Montreal Canadiens Practice Lines Legitimately Look Like Preseason Lineup
The Montreal Canadiens record is 7-21-3 which is the worst version of this 100-plus year old franchise.
There are many reasons for a start as poor as the Canadiens. Some are merciful like the fact they had a short offseason, their star goaltender hasn’t played a game yet and they’ve had tremendous turnover on their roster from last season to this one.
Some reasons are more blunt and probably closer to the trust as well, such as the team is poorly constructed and has a complete lack of leadership and the veterans that were signed to long term contracts are in rapid decline.
There is also the fact the team has dealt with a ridiculous number of injuries this season. Five of the top nine forwards from opening night missed the team’s most recent game. The team has been forced to make several call ups from the Laval Rocket lineup over the past few weeks and it has left them with a lineup that hardly resembles what fans envisioned they would be seeing this season.
In fact, the practice lines from today look more like a lineup for a preseason game and not a middle of the regular season lineup.
The team is somewhat healthy on defence, though the presence of Shea Weber and Joel Edmundson would make them a lot more difficult to play against. Carey Price is still not practicing with the team, leaving them thin in goal and their forward lines are completely decimated.
The forward lines at this morning’s skate were:
Drouin – Dauphin – Ylonen
Hoffman – Suzuki – Evans
Belzile – Poehling – Caufield
Pezzetta – Vejdemo – Harvey-Pinard
Dauphin, Ylonen, Belzile, Poehling, Pezzetta, Vejdemo and Harvey-PInard started the year with the Laval Rocket after being cut from the Canadiens opening roster. That means there are more forward (7) that didn’t initially make the team, than forward who made the opening night lineup (5) gearing up to face the New York Islanders tomorrow night.
The Isles are having troubles of their own this season, but their injury troubles are not on par with those of the Canadiens. Mathew Barzal is on their Covid list while Ryan Pulock and Kyle Palmieri are injured, taking three key players out of the Isles lineup.
Tomorrow night’s game is the first of three in four nights for the Canadiens, so it will be interesting to see what kind of lineup they can ice in their final matchup before the merciful Christmas break arrives.