Montreal Canadiens TPT: Alex Galchenyuk’s Promotion

Alex Galchenyuk has been a lot better as of late for the Montreal Canadiens but is still on the fourth line. Should he get a promotion or stay where he is?

The ol’ hockey saying is that it’s hard to be critical when the team is winning. When the Montreal Canadiens were knee-deep in their struggles, finding things to pin point was second nature. Now that they managed to string together some wins and points, being critical isn’t really ideal.

Claude Julien‘s line blender from last week is getting a lot of credit for what the team has been able to do. However, players themselves have just been better regardless of the new line mates. In particular Alex Galchenyuk.

Galchenyuk found himself playing on a line with Phillip Danault and Brendan Gallagher at the beginning of the season. That didn’t seem to be working for him specifically as well as the entire team. There were a lot of games where you wouldn’t notice Galchenyuk, and when you did, he was making turnover in the defensive zone or fanning on a shot.

Julien had enough of what he was seeing and demoted Galchenyuk to the fourth line to play along with Torrey Mitchell and Ales Hemsky. Although he was struggling, it’s a tough sell to say that the 23-year-old would be able to play any better with those two. Fortunately, Galchenyuk started to turn his game around which started from some success on the power play.

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Fast forward to present time, and the Habs still have Galchenyuk playing in the bottom nine. However, he has Michael McCarron as his center. Despite that, his game has continued to improve and he’s been rewarded with three goals in four games.

The question is, what do the Montreal Canadiens do now? Do they promote him in response to his improvements, or leave him on the fourth line.

Poll Results

The overall consensus from Montreal Canadiens fans is obvious here. It’s an interesting situation Julien and the Habs have for themselves right now.

There’s no way the team plans on having Galchenyuk play on the fourth line for the entire season. If so, they’ll have to give them more than 10 minutes a night which interferes with the ice time of the other forward groups. However if the guy is going, you have to give him the opportunity to shine.

What’s making things difficult in particular is that the rest of the forward lines have looked solid as well. Artturi Lehkonen has finally found some offence since lining up with Jonathan Drouin, Max Pacioretty has had a more engaging game playing with Danault, and that third line is continuing to build some chemistry.

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Even if Galchenyuk continues to improve, it looks like the fourth line is where he will stay. Personally, I believe the team should find a way to get him back in the top six. Playing with Danault didn’t seem to work in the first few weeks of the season, but maybe things can be different a second time.

For the time being, Galchenyuk finds himself in the role of, “constantly having to prove himself”. If he has a bad game, he’s already on the fourth line, but if he continues to shine, he’ll most likely stay there unless he gives Julien a reason to force his hand. Additionally, there’s a chance that Galchenyuk can receive an in-game promotion if someone else on the lineup is struggling.

We’ll have to wait and see how this plays out. Even though the team is winning now, they shouldn’t stop looking for ways to improve. Anyway you look at it, Galchenyuk on the fourth line isn’t ideal.

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Do you think Galchenyuk should be promoted? If so, who does he replace? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.