Alexander Romanov shuffled Brendan Gallagher and Nick Suzuki's cage during practice

The Habs proceeded to some intense exercises involving Alexander Romanov, who was supposed to prevent Nick Suzuki from scoring. Let's just say that the Russian train had a blast in terms of stickhandling in front of the net.

Then Romanov served the same medicine to Brendan Gallagher, with whom he had a little more adversity. Gally is a real ball of energy, which gave Romanov some good competition. However, the young defenseman did very well.

The 21-year-old athlete seems to be ready for this season. This will be a defining season for his development. The one area of his game that he really needed to improve was in his own zone. However, he seems to have worked hard over the summer to become a mainstay on the Habs' blue line.

Alexander Romanov seems to have assimilated very well the directives of assistant coach Luke Richardson, with whom he seems to work hard on his nasty side. Richardson is in charge of the defensemen for the Tricolore and he was once a defenseman himself in the NHL. Remember, Dominique Ducharme's assistant was not a very nice player, he was very tough, so he gave opposing forwards a hard time in front of his net. Richardson and Romanov spent some time talking on the ice. They seem to work very hard on Romanov's game and it's already showing.