Montreal Canadiens: Dealing With An Unfamiliar, But Beneficial Problem
The Montreal Canadiens have more depth than we have seen in years. That’s great, but it leads to some difficult decisions at the bottom end of the roster.
The Montreal Canadiens are showing a lot of depth which is going to give head coach Claude Julien a tough time forming the team’s 4th line and 3rd defense pairing. Though it makes his job more difficult. he is probably happy to finally have this problem.
As we’re heading towards the midpoint of the pre-season, the Montreal Canadiens (as a team) and the promising individual performances from numerous players are surprising many people. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves: it’s still the pre-season. Although these performances count for practically nothing on the scoresheet, they definitely count for Claude Julien and his staff, as this season might be the hardest it has been in years for the coaches to form the final Canadiens roster.
Early performances from young prospects Ryan Poehling and Nick Suzuki are proving that these players have the skill and ability to potentially commence the season in Montreal. That’s without mentioning the incredible production we’re getting from forwards such as Alex Belzile, Jake Evans, Jordan Weal, and defencemen Cale Fleury and Otto Leskinen. Although not all of these players will make the official team, they are certainly proving their worth and skill as they are making it extremely difficult for Julien to cut them from the training camp.
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One month ago, the chances of actually seeing Nick Suzuki make the team were extremely low, but possible. Now, he’s being added onto a line with Tomas Tatar and Phillip Danault for a pre-season game. The confidence that Suzuki is portraying throughout this training camp has played a major factor in his ability to play faster and smarter than anyone else on the ice. If he continues to play with such brilliance, it would be almost impossible to release him from camp.
The exact same thing can be said about Ryan Poehling. Poehling was panned out to either start the season in Laval or start as the fourth line center. Although he may still start as the fourth center, we’re seeing how well his Hockey IQ has developed, and we see how quickly he can move up the lines as the season progresses.
The 4th line was a major problem for the majority of last season. Having Agostino, Chaput and a mixture of Deslauriers, Hudon and Peca slowed down the pace of the team as this line was very slow and didn’t provide too much of the team’s successes. This season, however, the Canadiens have introduced many faster and smarter players to compete for their 4th line roles, like Jordan Weal, Jake Evans, Alex Belzile (who led the Laval Rocket in goals and points last season), Nate Thompson, Nick Cousins and Matthew Peca (who was the only player most people didn’t mind from last season’s 4th line).
It’s starting to look as though the Canadiens will have four complete lines that will all be beneficial to the team as they will all be hard to compete against. All these players are playing very good pre-season Hockey and will make Julien’s job very tough.
In terms of defensive depth, the 3rd pairing will be extremely difficult to structure. With Mete most likely starting the season with Weber, and Chiarot being matched with Petry throughout the camp, only 2 spots are remaining to fill the spaces Brett Kulak, Otto Leskinen, Cale Fleury, Josh Brook, Xavier Ouellet and Mike Reilly are strongly competing for. Chiarot has had a questionable start to the camp, perhaps too early to tell if this will affect his role on the Canadiens, however many other defensemen are showing that they could do well enough to even play on the 2nd pairing.
Evans Has Earned A Long Look At Camp. dark. Next
Forming the 2019-2020 Canadiens roster might be the hardest it has ever been for Claude Julien. As it is definitely a good problem to have, it will be extremely hard to send down and cut certain players that have proved their skill and potential in this training camp. It’s going to be difficult for Julien, but that just shows how much depth this team finally has which is obviously a great sign for fans of the Montreal Canadiens.