There is an old saying around hockey circles, “You can never have too many defensemen.” Well for the 2023-24 Montreal Canadiens it’s more like, “You can never have too many centers.”
With the recent acquisition of Alex Newhook and the re-signing of Sean Monahan, the Canadiens have no less than 7 natural centers on the current roster. In addition to Newhook and Monahan, the Habs have Nick Suzuki, Kirby Dach, Christian Dvorak, Jake Evans and Rem Pitlick who are all capable of playing down the middle. They also have a pair of promising center prospects in Sean Farrell and Owen Beck who will be just down the road in Laval.
I’ve heard many fans and pundits lately saying the Habs should be clearing the positional logjam as soon as possible and I couldn’t disagree more. We are not far removed from the days that the Canadiens were desperately searching for a number 1 centre and the kind of depth and high end potential at the position that we have today.
You don’t have to look too hard in the rear view mirror to see plenty of recent examples of what an alternate reality with less options at this premium position can look like.
Just 2 years ago after allowing Philip Danault to leave via unrestricted free agency and Jesperi Kotkaniemi to be offer sheeted, then Habs GM Marc Bergevin traded 1st and 2nd round picks for Christian Dvorak. By all accounts it was a massive overpay.
In the summer of 2018 Bergevin dealt the player he drafted to be his number 1 center, Alex Galchenyuk for Max Domi. Domi was moved to the middle and he flashed as the 1C for one season but then things went downhill fast. That same year the decision to select Kotkaniemi at 3rd overall over Brady Tkachuk in the hopes that he could be the franchise center was an obvious reach.
A year earlier, Montreal dealt future stud defenseman Mikhail Sergachev to Tampa Bay for Jonathan Drouin with the idea of converting the local favorite to center. That experiment didn’t last long and proved to be the worst trade of the Bergevin era.
They say desperate times call for desperate measures. Well for the first time in a long time the Habs are not desperate for center help. So why are we in such a rush to move someone out? I say keep them all and let the chips fall where they may because as the new saying goes “you can never have too many centers.”
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