Montreal Canadiens: Do We Need To See Ben Chiarot On The Power Play Ever Again?

Montreal Canadiens games have followed a fairly predictable script lately. Basically, they don’t score and they lose.

The details are different every night but that’s pretty much what we see.

One of the reasons the team doesn’t score enough goals to win games is their dismal power play. They currently sit 30th in the league at 12.8%. There are a handful of teams that score twice at double that efficiency rate on the man advantage.

The Canadiens can’t wave a magic wand and fix all of their problems, but there does seem to be a simple fix to the power play woes. The team finally managed to put Cole Caufield and Mike Hoffman on opposite wings on the man advantage, giving them two extraordinary one-timer options.

But they have Ben Chiarot as the quarterback on the top unit.

While the rest of the first power play makes sense, with Nick Suzuki playing in the middle and Jonathan Drouin down low as well as the two snipers on opposite sides, giving the quarterbacking duties to Chiarot just completely ends any chance of success.

With all due respect to Chiarot, and I really think he deserves a lot of it. He seems to be quite underrated by his own fan base as they just see the offensive shortcomings and don’t like him because he is not a puck moving defender.

But he is a minute muncher and a physical presence on the blue line who can play against top players. He showed last season that he was comfortable and effective against players like Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner, Kyle Connor, Blake Wheeler, Max Pacioretty and Mark Stone in a playoff series. None of those players were able to score much at all in an entire series with the Canadiens and they all had to go head to head with Chiarot on a nightly basis.

Chiarot was helped by his partner Shea Weber and his goaltender Carey Price, but there is no doubt Chiarot was effective in his defensive, busy role.

But he shouldn’t be on a power play. He just isn’t creative offensively, doesn’t pass the puck or skate like a power play quarterback should.

It really begs the question why is he out there at all? Even last night, there are no terrific options to play on the top power play, but a player like Kale Clague makes a lot more sense than Chiarot. So does Alexander Romanov. He isn’t a top scorer to anything, but he is young, fast and has a great shot. Why not try him out on the power play in a lost season and see if the 21 year old can click with other youngsters like Suzuki and Caufield?

The only reason Clague is here is because of his offensive ability so why not let him try and show that off?

If the reason Chiarot is being used on the power play is to try and build his value before an inevitable trade, it makes no sense. By playing on the power play, Chiarot is just highlighting that he can not fit in that role.

Chiarot’s value as a defensive defenceman who plays a ton of minutes is already established. There is not a single general manager in the league that is going to watch him run a power play and think they need to get him to help their own power play.

Chris Wideman might be able to earn a role on a playoff contender as a power play specialist and he should be given that opportunity when he returns to the team after being home for the birth of his child.

But in the meantime, anyone but Chiarot should be running power play 1. Jeff Petry looked awful at it earlier this season, but you know he has more offensive ability than Chiarot.

Clague probably makes the most sense until Wideman returns, but Romanov, Petry or even a fifth forward like Jake Evans makes more sense on the power play than Chiarot. Let’s hope the coaching staff makes an adjustment soon.