Montreal Canadiens practices this week have been resulted in a constant shuffling of lines and defence pairings.
Who can blame head coach Dominique Ducharme? The team is 0-5-0 and have scored four goals. The old saying says if it ain’t broke don’t fix it. Well, there isn’t a manual for when everything is completely broken.
So, Ducharme has moved his lineup around and put Jake Evans on the fourth line with Arrturi Lehkonen and Joel Armia.
Evans is a fine fourth line centre option, but moving him so far down the lineup highlighted one thing: the Habs don’t have three good centre above him. Nick Suzuki is off to a slow start but he will be just fine on the top line. Christian Dvorak is finding his way with a new team and he’ll be a dandy second line centre once he gets rolling.
But the Habs were forced to use move a winger to the middle as Mathieu Perreault was their third line centre this week. Considering he was signed as a depth winger, that is a bad sign. Especially when we are only three or four games into the season and they have to use that new depth winger as a third line centre.
To make it even worse, the third line wingers are Tyler Toffoli and Cole Caufield. Toffoli was one of the leading goal scorers in the league last year and Caufield was the best goal scoring prospect in the world last year. The pair of wingers need a skilled, offensive centre and are playing with a gritty winger that has a bit of skill.
The Habs had an opportunity to grab a skilled centre for nothing yesterday, but chose not to bother.
Alex Barre-Boulet was on waivers and could have been claimed if the Canadiens wanted to pick him up for nothing. But they chose to pass for some reason.
Barre-Boulet has had a tough time staying at the NHL level with the Tampa Bay Lightning, but he has been great at the AHL level. The 24 year old has played the past three seasons in the AHL with the Syracuse Crunch and scored 136 points in 144 career AHL games.
Perreault has scored 34 points in his last 105 NHL games over the past two seasons. Those were almost entirely played as a bottom six winger with the Winnipeg Jets. Now, with no centres injured or out of the lineup, Perreault is between Toffoli and Caufield.
It would have made a lot more sense for a skilled player like Barre-Boulet to play with two goal scoring wingers. All the Habs had to do was put in a claim and pick him up for free. Yes, they would have had to remove a player from their current roster to make space but that could have been Adam Brooks being placed on waivers.
Brooks was claimed on waivers and played the past two seasons split between the Toronto NHL and AHL teams. He scored 33 points in 46 AHL games over the past two seasons which is just under 0.75 points per game in the minors. Meanwhile. Barre-Boulet has 68 points in his last 70 games over the same two year span.
It’s pretty obvious Barre-Boulet is a more offensive centre, but the Canadiens chose to pass for some reason. Barre-Boulet was claimed by his former team, the Tampa Bay Lightning and will now add some depth for a team that lost Nikita Kucherov long term.
If Barre-Boulet sticks at the NHL level and produces offence like he has at every other level, it will prove to be a huge missed opportunity for the Canadiens.