Montreal Canadiens: What Are The Ideal D Pairings For Next Season?

The Montreal Canadiens 2022-23 season is going to be a bit like watching a historical documentary of a famous incident. You already have a pretty good idea how it’s going to end, but you aren’t really sure of all the events that take place leading up to the ending.

We are pretty certain how the season will come to a close for the Canadiens. Game 82 will be played against the Boston Bruins at the Bell Centre on April 13th and that’ll be it. Maybe they will lose that game or maybe they will score ten like they did in Game 82 last season, but the playoffs are unlikely to follow.

That doesn’t mean there won’t be a lot of learning done about this team throughout the season. While the 2023 playoffs won’t be the Canadiens time to shine, it players develop properly and the right additions are made, the Canadiens could be making noise in the 2025 postseason.

One way to get there is to turn the current group of young, developing defensemen into a formidable group in a short time. That is easier said than done, but the Canadiens have the horses in the stable to build a great blue line.

Kaiden Guhle, Jordan Harris, Jayden Struble, Logan Mailloux, Arber Xhekaj, Justin Barron, Mattias Norlinder, William Trudeau and Lane Hutson give the Habs plenty of defencemen with extremely high potential. The key is making sure enough of them reach their potential so that the Canadiens have a tremendous blue line for many years to come.

They way they utilize their defencemen in 2022-23 will be kind of fascinating. They have a high number of defencemen that could be playing their first full pro season with either the Canadiens or Laval Rocket. The team will somehow want to make sure all of these young blue liners are playing enough minutes, but also not playing in a role that is over their heads at this point in their development.

Keeping that in mind, what are the ideal defence pairings for the 2022-23 Montreal Canadiens? They have a number of veterans in the lineup, including Joel Edmundson, David Savard, Mike Matheson and Chris Wideman as well as Otto Leskinen and Corey Schueneman who don’t have a ton of NHL experience, but at 25 and 26, are older than many of the other prospects mentioned.

The locks to be on the NHL team are Edmundson, Savard, Matheson and Wideman. Harris is really close too after skipping the AHL and playing ten NHL games to close out last season following his college career. Guhle may be on the verge of skipping the AHL as well after a tremendous season with the Edmonton Oil Kings, a WHL Playoffs MVP and a Memorial Cup appearance as the team’s number one defender.

That essentially leaves the Habs with two options for the blue line next season. The first option is that safe route. That would keep all of the younger players in the minors, and all of the older defenders at the NHL level.

It is pretty much a guarantee that Edmundson and Matheson will play on the left side of the top two pairings. Savard will play more than anyone on the right side, and Wideman fits best on the right side of the third pair. That leaves an opening on right defence on the second pair and left defence on the third pair.

The absolute safest route is to put the youngest defencemen in the minors to develop and have Schueneman on the right side of the second pair and Leskinen on the left side of the third pair. So:

Matheson – Savard

Edmundson – Schueneman

Leskinen – Wideman

And that would give the Laval Rocket the following depth chart:

Guhle – Barron

Harris – Bowey

Norlinder – Xhekaj

That is a lot of young defenders and it probably means Trudeau will be sent back to the QMJHL for his overaged season. It also means Gianni Fairbrother doesn’t have a permanent spot which isn’t ideal for a 21 year old.

Of course, the Canadiens might not send all of their youngest defenders to the AHL, especially since Harris may have already graduated to NHL level already. Guhle is probably going to jump there directly as well. So, perhaps not he safest route, but the more realistic pairings at the NHL level will be:

Matheson – Savard

Edmundson – Harris

Guhle – Wideman

This would put Harris on the right side which is his off side, but he would also be protected by having Edmundson on the ice with him all the time. Guhle would get his feet wet at the NHL level and have the safety net of being on the third pairing and not having to face the toughest competition. Schueneman could hang around as the 7th defender and Leskinen would be sent down to the Rocket as organization depth.

That seems to be the most logical way to put the pairing together right now. If Guhle struggles for a period of time, he could always be sent down and a young defender like Norlinder, Xhekaj or Barron could be called up to fill in. If none of the young defenders are ready, then Bowey or Leskinen could be called up on a full time basis.

If Matheson, Savard, Edmundson, Harris, Guhle, Wideman and Schueneman start the year in the NHL, the Rocket’s defence on opening night could be:

Leskinen – Barron

Xhekaj – Bowey

Fairbrother – Norlinder

The Rocket also signed Alex Green, a right shot defender who could rotate in on the third pairing.

Bottom line is, the Canadiens blue line isn’t going to be great. The team isn’t expected to win many games but it will be interesting to see how Harris and Guhle develop this season and if they can both be counted on for top four minutes in 2023-24. If so, Edmundson could be trade bait at next year’s NHL Draft.

We all know the coming season is going to end without playoffs, but it will be worth keeping an eye on how the blue line develops between Game 1 and Game 82.

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