Montreal Canadiens: Play Alex Galchenyuk With Jonathan Drouin
The Montreal Canadiens need to start trying more methods to increase goal scoring. Putting Alex Galchenyuk with Jonathan Drouin could be an option.
Say you’re sitting on your city’s public transit vehicle, be it a bus or a train. You notice a newspaper on the seat next to you with an unfinished crossword and decide to use it to kill some time on the commute. The first clue you see is six across and says: “The Montreal Canadiens need more _____”. What do you fill in? You check the newspaper the next morning to see your answer “goals” was the correct one.
It’s been a foregone conclusion as to what the Habs need. After they were eliminated by the New York Rangers in the playoffs, Marc Bergevin and the rest of the management constantly mentioned that they needed more goal scoring. Considering the Habs have only scored seven goals in six preseason games, the urgency for it is steadily increasing.
Claude Julien has done a good job in putting together a projected line-up with a scoring threat on each line. The 1st line has Max Pacioretty, the 2nd Alex Galchenyuk, 3rd Artturi Lehkonen, and 4th Paul Byron. It may be difficult for Byron to score 20+ on that line, but he’ll still get his fair share of goals.
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So what’s next? There are still three more games left to see how deep the issue is, but if it doesn’t get better, what can Montreal do? They’ve already gotten Brendan Gallagher and Ales Hemsky to swap lines, but there’s no guarantee that generates more goals.
What the Montreal Canadiens may have to try is something we all thought would happen anyway. They should put Alex Galchenyuk back on the 1st line.
The Drou-Chuck Combination
This could possibly be one of the dangerous offensive lines in the league. You’d have Pacioretty, who is the pure goal scorer with an elite shot, Jonathan Drouin with the speed and hockey sense to make amazing plays, and Galchenyuk who can do both.
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Galchenyuk would be playing on his off-wing, but it could still work. Ray Ferraro mentioned during Monday night’s game that the 23-year-old has scored a fair bit on the right side. If you need a refresher, a lot of those deadly one-timers have been taken from that side of the ice.
Additionally, the 2013 1st round pick connected well with the Canadiens captain the year he scored 30 goals. It wouldn’t be at center, but perhaps Galchenyuk playing on that line could benefit them both.
I can understand Claude Julien’s reluctance to do something like this. He’s not sold on Galchenyuk’s commitment to defence, but at the same time, desperate times call for desperate measures. Now is the point in the year for an experiment like this since the final game results don’t matter. If Julien isn’t satisfied with their performance then he can easily scrap that idea and work on a new one.
There’s nothing to lose, and a whole lot to gain. It’s up to the coaching staff to give it the green light.
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Do you think it would be a good idea to play Galchenyuk on the first line? Let us know what you think down below.