Montreal Canadiens: Second Line Will Give Habs Tremendous Scoring Punch

Montreal Canadiens preseason games are underway and two are now in the books.

You don’t want to read too much into a preseason game, especially if an unknown player stands out for a single game. Sample sizes are small in the preseason so you don’t want to get too caught up in exhibition games.

But, when a strong suspicion turns out to be true in the preseason, it can signal good things.

Like the second line of the Montreal Canadiens. Jonathan Drouin, Christian Dvorak and Josh Anderson look and sound like the makings of a tremendous scoring line. There is terrific speed, physicality with Anderson, playmaking with Drouin and a scoring touch in the middle of them with Dvorak.

On paper, that line looks great and in its first preseason action it looked pretty good on the ice as well.

Drouin was playing his first game since taking a leave of absence last year to deal with his anxiety and insomnia issues and Dvorak was playing his first game in a Canadiens jersey. They clicked immediately.

The trio combined to score the first goal of the game when a Jonathan Drouin stretch pass to Christian Dvorak took a bit of a lucky bounce and landed on a streaking Josh Anderson’s tape. Anderson walked into the zone and made no mistake, firing a wrist shot over Jack Campbell to open the scoring.

The line connected again to double the early lead. This time it was a thing of beauty. Anderson made a quick pass from the slot to Chris Wideman who was the quarterback on the power play. Wideman dished the puck to Joel Armia who sent a cross-ice pass to Drouin. The Habs playmaking left winger one-timed the pass to the front of the net where it landed on Dvorak’s tape. The former Arizona Coyotes centre redirected the puck into the net to make it 2-0 with a perfect finish to an exceptional passing play.

Anderson would get his second of the night when he cruised through the middle of the ice, picked up a pass from Dvorak in flight and fired another wrist shot past the Maple Leafs goaltender, this time being Petr Mrazek who had just stepped in for Campbell.

Drouin made an incredible sky-high breakout pass to Anderson in the third period to send him in all alone, but Mrazek denied him the chance at a hat trick.

It was just a preseason game, and most of the players were playing in their first of the year. However, the incredible confidence of Drouin, speed of Anderson and chemistry both have with newcomer Dvorak playing in the middle was terrific to watch.

Dvorak and Anderson added assists on an empty net goal. Dvorak finished with a goal and three assists, Anderson had two goals and an assist and Drouin set up the first two goals of the game.

Again, it is just a preseason game, but from day one of training camp this looked like a line that could bring a lot of offence, and they did not disappoint in their first game.