Montreal Canadiens: Victor Mete Scratched For Xavier Ouellet Sure to Rekindle Desire for Trade

Montreal Canadiens defence man Victor Mete has played very sparingly this season.

The 22 year old left shot defenceman once looked like he might become a top four option on this team, but he keeps being passed over by newcomers every year.

Mete cracked the Canadiens lineup as a 19 year old, and played 71 games in his second season. A lot of those games were with Shea Weber on the team’s top pairing and though the team didn’t have a tremendous season, they looked to have a solid puck moving defender in Mete.

However, last season saw Ben Chiarot leap over him on the depth chart and Brett Kulak did the same at times. This year, Joel Edmundson and Alexander Romanov came to town and both have played much bigger roles than Mete. That is four new left defencemen in a short time and all of them have pushed Mete down the depth chart.

It was announced earlier today that Ben Chiarot will be out for most of the rest of the season with a broken hand. This should have opened a door for Mete to try and show he is worthy of a full time role with the team.

However, shortly after word came out about Chiarot’s absence, it was announced that Mete would remain a healthy scratch and Xavier Ouellet would be playing tonight’s contest.

This has to be a very bitter pill for Mete to swallow. The 22 year old has been in the press box for all but seven of the Canadiens 27 games so far this season. He must have thought that he was one injury away from being a regular in the top six, but the Laval Rocket captain has been called up to play instead of Mete.

Word leaked out earlier this season that Mete was asking for a trade from the Canadiens. General Manager Marc Bergevin poured cold water on those rumours and said he would not be moving Mete as it would weaken the team’s depth. This was when we all thought Mete was 7th on the Habs blue line depth chart, but it turns out Ouellet is ahead of him as well.

This has to be beyond frustrating for Mete. Waiting in the press box all season only to find out when a player is injured that the team would call someone up from the minors to play instead of him.

If Mete wanted out before now, he’s going to be home packing his bags tonight.