MONTREAL — It’s early on in Montreal Canadiens camp, and I’ve just spent a few minutes talking with Justin Barron about what he’s taken from his summer skates with Sidney Crosby, Nathan MacKinnon and Brad Marchand.

It’s after Barron extols the value of practising daily against three of the world’s best players that I ask him about other sessions he participated in before taking his first strides at this camp. The Halifax native was one of 40 players to arrive weeks early in Brossard, Que., and I wanted to know if there was anyone who really caught his eye from the informal practices he was participating in.

Without hesitation, he replied, “I think Andy looked really good.”

It’s what Barron says next about Josh Anderson that really only resonates with me as I’m watching a recording of the Canadiens’ first pre-season game at the Bell Centre late Monday night.

“He was hurt so much throughout the end of last year, so it’s probably just because I hadn’t seen him for a while,” Barron said. “Obviously, he’s a great player. His speed, just how strong he is taking pucks to the net — he looked, I thought, really good.”

Watching Anderson rush past New Jersey Devils defenders and fearlessly cut to the net in Monday’s game made it easy to forget he finished last season in a boot, nursing a high-ankle sprain that left him wheeling around the Bell Centre on a scooter.

The six-foot-three, 224-pound winger was reduced to nearly half his size after Tampa Bay’s Mikhail Sergachev hauled him down late in the final seconds of a 3-2 Canadiens win on March 21. Anderson went crashing into the post — narrowly missing his bid for his 22nd goal of the season — and came up incapable of putting any weight on his right leg.

But on Monday, Anderson looked as big, fast and sturdy on his two feet as we’ve seen him since he first arrived in Montreal via trade in October 2020. If not for Jack Hughes, who had a goal and two assists in the 4-2 win for the Devils, he’d have been the first star of the game.

I wasn’t there to see it live — I was with family, breaking the fast for Yom Kippur — but his performance still really popped when I watched it on TV.

The thought it evoked was: If this is the Anderson the Canadiens are getting this season, then that’s a big win for them.

What really stood out was how dominant he was throughout the entire game. He was a constant threat from puck drop to closing buzzer, showing the traits that made him so appealing to former general manager Marc Bergevin, who traded Max Domi to the Columbus Blue Jackets to acquire him three years ago.

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Since then, Anderson has been, at times, electric and, at other times, static. While he’s produced consistent numbers — 17 goals and 24 points in 52 games followed by 19 goals and 32 points in 69 games of the 2021-22 season, and 21 goals and 32 points in 69 games last season — he hasn’t been consistent from game to game or within the games themselves.

But the 29-year-old, who stood out most to Barron over the last month, has been burning up the ice each time he’s taken to it during this training camp. He was the best player in a Canadiens uniform on Monday night — scoring a goal, manufacturing several quality scoring chances, registering three shots on net and using his speed and size to be an all-around menace at both ends of the ice — and if he takes momentum from that and rides it into this season, it could be his best on yet at this level.

Anderson scored 27 goals and had 47 points in 82 games with the Blue Jackets in 2018-19. He suffered a shoulder injury the following season and managed only one goal and four points in 26 games as he tried to play through it. And the player we’ve seen in Montreal since has been somewhere in the middle of that peak and valley.

What we’re seeing from Anderson, as he’s building good chemistry with speedy newcomer Alex Newhook, is a player poised for a breakout season.

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Juraj Slafkovsky getting more touches, developing

Another noticeable part of Monday’s game was how often the first-overall pick of the 2022 NHL Draft had the puck on his stick as the third member of Newhook and Anderson’s line.

Slafkovsky did some good things with it, too, and there’s reason to believe he’ll only improve in that department as he continues to get more touches.

The six-foot-four, 230-pound winger didn’t get nearly as many touches as he’d have liked during his rookie season. And he definitely wasn’t enthralled about what he did with the ones he did get, as he produced just four goals and 10 points in 39 games.

But there are indications Slafkovsky learned from that experience — and the experience of watching nearly half the season from the press box after suffering a knee injury.

On Monday, after a false start out of the gate, he protected the puck well, made a great play with it in the second period to give Anderson an excellent scoring chance and progressively built up his performance through the 19:09 he spent on the ice.

“I thought he played well tonight,” Canadiens coach Martin St. Louis told reporters in attendance on Monday. “I thought he had a slow start, but I thought he was really strong second, third period. To me, I felt he was getting some touches, he was using his speed and his size, and as an F1 he was very aggressive, he was using his body.”

St. Louis also pointed out this was Slafkovsky’s first game in nearly nine months.

The young Slovak wasn’t the only one who appeared a little rusty off the hop.

Kaiden Guhle and Arber Xhekaj, who both suffered season-ending injuries well ahead of the end of last season, certainly appeared behind the 8-ball at times.

They’ll rebound. And the hope is that Slafkovsky will, too, and that he’ll continue work toward becoming the player the Canadiens hope he’ll be down the line.

Having the puck on his stick more often is only going to help.

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Quick hits

• There was a lot to like Monday from Joshua Roy, who scored Montreal’s first goal against New Jersey and exhibited all the traits that make him one of the Canadiens’ most promising prospects.

“He had nice touches,” said St. Louis. “You can see he’s very intelligent, that he knows where his teammates are and knows how to get into open space. He has a lot of purpose (in his game). He plays with a lot of good intention.”

There’s time for the 20-year-old — who torched the QMJHL over the last two seasons, scoring 97 goals and 218 points over 123 games — to improve his skating.

But Roy’s hockey sense gets him to where he needs to be more often than not.

Outside of what he brings offensively, there’s a lot to like about how the 150th pick in the 2021 NHL Draft has improved on the other side of the puck.

There were signs of that on Monday, like when Roy made a diving shot-block in the Canadiens’ zone. Just as there were signs of it at the 2023 world junior championship, when he served as Team Canada’s best penalty killer.

• Roy was one of two players who showed up in suits at the Bell Centre Sunday and watched the Canadiens play their annual Red-White scrimmage. The other was Owen Beck, who won 10 of 17 faceoffs against the Devils.

Maybe it means nothing to some that they were there, but I don’t think it does. Roy and Beck, who was drafted 33rd overall in 2022, both want this badly, and neither of them are that far away from it.

It’s more likely Beck returns to Peterborough of the OHL for one more year of junior while Roy debuts with the Laval Rocket, but not before both of them continue to show they’re close to belonging in Montreal.

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• It was an up-and-down game for Logan Mailloux — and not just in terms of his performance but also in how much ice he covered.

Mailloux led the Canadiens defence in time on ice (21:00) and was all over the place. He flashed some of the brilliance that saw him score 25 goals for the OHL’s London Knights last season, but he also showed some of the tendencies he needs to clean up as he transitions to pro hockey.

Mailloux’s decision to rush the puck while the Canadiens were shorthanded in the first period wasn’t well-timed, and it bit him when Jack Hughes took it the other way and fed Dawson Mercer with a tap-in goal.

St. Louis said afterward that he’d prefer not to see that, but also praised Mailloux’s abilities in the offensive zone.

On the process the young defenceman must adhere to moving forward, St. Louis said, “I think at the junior ranks, players attack their opponents more than they attack space. In the NHL, it’s more a game of chess than it is in junior, where it’s more a game of checkers. There are times in games when you have to play checkers — and I know we have players who can do that — but the game of chess is much more important than the game of checkers.”

All to say, you have to think the game in three-dimension at this level.

But people shouldn’t forget that Mailloux has to play it more at this level — and at the professional level, in general — before he can do that more regularly.

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The Philadelphia Eagles are one of the few undefeated teams in the league.

They entered the season as the No. 1 candidate to come out of the NFC again, but even though they’ve managed to get the games to go their way, some people still aren’t convinced about them.

That includes HC Nick Sirianni, who didn’t seem quite satisfied despite a big win over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, stating that they’re not where they want to be yet and that they’re still a work in progress:

“It’s a growth process. We’re not a final product yet,” Sirianni said. “Everybody wants us to be a final product now, but it’s a growth. You want to grow every day, so we’re not going to be playing our best football until we get going into the season.”

Nick Sirianni says Eagles "not a final product yet" despite 3-0 start: "It's a growth process"https://t.co/0RhDPiLzVe pic.twitter.com/xPeZeAKAcu

— Around The NFL (@AroundTheNFL) September 26, 2023

The Eagles hit the ground running and started strong vs. the New England Patriots, but they let them get right back into the game and were even at risk of losing on the final play.

Then, they failed to keep their foot on the gas vs. the Minnesota Vikings in Week 2, leaving the door wide open for a comeback attempt.

They looked much better in the second half vs. the Buccaneers after a slow start, and there have been signs of growth and improvement when compared to the season debut, as expected.

Nick Sirianni also lost his two top assistants to Head Coaching positions, and it might take a while before the new coordinators get the team to where they need it to be, as usually happens.

They have a tough divisional clash on deck next week, hosting a Washington Commanders team that’ll look to bounce back from an ugly home loss to the Buffalo Bills, and that could be their most difficult challenge yet.

The post Nick Sirianni Gets Honest On Eagles’ Performance So Far This Season appeared first on The Cold Wire.

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CHICAGO (AP) — There is Shohei Ohtani, and then there is the rest of baseball’s soon-to-be free agents.

With the season winding down and the playoffs coming up, it’s almost time for major league teams to go shopping once again. And there is one player that is sure to dominate the conversation until he makes a decision.

It looks as if Ohtani is going to the open market after another stellar season with the Los Angeles Angels. The Japanese slugger is the favorite for the AL MVP award after batting .304 with 44 homers, 95 RBIs, eight triples and 20 steals. The right-hander also went 10-5 with a 3.14 ERA in 23 starts on the mound.

The questions surrounding Ohtani’s free agency once centered on the money and length of a contract that could set multiple financial records for the sport, and exactly which teams might be willing to go into that territory to secure his services.

Those questions remain, but the situation has grown more complicated than it was as late as the All-Star break.

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Ohtani tore a ligament in his elbow on Aug. 23 at Cincinnati, ending his pitching season. He remained in the Angels’ lineup as the designated hitter until he was shut down because of an oblique injury in early September.

Ohtani, who doesn’t turn 30 until July, had elbow surgery last week and will not pitch next season. The elbow injury, especially considering Ohtani had Tommy John surgery in 2018, raises questions about just how effective he might be as a pitcher moving forward.

That will all figure into the calculus for Ohtani’s potential suitors, along with the other possibilities. Here’s a closer look at a couple more of baseball’s best potential free agents:

1B/OF CODY BELLINGER

Bellinger also was a free agent in 2022. This time figures to be a little different.

After battling injuries during his final years with the Los Angeles Dodgers, Bellinger returned to form with the Chicago Cubs. The 2019 NL MVP was batting .305 with 26 homers, 95 RBIs and 20 steals heading into Tuesday night’s game at Atlanta.

Belllinger just turned 28 in July, and he figures to do quite well for himself after playing this season on a $17.5 million, one-year contract. He likes Wrigley Field and the Cubs have the money and desire to bring him back, but he likely will have several enticing options.

LHP BLAKE SNELL

Snell has been a bright spot in a disappointing season for San Diego. The lefty, who turns 31 in December, is 14-9 with a major league-low 2.25 ERA in 32 starts. He also has 234 strikeouts in 180 innings.

He won the 2018 AL Cy Young Award with Tampa Bay, and he is the front-runner for the NL honor this year. Snell has a 1.20 ERA over his last 23 starts, joining Bob Gibson (0.85 ERA) in 1968 as the only players with an ERA of 1.20 or lower over a 23-start stretch in a single season since 1920, according to STATS.

Snell is finishing a $50 million, five-year contract from March 2019, and he almost assuredly will do better than that deal on the open market.

RHP AARON NOLA

With Philadelphia on its way to an NL wild card, the 30-year-old Nola could strengthen his case for a big-money deal with a strong performance in the playoffs. He has a 4.57 ERA going into Tuesday night’s start against Pittsburgh; he had a 4.63 ERA in 2021 and a 4.78 ERA in 2016 in his only other years in that vicinity.

Nola’s best attribute is his durability. He has totaled at least 30 starts and 180 innings in five different seasons, including each of the last three years. That type of track record will be appealing for any contender looking to reinforce a developing rotation.

LHP JOSH HADER

Craig Kimbrel and Aroldis Chapman are on their way to free agency as well, but the best closer on the market is Hader, who turns 30 in April.

Hader has a 1.19 ERA and 31 saves in 36 opportunities for San Diego this season. The five-time All-Star also has 81 strikeouts in 53 innings. He could command a record-breaking contract for a reliever.

3B MATT CHAPMAN

There are several contract options and opt-out clauses that could change the market, but it’s looking pretty light when it comes to free agent infielders.

Chapman might be the best possibility when it comes to infield help. The three-time Gold Glove winner is batting .241 with 15 homers and 52 RBIs in 135 games for Toronto this season. He is a .240 career hitter with 153 homers and 424 RBIs in seven years in the majors.

OTHERS OF NOTE

Rangers lefty Jordan Montgomery has been excellent since a midseason trade from St. Louis. He’s 10-11 with a 3.25 ERA over 182 2/3 innings this season overall and will turn 31 during the offseason. … Sonny Gray turns 34 in November but has had one of the best seasons of his career with Minnesota, going 8-8 with a 2.80 ERA. … Jeimer Candelario will be a free agent for the second straight offseason, but this time, the 29-year-old infielder could get a multiyear deal after hitting .253 with 21 homers while playing above-average defense at third base.

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