Montreal Canadiens: Centre experiments and playing with speed

Possible Duos

The Montreal Canadiens were separated into two main groups and a smaller group on the side composed on Ryan Culkin, Phélix Martineau, Nikita Jevpalos, Morgan Adams-Moisan, and goaltender Samuel Harvey.

Group A got things started off:

Tatar – Danault – Gallagher
Deslauriers – Kotkaniemi – Lehkonen
Shinkaruk – Plekanec – Hudon
Chaput – de la Rose – Froese
Teasdale – Belzile – Bitten

Mete – Juulsen
Alzner – Schlemko
Despres – Sklenicka
Valiev – Lamarche
Melancon

I know it’s only training camp, but it’s not too early to start looking into some of these lines. Tomas Tatar and Phillip Danault always seemed like the likely duo after the Max Pacioretty trade took place. However, it’s more than Tatar seemingly being the Pacioretty replacement on the Montreal Canadiens.

His playing style could compliment Danault fairly well, especially in the slot. Both make the use of short passes in transition to advance the puck, and those tendencies should be effective if it can be brought into the offensive zone and used to enhance pressure in the slot and down low.

Jesperi Kotkaniemi and Arttrui Lehkonen are another pair that works. Kotkaniemi sees the ice very well, and Habs fans have seen his ability to set up his linemates for scoring chances. However, they haven’t been able to convert on them. Regardless of what happened last season, Lehkonen has that talent and generates a lot of shots on his own as it is.

The defence looks like a mixed bag. It would be interesting to see if Victor Mete and Noah Juulsen see minutes together in the preseason, but I think we all know who and where their destinies lie.