on-1s, forwards not backing up our defensemen. We gave up more odd-man rushes (Tuesday) than I hope that we give up in the first month of the season. So there's parts of our game that clearly aren't there, but that's why you play these."

Star Tribune LOADED: 09.19.2013

717282 Montreal Canadiens

Video: Canadiens turn to dynamic stretching to help improve joint, core strength

By Brenda Branswell, THE GAZETTE September 18, 2013

MONTREAL — When practice ended Wednesday at the Canadiens’ training camp, several players sauntered over to the indoor soccer field where Sahra Esmonde-White and two other trainers were waiting for them.

For the next 20 minutes, she led them through a series of stretches, including lunges to stretch and strengthen their core and work on rotation in their hip joints.

A few stretches required players to extend a leg and rest their foot on a bench, the same idea as using a barre, but don’t confuse their routine with ballet.

It’s a dynamic stretching program that targets many muscles in rotational movement rather than just holding a stretch position for 15 seconds and working one muscle group. It also works on strength.

“Some of what we do can look Tai Chi-ish because it’s very flowing and it’s very full body movement, but it’s dynamic,” said Esmonde-White, president of Essentrics, which is also the name of the fitness program.

The Canadiens began using Essentrics last January during training camp. The players had done yoga, where you maintain a position for a long period of time, but Pierre Allard, the team’s strength and conditioning coach, said he wanted something more dynamic.

What he likes about Esmonde-White’s technique is that everything is done while moving.

“I think that it’s a lot more oriented toward sports because players must be able to control their muscles while moving,” Allard said.

He told players to be patient at the start and wait a few sessions to see how they felt.

“And that’s what was the most important. It wasn’t what they did, but how they felt,” Allard said.

He heard from some players almost immediately who said they felt good.

There was some initial skepticism with players joking around, laughing at the movements, said Canadiens forward Max Pacioretty.

“But then after they felt how good you feel after it, it got pretty serious,” Pacioretty said. “I found it very useful and I know a lot of guys in the room have felt the same way.

“Sometimes after practice and stuff, you get on the plane and you’re not really fully recovered and ready for the travel,” said Pacioretty, who noted his back tends to tighten up a bit after a skate.

“I’ve noticed the biggest difference in my back, in my hips.

“It’s more of a fun way than just sitting there and doing stretching on your own and sitting on the carpet and stretching out your muscles. It’s more of an active routine.”

The fitness program was developed by Sahra’s mother, Miranda Esmonde-White, a former dancer with the National Ballet of Canada and host of the long-running “Classical Stretch” exercise program that airs on PBS. (Production on the tenth season is underway.)

She founded the Montreal-based company Essentrics and is actively involved in the creative side of the business as one of three partners. Sahra runs the company while their other partner, Melissa Tran, is responsible for the financial side of things.

In addition to training instructors, producing DVDs, and staging fitness holidays, the company signed its first book deal last spring for three books with Random House in Canada and Harper Collins in the United States. Essentrics opened a studio on Stanley St. a few years ago, a move that Sahra Esmonde-White believes was one of the key factors behind the company’s growth spurt. In the past two years, they’ve jumped from four employees to 13.

With the shortened season following the NHL lockout, Allard said he thought it was good time to bring them in “so that we could prevent injuries, things like that.”

“Strength at the full range of motion, that’s really important and that’s what Sahra’s team is doing,” he said.

The post-practice sessions are held one to two times a week, depending on the schedule.

“What we want is to keep it short, keep it very focused, especially on hip and shoulder joints,” Allard said.

Esmonde-White said she sees speed, agility and injury prevention as the top benefits for the hockey players from their program.

“They learn so quickly,” she said.

“That’s what’s the amazing thing to teach high-performance athletes is that you watch them change and they change so fast.

“Because they have such good body awareness, you’re able to progress faster, and work harder and more efficiently (with them).”

Montreal Gazette LOADED: 09.19.2013

717283 Montreal Canadiens

Video: Canadiens’ opening-night roster taking shape

By Pat Hickey, THE GAZETTE September 18, 2013

MONTREAL — As the Canadiens’ opening-night roster began to take shape Wednesday, head coach Michel Therrien tried to defend what has become a controversial decision to send 2009 first-round draft pick Louis Leblanc to the Hamilton Bulldogs.

The decision was a surprise because Leblanc, who played 42 games with the Canadiens in the 2011-12 season, was among the first cuts.

“Louis came with a different attitude, better shape — we all saw that — but based on what we saw in camp and the season he had last year, we had to take a decision,” Therrien said. “We believe that was the best time for Louis to go to Hamilton.”

Therrien’s comments are an indication that the organization is still miffed over Leblanc’s attitude a year ago, when he was unhappy with his role as a checking forward in Hamilton. He spent the entire season in the American Hockey League, although it should be noted that a high ankle sprain was a factor in his subpar output — 10 goals and eight assists in 62 games.

While the early departure had to be upsetting for the 22-year-old Leblanc, veteran Daniel Brière offered some words of encouragement. The 35-year-old noted that he bounced between the AHL and the Phoenix Coyotes for four seasons before establishing himself as an NHLer.

“It’s particularly tough for Louis as a Montrealer, but he should go down and dominate in the AHL, and if he does that, he’ll be back here,” Brière said.

As for some of the players who were retained when Leblanc was demoted, Therrien said: “There are different guys we need to know better. We know Louis Leblanc. But there are guys we decided to keep because we have to know them better.”

Players like rookie Swedish forward Sebastian Collberg.

“We need to know if he’s going to play in the NHL, because if he doesn’t play in the NHL he’s going to go to Sweden,” Therrien said. “So we need to know more about him.”

Explained Collberg, who has been playing for Frolunda in the Swedish Elite League: “I’m here to play in the NHL, but if I don’t make it I have one year on my contract in Sweden.”

Collberg missed the first couple of days of training camp because of a knee injury, but has one exhibition game under his belt and is adjusting to the speed of the NHL game on the smaller North American ice surface.

Therrien said the organization is also getting to know Christian Thomas, who was acquired from the New York Rangers in the off-season, and 18-year-old first-round draft pick Michael McCarron, although they have as much a chance of starting the season in Montreal as Leblanc.

That became obvious Wednesday as Therrien made a de facto cut when he split his squad into two groups. The main group of 25 players included all the players Therrien wants to be ready for the season opener against the Toronto Maple Leafs on Oct. 1 at the Bell Centre.

The main group did not include any of the players Therrien wants to know better, although the coach noted they would be playing this weekend when the Canadiens have three exhibition games in four nights. The Canadiens play the Carolina Hurricanes Friday night in Quebec City and again Saturday at the Bell Centre, and are home again to the New Jersey Devils on Monday.

The main group Wednesday did include Brian Gionta for the first time since he has been cleared for contact. Gionta is recovering from biceps surgery and Therrien said he hoped the captain would be able to play in at least one of the five remaining exhibition games. Gionta was on the fifth line Wednesday with Martin St. Pierre and Michael Bournival, but it’s only a matter of time before he’s reunited with Tomas Plekanec and Rene Bourque.

Thomas has been filling in for Gionta, but he was relegated to the far rink Wednesday and Brandon Prust took a spot on the line with Plekanec and Bourque.

There were a couple of significant absentees from the main group. Gabriel Dumont, who played 10 games with the Canadiens last season, was on the far sheet, and so was defenceman Nathan Beaulieu, who played six games in Montreal. There were eight defencemen in the main group and there was an opening because Douglas Murray is day-to-day with a lower-body injury. His spot went to Greg Pateryn.

Montreal Gazette LOADED: 09.19.2013

717284 Montreal Canadiens

Canadiens’ Andrei Markov reflects on journey from Moscow to Montreal

By DAVE STUBBS, THE GAZETTE September 18, 2013

MONTREAL — It has been 13 years since Andrei Markov, then 21, sat in a boarding lounge of the Moscow airport, his anxieties growing with each passing moment.

Markov had been drafted by the Canadiens two years earlier, in June 1998, their scouting reports having seen good promise in the defenceman from Voskresensk. He would play two more seasons with Moscow Dynamo in the Russian Elite League, the circuit’s top-scoring rearguard in 1998-99 and 1999-2000, his club winning the championship the second year.

So now Markov was ready, in a fashion, to make the jump to the National Hockey League, where in time he would become one of the game’s elite defencemen.

“I remember at that time sitting in the airport, about to fly to Montreal, and deep in my mind I was asking myself: ‘What am I doing?’ ” he said this week in a pensive, nearly hour-long talk in the Canadiens’ Brossard dressing room.

Markov had no real idea what awaited him on this side of the Atlantic. He was a unilingual Russian, speaking maybe please and thank-you in English, not a word of French, and he was untested on the smaller sheet of North American ice that featured a much more rugged brand of hockey.

“I was thinking: ‘I’m now in Russia, I can play for a good team here, we’ve just won the championship … why am I leaving?’ ” he recalled.

“I asked myself many questions. I was scared a little bit. And then I crossed the line and got on the plane. Maybe the first month was very tough. Everything was different. I didn’t speak English or French. But there were Russian guys on the Canadiens and they all helped me a lot, and I met some Russian people in Montreal.”

His English came slowly, the Canadiens trying Oleg Petrov, Dainius Zubrus and Andrei Bashkirov as interpreters/tutors. Finally, they bunked Markov on the road with Gino Odjick.

“That was an interesting time,” Markov said, smiling. “Gino’s a funny guy. I think at that time he knew more Russian words than I knew English. He was always telling me about his days with Vancouver, playing with (Russian) Pavel Bure. Yeah, a funny guy.”

Markov was giving no thoughts then about a lengthy career in the NHL, and certainly none about playing every one of his 738 games until now with the same club.

“To be honest with you, no, I remember I wasn’t sure I’d stay in Montreal for a long time,” Markov said. “My first goal was just to make a team and try to play in the NHL. When it happened, I was happy. In the years and years since, Montreal has become like my second home. Actually, right now it’s almost my first home because I spend most of my time here.”

He has never paused to wonder how his hockey career might have evolved had he not walked the Moscow jetway and flown to a new life in Montreal.

“I don’t know,” he said. “I try not to look back. I try to live right now, day by day and look to the future.”

Markov exhaled deeply and looked to the ceiling.

“It’s a tough question. I don’t think about how my life might have been different. I was scared, but at the same time I was excited to try something new. It was a big challenge for me.”

Now, Markov is heading into another contract year, his three-year, $17.25-million pact — the most recent of five contracts he has signed with Montreal — expiring at season’s end.

His last two deals were signed weeks or days before he would become an unrestricted free agent; certainly in 2007, he probably would have earned more on the open market than the $23 million the Canadiens paid him for four seasons.

Entering his 13th NHL season in 2013-14, the 34-year-old two-time all-star and cornerstone of the Canadiens blue line has played with and outlasted dozens of defence partners in Montreal while undergoing two right knee reconstructions to repair his twice-torn anterior cruciate ligament.

The knee surgeries, and an operation to repair a lacerated tendon in his left foot suffered in the first game of the 2009-10 season, would see Markov play only 65 games from 2009-10 through 2011-12.

Fans, casual observers and probably a few in Canadiens management watched his return to action last lockout-abbreviated season with anxiety, dread and perhaps even a little morbid curiosity.

Their concerns were not shared by Markov, who had played 21 games during the lockout with Vityaz Chekhov of Russia’s Kontinental Hockey League to test-drive his rebuilt knee, then arrived at the Canadiens’ weeklong training camp last January in his best shape — physically and mentally — in years.

Markov played all 48 regular-season games and each of the five in the playoffs. It wasn’t without its struggles, his game sometimes seeming weary, a little out of sync. It got no easier in the season’s final 10 games, when defence partner Alexei Emelin was shelved with, coincidentally, a torn ACL.

“Every time you step on the ice, there’s a risk you’ll be injured,” Markov said, speaking with a voice of experience. “There’s a Russian expression: ‘If you never take a risk, you’re never going to drink champagne.’

“In my mind, I was pretty sure I had to go to the KHL (during the lockout). I knew I hadn’t played in almost two years. I knew it was going to help me. I have friends there, family there, and the KHL is a new league. Maybe I wasn’t playing for a top team, but I knew I needed game pace. It helped me a lot, it was something new for me.

“When I came back here, I was in good shape and I felt good. I felt strong and healthy, and that’s what helped me during the season. Yeah, it wasn’t easy, but at the same time, at the end of the season I was happy to have played all those games, in good and bad situations.”

Markov has lived plenty of both in his dozen years in Montreal.

Three years ago, we spoke on the eve of the season opener as he continued to rehab his first torn ACL. Markov spoke of having just become a Canadian citizen, and sheepishly of having forgotten the name of then Governor-General Michaëlle Jean on the test.

He remembered his first day on skates in Voskresensk at age 6, “standing-still skates, and as soon as I stepped on the ice I grabbed the boards and stayed there the whole time.”

He recalled, in vivid detail, his first of now 91 NHL goals, scored against the Flyers on Oct. 19, 2000:

“Power play. Against Philadelphia, 5-on-3. Slapshot, a one-timer. Right? I still have the puck.”

This week, Markov remembered sitting in Buffalo’s Marine Midland Arena on June 27, 1998 for the NHL draft, on his first trip to the U.S. He sat in the stands with his agent, Don Meehan, and a handful of the company’s Russian-speaking staff, and he waited.

And waited.

“I had hoped to go in an early round,” said Markov, who finally was chosen by the Canadiens in the sixth round, 162nd overall.

As the draft wore on, he decided to put his time to good use.

“I left for the store to buy some presents for my friends,” Markov said, shrugging.

But he was back in time to hear his name called, and he recalls going to the Canadiens table where he took a few photos after being presented a Habs jersey.

Markov impressed from his first day at a Canadiens conditioning camp at Verdun in August 2000. He stuck with the team that season, though it wouldn’t be until his third season that the club made him a roster player and not an “In The System” skater in its media guide.

A few games into Markov’s 2000-01 rookie year, then-coach Alain Vigneault said: “There are times when I see Andrei heading into a dangerous situation and I say to myself: ‘Don’t go there.’ But he doesn’t have any sense of danger and I’m not sure I’d want to change that.”

Markov listens to the quote read back to him and he rubs his jaw.

“Maybe my game has changed with experience, but I always try to improve,” he said. “Every year I have some goals for myself, trying to be better than the previous year, trying to reach (personal) goals, but with the team always at the top of my mind.

“It’s tough to explain. When you step on the ice, you see the game and you can read the plays, but I always try not to do too much, to get over-excited. If I struggle, if I’m not where I need to be, I remember my days in Russia, where the coach always said: ‘In those times, go back to basics and your game will come.’

“It doesn’t matter if your season is 82 games or more or less, at one point you’re going to be on top of your game and another day you’ll be below that. It’s normal. You can’t go through the whole season on the same level. I think it’s impossible.

“Fans pay their money to go watch the game and they want to see their team on top every night. I think that’s normal. They expect every night to see their team as the best one on the ice. Believe me, the players step on the ice and try to do their job 100 per cent every night, but sometimes it just doesn’t go your way.”

This will be a remarkable season in many ways, the Sochi Olympics in Markov’s homeland in February and his contract expiring a few months later. He says he’ll concern himself with both when it’s time; thinking now about either would only be a distraction from playing his best for the Canadiens.

Better than anyone on this year’s team, Markov understands what it means to play in the fishbowl of this hockey-obsessed city. And not a day goes by that he’s not impressed by the depth of fans’ passion.

“Every time you step on the ice at the Bell Centre is special,” Markov said. “You can feel all of the crowd behind you, supporting you. Of course, some nights are more special than others. The first game of the season is always special, right? So are all the games against Boston and Toronto.”

Markov especially remembers the April 9, 2002 night that then-captain Saku Koivu returned from cancer treatment to play at the Bell Centre against Ottawa, the emotion boiling over when the Canadiens won to lock up a playoff berth for the first time in four seasons.

“That was crazy special,” he said. “People were on their feet for about 10 minutes to cheer for Saku. You’re never going to forget that. It will stay with you for the rest of your life.”

There’s virtually nowhere Markov can walk anonymously in Montreal, where he’s become part of the hockey landscape. Even if he’s not the most outgoing player on the Canadiens, he’s flattered by the attention.

“At my age, I realize it’s not going to be forever,” he said. “I know my career is going to be over in a few years. I’ll try to enjoy (the attention) for the rest of my career. If I look back, all these years have gone by so fast. All I do now is take it day by day and just enjoy it.

“Every time I step on the ice at the Bell Centre, I’m going to feel happy. You want to do your best for your fans. It doesn’t happen all the time, but it’s not because you’re not trying.

“Off the ice, when you’re in the street and people recognize you, you can feel and see how they live and worry about hockey. The game is in their blood, it’s something special, and I’m happy to be here.”

Andrei Markov was forever ago the anxious 21-year-old waiting to board a jet in Moscow, setting off into a world of unknown. The life experience on this side of the pond, he says, is more than he ever could have imagined.

“You know,” he said, “if I look back 12 years, I’m probably not going to change anything in my life.”

Montreal Gazette LOADED: 09.19.2013

717285 Montreal Canadiens

Therrien defends decision to cut Leblanc

Posted by Stu Cowan

Louis Leblanc was the main topic of conversation as the Canadiens’ training camp continued Wednesday in Brossard with head coach Michel Therrien defending the decision to include the 2009 first-round draft pick in the first group of players to be reassigned.

Leblanc, who was drafted 18th overall, was sent to the AHL’s Hamilton Bulldogs following Monday’s 6-3 preseason loss to the Boston Bruins.

“He came into camp with a good attitude and he was in better shape, but we know Louis Leblanc and we wanted to get to know some of the other players better,” Therrien said.

Therrien mentioned Christian Thomas, who was acquired from the New York Rangers in the off-season, and Swede Sebastien Collberg, who will be heading back to Sweden if he doesn’t make it in the NHL.

Neither player was part of the main group at practice Wednesday as Therrien and his staff concentrated on the players who are expected to be on the roster on opening night against the Toronto Maple Leafs on Oct. 1 at the Bell Centre. But the coach said Thomas and Collberg will see some action this weekend as the Canadians play three preseason games in four nights, beginning Friday with a game against the Carolina Hurricanes in Quebec City.

The good news out of camp is that captain Brian Gionta has been cleared for contact. He was on the fifth line Wednesday with Michael Bournival and Martin St. Pierre.

Montreal Gazette LOADED: 09.19.2013

717286 New Jersey Devils

Jon Merrill, Damien Brunner will make Devils debuts vs. Islanders

By Rich Chere/The Star-Ledger

on September 18, 2013 at 4:27 PM, updated September 18, 2013 at 4:32 PM

Rookie defenseman Jon Merrill will make his Devils debut Thursday night against the Islanders in a preseason game at Prudential Center.

Merrill is one of the young blue line prospects, along with Alex Urbom and Eric Gelinas, with a legitimate shot at making the Devils’ roster.

“I’m extremely excited. My first preseason game,” Merrill said. “I’m sure there will be nerves, but I try not to worry about that. Focus on playing your game and have fun.”

Coach Pete DeBoer said of Merrill: “You can see the skill set. I’m excited to see him in games.”

The Devils have veterans Bryce Salvador, Andy Greene, Mark Fayne, Anton Volchenkov, Peter Harrold, Marek Zidlicky and the highly-regarded Adam Larsson.