The Montreal Canadiens are looking up at most teams in the NHL standings and have no hope of reaching the 2022 postseason.
They have begun cleaning house in the front office by firing Marc Bergevin and brining in Jeff Gorton to verse everything as the team’s new executive Vice President of hockey operations.
The team will eventually hire a general manager but that person will be working under Gorton. Gorton, the former general manager of the New York Rangers and Boston Bruins, got to work yesterday with the Habs.
His first move was to claim Kale Clague off waivers from the Los Angeles Kings. Now, there are going to be big changes in Montreal both off the ice and on the ice in the future. This move isn’t seismic, but it does make sense and shows Gorton is going to look to acquire players that fit a certain criteria.
Gorton said in his opening press conference with the team on Friday that he values a team that is fast and skilled. This is a huge departure from the previous regime that clearly valued defensive defenceman like Ben Chiarot, Joel Edmundson and David Savard no matter how slow or unskilled they are with the puck.
Clague is essentially the opposite of Savard and Edmundson. He is about average size at 6’0″ and 177 pounds, but he is known as more of an offensive defenceman than a shot blocking specialist like many Habs blue liners.
Clague is just 23 years old and was a second round pick in 2016. After being selected in the draft, Clague played two more years in the WHL and scored 111 points in 102 games. He put up six points in seven games at the 2017 World Juniors. He even has 70 points in 129 career games at the American Hockey League level.
He just hasn’t quite polished his all-around game enough to become a full time NHL player yet. But where better to learn the defensive side of the game than with a team that has absolutely no playoff aspirations in early December?
Clague can play for the Canadiens and it really doesn’t matter if he is out of position defensively early on. The rest of the team’s blue liners have been out of position for most of the season so Clague will only stand out if he is in the right spot all the time.
Clague will get a longer look at the NHL level this season than he was afforded during his time with the Kings. Still, in Los Angeles he did score 11 points in 33 career NHL games over the past three seasons.
There is still a chance Clague develops into a solid puck moving defender. The Kings are trying to hang in to a playoff race and don’t have the patience to wait for him right now which is why he was on waivers.
The Canadiens, on the other hand, have plenty of time to let a young, promising defender to try and work out the wrinkles in his game. If he can, the Habs just got a really skilled defenceman for nothing. At worst, they got a filler for when they trade pending free agents Ben Chiarot, Brett Kulak and Chris Wideman.