Montreal Canadiens: Could the centre depth be hurting Jesperi Kotkaniemi

Sebastian: There are a few contenders for this one. Tomas Tatar has scored two goals but needs to get a grip and take fewer penalties… I guess I want to see less of him in that sense. Nick Suzuki looked primed to break out after an excellent preseason but has been unable to create much offense, and Paul Byron has seemed slightly off. However, it is Victor Mete who needs to step up more than anyone else right now. He is – yet again – being given a golden opportunity: playing alongside Shea Weber. Unfortunately, Mete just does not seem to be a top 4 defenseman at this point in time. I am not asking him to explode offensively, or even to score that long-awaited goal, I just want him to prove me wrong when I say that he may need another conditioning stint in Laval.

The Power Play has definitely looked better this season than it did at any point in time last year. There is a lot more movement and unpredictability. However, it would be naive to assume that it can maintain a 30% success rate, it hasn’t looked quite that good. However, I would not be surprised if it were to end up in the 18-22% range, which is a nice upgrade over last season.

There is no doubt in my mind that Fleury is better than both Mike Reilly and Christian Folin at this point in time and I believe he should play next to Chiarot on the third pairing as things stand, what a bruising pairing that would be! However, I also think that Noah Juulsen is better than Cale Fleury right now, which condemns Fleury to be sent down once Juulsen regains his stride.

Well, as the others will probably say, the fact that the Habs are consistently scoring goals at both 5 on 5 and on the powerplay is something every fan is ecstatic about. However, I would like to focus on how excellent our fourth line has been. While Nate Thompson‘s advanced statistics are looking pretty horrid this season (41.3 CF%), the eye test is telling a different story.

I assume that this is due to the occasions in which Claude Julien has put the bottom trio on the ice against opposing teams’ top lines, because from what I have seen – and I have watched every game since the start of the preseason – Thompson has been exceptional. He seems faster than last season and is winning 53.4% of his faceoffs. He has also seemed dangerous on the counter-attack on the penalty kill (which I will return to shortly). He is currently being flanked by Nick Suzuki and Nick Cousins.

Suzuki is looking more and more comfortable with every game, and his high hockey IQ is shining through. Cousins has been playing a relentless style of play since being inserted into the lineup and has a goal and two assists – one of which came on Mete’s long-awaited first goal – to show for his efforts in the four games he’s played in the tricolore.

Jordan Weal has been decent as well, and as things currently stand, he should probably have Paul Byron’s spot in the lineup based on performance this season, but I trust Claude to build the strongest forward group he can. As for the bad… the penalty kill has been bad… like it makes me sad kind of bad.