Montreal Canadiens: What’s The Point of All This Depth if They Don’t Use It?

The Montreal Canadiens are in the midst of a very busy part of their schedule.

Due to their Covid-19 positive case, the team had to reshuffle its schedule and will now play its final 25 games in just 43 days.

Also, they are taking on arguably the two best teams in the division, the Winnipeg Jets and Toronto Maple Leafs, four times in six days this week. They lost the first of this tough four game stretch to the Maple Leafs last night 3-2 and take on the Jets tonight.

The Canadiens strength does not lie in superstar forwards like Auston Matthews, who had a goal and an assist in last night’s win, but in its depth. General Manager Marc Bergevin added some pieces over the offseason that didn’t bring in an elite, franchise player but did provide the team with great depth at all positions.

The problem is, even in its busiest and most difficult time of the season, they refuse to really use that depth.

The Canadiens are missing a few key pieces with Carey Price, Ben Chiarot and Brendan Gallagher all out with injury right now. Still, it doesn’t make a lot of sense that they are using the exact same lineup tonight that they used last night.

What’s the advantage of having great depth if the team refuses to use it on the second game of back to backs against two great teams?

Even with their few injuries, there are still options to plug into the lineup. Michael Frolik has only played two games and performed well in both. Couldn’t he step in and provide fresh legs while giving a veteran like Paul Byron a night off? I’d suggest Corey Perry just for maintenance but he scored twice last game and should stay in. But, at his age he should take a night off here and there.

Otto Leskinen has been excellent in the AHL this season and is sitting on the team’s taxi squad. Why not give him a chance for a game to see how he looks at the NHL level? You could sit a young defender like Victor Mete or Alexander Romanov for a night just to shake things up or even sit a veteran like Shea Weber to ease his workload a little bit. Playing Weber well over 20 minutes a night 25 times in a six week span is going to diminish what value he has left.

It really doesn’t make sense to have depth pieces sitting on the taxi squad watching the same 18 skaters head out there on back to back nights. With Gallagher and Chiarot out for the foreseeable future, will the Habs just use the same lineup again on Saturday and again on Monday?

It really doesn’t make sense to have all this depth and not use it. In the midst of playing 25 games in 43 days, some of these veteran players need a night off now and then.