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Montreal Canadiens: 7 Talking Points on Eric Staal, Cole Caufield, Lines, Jesse Ylonen

By Sebastian High

MONTREAL, QC - OCTOBER 17: Paul Byron #41 of the Montreal Canadiens and Eric Staal #12 of the Minnesota Wild skate against each other during the second period at the Bell Centre on October 17, 2019 in Montreal, Canada. (Photo by Minas Panagiotakis/Getty Images)
MONTREAL, QC - OCTOBER 17: Paul Byron #41 of the Montreal Canadiens and Eric Staal #12 of the Minnesota Wild skate against each other during the second period at the Bell Centre on October 17, 2019 in Montreal, Canada. (Photo by Minas Panagiotakis/Getty Images) /
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Montreal Canadiens, Brett Kulak
BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS – FEBRUARY 12: Brett Kulak #77 and Jeff Petry #26 of the Montreal Canadiens (Photo by Maddie Meyer/Getty Images) /

5. Potential Defensive Pairing Combinations

Alright, let’s keep this spitballing going! The defence is a bit more in limbo than the forward corps, given that Ben Chiarot is still out for over a month. That being said, I still have some ideas about the defensive pairings I would like for the time being. Of course, if I were GM as well I would make a big splash for a puck-moving defenceman to play with Weber, but in this scenario, I’m only the coach, so let’s roll with what the team already has:

Kulak – Petry

Mete – Weber

Romanov – Edmundson

I stated a week or two ago that I would like to see Mete with Weber, given that Edmundson-Weber has not been good, at all. Mete is far from the ideal partner for Weber, that would be Matthias Ekholm, but he is the best fit next to the captain currently on the team. This arrangement of pairings would also enable a more balanced use of all defencemen, the Petry pairing would be the unquestionable first, but the other two could eat similar minutes at 5v5.

I can see the argument of swapping Edmundson and Kulak here, and I really do like the Edmundson-Petry pairing, but Kulak-Petry has simply been formidable through the past few seasons. Kulak truly plays like a top-3 defenceman when paired with Petry.

Romanov-Edmundson would be a very entertaining and potentially highly-effective pairing. According to NaturalStatTrick, the two have only played 16:25 together, but in that span, the Habs scored 2 goals and allowed none, controlled 67.35% of the shot attempts and 64.31% of the expected goals. The sample size is less than miniature, but given the fact that their placement together in my defensive combinations was mainly due to the chemistry on the top two pairings, this is promising enough to roll with.

Chiarot’s return would likely mess this all up since I would want to separate him from Weber, but for the time being, these combinations would be about as good as they could get considering the defensive corps, in my opinion.

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