Montreal Canadiens: Alex Galchenyuk's Main Issue

It’s been a tough start for the Montreal Canadiens and especially for Alex Galchenyuk but the reason for his struggles can be tracked to one thing.

The Montreal Canadiens have four games played under their belt. Although the whole team has struggled to score, it’s been disappointing to see that Alex Galchenyuk has a line of 0’s next to his name on the stat sheets. To add to that, he’s been making a lot of irresponsible plays with the puck at times that have led to scoring chances against.

Claude Julien seemed to have reached the edge with the 23-year-old in Tuesday’s game against the Chicago Blackhawks. Galchenyuk found himself off of the first power play unit and on the fourth line with Torrey Mitchell and Brendan Gallagher. A lot of NHL analysts were criticizing him a lot as well. It got to a point in the game where some Habs fans at the Bell Center were booing him when he touched the puck.

The Issue at Hand

So what’s the issue here? How has Galchenyuk gone from such a dynamic player to being non-existent at times. Personally, I think it has to do with confidence.

Think about what his career in the last couple of years. He makes the team and has success but isn’t given the chance to play his natural position. Galchenyuk is finally allowed to play center in the 2015-2016 season and puts up 30 goals and 26 assists.

He starts the following season at center again but misses time with an injury. Galchenyuk obviously came back too early and it showed in his play. He was far from the player he was at the beginning of the season. Because of that, he quickly lost favour with Julien and started playing lower in the line-up. The season ends and all Galchenyuk has to hear is how his coach and GM don’t think he’s a center.

Instead of giving him another chance to prove that he can do it, he’s thrown onto the wing. Imagine that in your head as a player. Imagine thinking that your coach doesn’t believe in you. I’m not saying that is the case, but it is possible.

Then add-on the fact that there’s pressure on him to contribute offensively since he’s only on the wing, but completely disregarding the fact that he’s playing with two players in Phillip Danault and Andrew Shaw who are more defensive . You could even say that Julien’s reluctance to play him on that top line could be seen as another lack of trust in Galchenyuk.

Now we have the fans booing him specifically whenever he makes a mistake whereas other players have gotten a free pass. Let’s be honest with ourselves here, Jonathan Drouin has had his fair share of turnovers as well, but their not talked about as much.

Montreal Canadiens: Alex Galchenyuk’s Main Issue

It’s been a tough start for the Montreal Canadiens and especially for Alex Galchenyuk but the reason for his struggles can be tracked to one thing.

The Issue at Hand

How to Fix It