Cowan: Former Canadien David Savard plays large role in The Rebuild
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The six-part series, which will launch Thursday on Crave with the first two episodes, provides a behind-the-scenes look at the 2024-25 season, which turned out to be the last of Savard's 14-year NHL career. The 34-year-old defenceman decided midway through the season that it would be his last, but didn't make it public until the Canadiens had clinched a playoff spot for the first time in four years.
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'I think if I put myself in four or five years when my youngest one is a little older, it's going to be cool to be able to watch back the last few moments I played in the NHL,' Savard, a father of three young children, said during a news conference Monday about the Crave series. 'I think they did such a good job in the first season of just our life. They see the meetings, the ups and downs we go through during a season and stuff like this. Sometimes you don't see it from the outside. I think it's cool for the fans to get to see this — and even our family. They live it through us, but they're not in meetings, they're not in all those hard practices and everything. They don't see all the stuff we do at the rink.'
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Episode 1 begins with captain Nick Suzuki addressing fans at the Bell Centre at the end of the 2023-24 season, when the Canadiens finished 28th in the overall NHL standings.
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'I think you can all see that we got a special group here and all the seasons in the future are going to be a lot better,' Suzuki says. 'Thank you so much. Merci beaucoup! See you next year.'
The Patrik Laine trade — and the forward's pre-season knee injury that would sideline him for the first 24 games — are a big part of Episode 1. General manager Kent Hughes says he spoke with Suzuki before pulling the trigger on the deal that brought Laine and a second-round pick at the 2026 NHL Draft to Montreal from the Columbus Blue Jackets in exchange for defenceman Jordan Harris.
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'You talk with your captain and make sure that this is something that is the right move,' Hughes says. 'We know hockey-wise what (Laine's) capable of doing. But just making sure our room was good with it.'
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The Crave cameras also go behind the scenes for a team meeting led by assistant coach Trevor Letowski during training camp in which he introduces a new system for rush coverage and stresses how important it is for team defence and how it was a weakness the previous season.
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