Montreal Canadiens: Are Habs Forward Lines Already Set for Opening Night?

The Montreal Canadiens still have two weeks of training camp before they will take part in a regular season game.

But have they already sorted out their forward lines for opening night?

There was no question the top trio of Nick Suzuki, Tyler Toffoli and Cole Caufield would be kept together after a terrific showing in the postseason. Beyond that there were questions, but many have already been answered it seems.

The second line that was put together on day one was Jonathan Drouin, Christian Dvorak and Josh Anderson. While it looked good on paper, there was a belief Mike Hoffman could find his way in Anderson’s spot, or maybe Brendan Gallagher would play on a line with Drouin. After just one preseason game, and nine combined points between them, that second line looks like it will stay as Drouin, Dvorak and Anderson.

That leaves Gallagher on the third line, which is remarkable to even think about. He was the only offensive threat on a nightly basis for a couple years and now he is pushed to the third line because of the acquisitions of Toffoli and Anderson as well as Caufield stepping into the lineup full time.

Who will Gallagher play with? It appears his position in the lineup was being held by Rafael Harvey-Pinard while Gallagher was absent from camp in the opening days. That would put Gallagher on a two-way third line with Jake Evans and Joel Armia. I wouldn’t say this is locked in stone yet, since they haven’t played together, but having Evans and Armia fill in for the departed Phillip Danault and Tomas Tatar makes a lot of sense.

That just leaves the fourth line. With Paul Byron and Hoffman currently injured, the wingers are almost guaranteed to be Artturi Lehkonen and Mathieu Perreault.

The only real question is who centres that line, Ryan Poehling or Cedric Paquette? I think the team is very interested in having Poehling make the move to the NHL so every opportunity will be given to him to crack the lineup.

Unless Poehling is awful for the rest of the preseason, he will centre that fourth line and Paquette will be the 13th forward.

Not a lot of drama there. Goaltending is obviously decided with Carey Price and Jake Allen a great duo.

The only real questions will be how the blue line shapes up. The easy guess would be a top four of Joel Edmundson, Jeff Petry, Ben Chiarot and David Savard but that isn’t how they are paired right now.

Youngsters Kaiden Guhle and Mattias Norlinder are partnered with Savard and Chiarot respectively, and have a low percentage chance of making the team over a veteran. If they don’t, the third pairing will be Brett Kulak and Alexander Romanov with Chris Wideman serving as the extra.

With four preseason games and 13 days before the first regular season, you would want a little more drama in the shaping of the lineup, but I just don’t see it right now.