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Montreal Canadiens: Three Lineup Tweaks Dom Ducharme Must Make Now

By Ken MacMillan

Feb 25, 2021; Winnipeg, Manitoba, CAN; Montreal Canadiens Dominique Ducharme. Mandatory Credit: James Carey Lauder-USA TODAY Sports
Feb 25, 2021; Winnipeg, Manitoba, CAN; Montreal Canadiens Dominique Ducharme. Mandatory Credit: James Carey Lauder-USA TODAY Sports /
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Feb 13, 2021; Toronto, Ontario, CAN; Montreal Canadiens Phillip Danault Mandatory Credit: Nick Turchiaro-USA TODAY Sports
Feb 13, 2021; Toronto, Ontario, CAN; Montreal Canadiens Phillip Danault Mandatory Credit: Nick Turchiaro-USA TODAY Sports /

Deal With Danault

Phillip Danault has been the Canadiens first line centre for years, but it has mostly been out of necessity and not performance.

He was first placed in the first line centre role when the team finally gave up on David Desharnais being a first line centre and put Danault with Alex Radulov and Max Pacioretty in the 2016-17 campaign.

Danault continued to play with Pacioretty the next season and then played most of his minutes with Brendan Gallagher and Tomas Tatar for the past two seasons. He continues to play a big role this season, but has not scored a single goal in 20 games. Dating back to last season, Danault has one goal in his last 43 regular season games. That goal came on February 29th so it’s officially been a year since he scored a regular season goal. He did have one in the postseason but it was an empty net marker so it’s been 365 days since Phillip Danault beat a goaltender.

That’s why it was so puzzling to see him play 21:02 in Ducharme’s first game behind the bench. This dropped to 15:32 on Saturday night, which is probably where he should be, but then he started overtime and was on for the game winning goal against.

Danault’s offensive impact has been zero this season, so it is time to move him down the lineup into a shutdown role. Him scoring zero goals while playing with Tatar and Gallagher is frustrating. If he scores zero goals while playing with Artturi Lehkonen and Paul Byron while shutting down the opposition, no one would complain.

That’s what he should be doing from now on.

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