Montreal Canadiens: Lines at practice may be a boost for Artturi Lehkonen

Claude Julien teased the blender button on the Montreal Canadiens seeing Artturi Lehkonen up on the second line in favour of Paul Byron.

The Montreal Canadiens took to the ice this afternoon in Brossard ahead of their Saturday night match against the Chicago Blackhawks. It wouldn’t have been surprising to see Claude Julien changes things up a little bit in the lineup, as he made two alterations. That had Artturi Lehkonen bumped up to the Max Domi line while Paul Byron took his place next to Nate Thompson and Jordan Weal as well as Joel Armia reuniting with Jesperi Kotkaniemi on the third line.

Putting Kotkaniemi and Armia back together makes sense and probably shouldn’t have been changed in the first place. The two have vibed well and rechanneling that will be better for both of them. What is interesting is the Lehkonen promotion.

Lehkonen’s scoring is the biggest issue. He scored his first goal in 29 games in the team’s loss to the San Jose Sharks and hasn’t gotten another one since. Figuring out what’s going on there is a discussion for another time, but it seems as if Julien is rewarding the other elements of Lehkonen’s game that being his work ethic and play away from the puck.

Something that hasn’t changed is his ability to get shots on net and perhaps playing with Domi, and Andrew Shaw can put him positions to actually score.

What goes against the ‘work ethic’ idea is the fact that Byron was demoted in the process. There are three players on the Montreal Canadiens who never cheat you for effort, and Byron is one of them along with Shaw and Brendan Gallagher. With that in mind, it makes it more likely that Julien is trying to spark Lehkonen’s scoring leaving Byron behind to bite the bullet.

It could easily be an experiment for practice which doesn’t make it an actual game, but the possibilities are intriguing. However, you’d think results would take charge in this situation, and Byron has far more than Lehkonen this season.

Carey Price was given the day off to rest leaving Charlie Lindgren and Antti Niemi to man the nets at practice. Who knows when or if either gets a chance to play as the Montreal Canadiens have a mini break before their next game after Saturday’s.

The story will be on Lehkonen and whether he makes use of this opportunity. It seems a bit late in the season to go for lineup experiments but if it helps get more goals out of the Habs, then, by all means, try it.