Montreal Canadiens: Paul Byron May Not Score 20 Goals This Season
Paul Byron’s 22 goals was a big surprise for the Montreal Canadiens last season. It may be difficult for him to do that again if he’s on the fourth line.
To this day, Paul Byron can still be considered one of the greatest waiver claims in recent memory. Luckily the Montreal Canadiens took a chance on him when they did. Habs management and the fans will definitely have their fingers crossed that his 22 goals and 21 assists weren’t a one-off.
Most people like to bring up Byron’s shooting percentage in these kinds of talks. It was 22.9% last season and 22% the season before that. Byron’s percentage was second in the league behind T.J. Oshie who had a 23.1% but scored 33 goals.
According to sportingcharts.com, the league average in shooting percentage last season was approximately 9.02% . There’s a lot of doubt that Byron will be able to duplicate those numbers with a shooting percentage like that. However, it’s not his shooting percentage that may keep him from scoring 20 or more goals this season.
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With all the new additions and maneuvering on the Montreal Canadiens, Byron has been relegated to the fourth line. For a lot of the time at practice, he’s been playing alongside Torrey Mitchell and Andrew Shaw. He may get a different right-winger though depending on whether Shaw is ready to return from his neck injury.
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Byron spend time on every line last year, but had the majority of his scoring success on a line with Alex Galchenyuk or Tomas Plekanec and Brendan Gallagher. We can agree that they are better options offensively than Mitchell or Shaw. Additionally, If he remains on the fourth-line his ice time will be cut. He averaged 15:04 last year, but would be seeing 10-12 minutes a night.
This isn’t to say that Byron won’t score at all. He’s a skilled enough player to get his goals, and a cliché in hockey is that the best always find a way to score. We can’t forget about how many breakaways he gets with his amazing speed. He’ll definitely be able to get a few goals from them alone especially on the penalty kill.
With a head coach like Claude Julien, the most important thing to him is that a player is doing their part on both ends. Byron may have to work harder for it, but he will score. That being said, putting in 22 may be out of his reach this year. Only time will tell.
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Will Byron still score 20 or more goals? Will it matter that he may have to do it on the fourth-line? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.