Hockey

Joe Veleno: several Habs employees didn’t want to sign him initially
Félix Forget
Joe Veleno: several Habs employees didn’t want to sign him initially
Credit: Twitter screenshot

This summer, the Habs acquired Joe Veleno. It's an acquisition that stole far less of the limelight than Noah Dobson's or Zachary Bolduc's, but it's still a guy the Canadiens brought to town.And, more importantly, a guy who's fighting for a spot with the big club right now, a club that just happens to need a left-handed center.That said, Veleno's case was a special one. The Habs were linked to the Québécois early in the process… before they weren't. Tonight ,Tony Marinaro explained what happened when he appeared on 98.5 FM: basically, the club had internal discussions about Veleno…

But at the time, there were more people in town who didn't want to sign him than who did. https://www.youtube.com/live/XIAW1_eO6jw?si=_EQJ0BD9NHnX86n2&t=960

That said, a few days later, the club saw the state of the market and considered Veleno once again. It's safe to assume that Kent Hughes, his former agent, was among those pushing to bring him to town,and more importantly, that they were talking to each other: just because Veleno was going to sign in Montreal didn't mean he was guaranteed to start the year with the big club.

Since then, Veleno hasn't had a bad camp… and Lane Hutson even went out of his way to give him some love recently.That's a nice vote of confidence, that.

So we'll see if Veleno will be able to make the internal folks who pushed for his signature look good. Because obviously, it wasn't a popular decision in the Habs' offices to begin with.But if he's able to deliver some interesting play on the ice, all that will be quickly forgotten.

'Overtime'

– Tomorrow's the day:

–

– I give Suzuki the edge.

– Great Flower.

– Understandably,

– That's right,

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