On Thursday, July 24, Montreal Canadiens’ coach Martin St-Louis will be taking part in a the “Shoulder Check” hockey game and since the roster announcement doesn’t specify that he’ll be behind the bench, it seems he’ll hitting the ice rather than standing behind the bench.

The event with NHL stars is held annually and prides itself on making kindness a contact sport. The initiative aims to remind people that we can all be there for one another and that sometimes, being there can mean just putting your hand on someone’s shoulder and letting them know you’re there for them.

The event will take place in Stamford Connecticut, not far from where the Canadiens’ bench boss used to have a waterfront mansion. St-Louis doesn’t spend the off-season in Montreal, he goes back to the USA and spends the Summer with his family residing in South Burlington, Vermont.

If you’re interested in seeing the Habs’ coach play, you can stream the game on Thursday night on the organization’s Instagram account. The game is set to start around 18:30 but players will get there earlier to interact with fans. Before the game starts, Swaggy P will be on hand to show some of his impressive skills on the ice.

St-Louis will be the only Canadiens’ representative but the lineup is still quite interesting: new Philadelphia Flyers forward Trevor Zegras will lead the charge as always and will be joined by the likes of former teammates Mason McTavish, Fank Vatrano, Sam Colangelo and Cutter Gauthier.

Some of the NHL's best will be on display at the 2025 Shoulder Check Showcase, taking place on July 24th at 4pm ET! https://t.co/7CNa5ohiD9pic.twitter.com/aLeAf1OA7b

— NHL Network (@NHLNetwork) July 20, 2025

Goaltenders Spencer Knight, Jonathan Quick and Jake Oettinger will be manning the nets and facing players like Matty Beniers , Shane Pinto, Adam Fox, Ryan Leonard and Will Smith.

It will be interesting to see what St-Louis can still do on the ice, but there’s absolutely that he’ll be able to compete, the former player has kept himself in great shape and still likes to jog up and down the Bell Centre’s lower bowl stairs.

The Canadiens’ coach had an impressive NHL career, despite never being drafted. He spent 16 seasons in the NHL with the Calgary Flames, the Tampa Bay Lightning, and the New York Rangers. In 1134 games, he gathered 1033 points.

Photo credit:  Kim Klement-Imagn Images

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NHL.com released a highlight reel of young stars' best dangles for this past season, and two Montreal Canadiens made the cut. Of course, Calder Trophy-winning defenseman Lane Hutson is featured, but so is the late addition to the season, Ivan Demidov.

Hutson had the most electrifying rookie season seen in Montreal since Ken Dryden won 39 games, including eight shutouts, while keeping a .930 save percentage to claim the Calder. The previous season, he had also backstopped the Canadiens to a Stanley Cup and won the Conn Smythe Trophy as the playoffs' MVP.

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Granted, I wasn’t born when Dryden dominated the 70s and won six Stanley Cups with the Sainte-Flanelle, but I’ve seen Hutson lit up the Bell Centre this season, and it was quite something. Before the crowd could get used to it and see his fantastic dangles as routine, Demidov arrived in the tail end of the season to steal the show.

These young stars have hands for daaays... 😮‍💨 #NHLYoungStarsWeekpic.twitter.com/9pA0BJvmyp

— NHL (@NHL) July 20, 2025

The night he joined the Canadiens to face the Chicago Blackhawks, the press gallery was “sold out,” so to speak, as many teams had sent representatives and/or scouts, creating a special energy in the building. When he scored his first career goal, late in the first period, the building erupted, including the press gallery.

Journalists in the press gallery usually do an excellent job of staying neutral. Still, there were some exclamations when Demidov found the back of the net, there were quite a few impressions of Lucien “Lulu” Bouchard celebrating the National’s goals in Lance et Compte (there I go showing my age again). Even Connor Bedard was shown watching the big screen to see how history was made.

Watching Demidov and Hutson in this short highlight reel is yet more proof that the future is bright in Montreal. Stay tuned.

Photo credit:  David Kirouac-Imagn Images

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Over the past several seasons, the Florida Panthers have evolved into one of the NHL’s premiere franchises.

Florida has advanced to each of the past three Stanley Cup Finals, winning back-to-back championships in the process.

They’re also built to last, with the team’s entire core locked into long-term, team-friendly contracts that will allow Florida to remain one of the top teams in the NHL for years to come.

The success of the Panthers has provided some incredibly fun and memorable moments for their fans, and the team has done an excellent job of creating and curating the events into consumable content that can be rewatched and revisited time and time again.

One thing that the Panthers have done during each of their three runs to the Final that fans have really seemed to enjoy engaging with on social media has been their postgame puck tradition.

It started back in 2023, which was the year that Florida squeaked into the playoffs as the eighth seed.

Facing a first-round matchup against the historically good Boston Bruins, who had set a new NHL record for wins and points in the regular season (with 65 wins and 135 points), the Panthers were a massive underdog.

After falling behind three games to one in the series, Matthew Tkachuk scored the overtime winner in Game 5 in Boston, sparking Florida’s incredible, improbable run to the Stanley Cup Final.

In the Panthers’ postgame locker room, the game puck went Tkachuk, and he famously said to his teammates, “Remember this room, we’ll be back here for (Game) 7.”

Those videos have become something of a thing in the two years since, though it surely helps that Florida has done so much winning once the playoffs arrive.

Considering the team’s postseason prospects for the coming years, we may just be scratching the surface on these fun videos.

As we did last season here at THN Florida, we’ve compiled a list of every postgame puck moment, starting with the first game of the postseason in Tampa Bay.

ROUND ONE VS. TAMPA BAY

Game 1: Matthew Tkachuk 

Game 2: Sergei Bobrovsky

Game 4: Aaron Ekblad 

Game 5: Brad Marchand 

ROUND TWO VS. TORONTO

Game 3: Tomas Nosek 

Game 4: Sergei Bobrovsky 

Game 5: Seth Jones 

Game 7: Sasha Barkov 

ROUND THREE VS. CAROLINA

Game 1: Niko Mikkola 

Game 2: Carter Verhaeghe 

Game 3: Jesper Boqvist 

Game 5: Evan Rodrigues 

STANLEY CUP FINAL VS. EDMONTON

Game 2: Brad Marchand 

Game 3: Jonah Gadjovich 

Game 5: Vitek Vanecek 

Game 6: Bill Zito 

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Photo caption: Florida Panthers postgame playoff puck board following Game 5 of the Eastern Conference Final at PNC Arena in Raleigh, North Carolina. (David Dwork)

The Pittsburgh Penguins will have a lot of decisions to make regarding some of their young players before the puck drops on the regular season Oct. 7 against the New York Rangers.

As of now, they have 13 forwards, eight defensemen, and two goaltenders on their active roster. The forward battle situation will be interesting, especially since Rutger McGroarty and Ville Koivunen are not on the active roster as of now. But the battle on the back end may be even more intriguing.

And one Penguins’ defensive prospect has an uphill climb in order to assert himself onto the NHL roster out of training camp. 

Owen Pickering - selected 21st overall by the Penguins in the 2022 NHL Entry Draft - got a taste of NHL action last season, as he was called up from Wilkes-Barre/Scranton (WBS) midway through the season and played in 25 games for Pittsburgh. In those 25 games, he registered a goal and three points as well as a minus-5 to go along with an 14:49 of ice time on average.

The 21-year-old impressed so much in the first handful-plus of games that the Penguins elected to keep him around despite having the option to send him down - and he even saw some top-four minutes alongside Kris Letang. His play dropped off a bit toward the end of his stint, which ultimately led to his re-assignment to the AHL on Jan. 25.

But Pickering said that he is ready for full-time NHL action in 2025-26, and he’s going to come ready to prove he’s worthy.

"You never want to get sent back," Pickering said. "You always want to be in the NHL. I feel like I proved to myself that I can play in the NHL.

"I want to be full-time next year, I want to be [in Pittsburgh] the whole year. That's the goal."

While the 6-foot-5, 200-pound Pickering appears to be ready to make the jump to the NHL, it may not be that simple - especially with the current situation on the left side of the Penguins’ blue line. 

As it stands, the Penguins have four defensemen on each side of the blue line on their active roster. Erik Karlsson, Kris Letang, Matt Dumba, and Connor Clifton occupy the right side, while Ryan Graves and Ryan Shea as well as free agent signees Parker Wotherspoon and Alex Alexeyev have left-side roster spots. 

Pickering - a left defenseman - will already have to fight hard to make the roster because of the fact that the Penguins already have several candidates in the mix at the NHL level. Graves’s contract makes him difficult to move off the roster. Shea was just re-signed. And the other two were just signed out of free agency. 

Without some movement prior to training camp, it’s hard to see Pickering having a leg–up on any of those guys. And even Penguins GM and POHO Kyle Dubas said that the young blueliner needs to have a great camp in order to stand out.

“He's got to have a great summer,” Dubas said in his press conference with the media following the conclusion of the Penguins’ 2024-25 season. “We can't have him same as we had him go down, settling into a 12-13 minute a night role. He needs to come in and push his way into 17-18-19-20 minutes and earn that.” 

And in terms of Pickering potentially playing in a top-four role?

“He played for the team [last] year, but is he ready to step into one of those roles?” Dubas said. “I don't think so.”

But - even though Dubas may think that Pickering is not ready for an elevated role in the lineup, the one advantage he has is that there isn’t really anyone who is a lock to be playing in the top-two spots on the left side at this point, so those spots are literally anyone’s for the taking. If Pickering has a good enough training camp, he very well could be considered for one of those roles if he shows he is capable of handling it.

If the Penguins had their way with Pickering, he would likely be on the bottom-pairing at the NHL level and getting sheltered minutes next season. But, given the logjam situation, that may be a difficult to accomplish. They may think it’s better for him to be logging top-pair minutes in WBS rather than getting sheltered minutes in the NHL.

Regardless, Pickering will be a player to watch in training camp, and he probably deserves to start the season continuing his development on the NHL roster. Only time and performance will tell whether or not this ends up being the case, but rest assured that the Penguins are confident that Pickering will be part of their future.

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Feature Image Credit: James Guillory-Imagn Images