Montreal Canadiens: Three Players Poised For Huge Breakout Season
Jordan Harris
The Canadiens have a number of young defensemen looking to make their mark at the NHL level this season. Many of them have already played a lot of games last season, but there just isn’t room for everyone.
Just on the left side of the blue line there are Mike Matheson, Kaiden Guhle, Arber Xhekaj and Jordan Harris. David Savard, Johnathan Kovacevic and Justin Barron hope to play big minutes on the right but we have already named seven and there is only room for six.
Harris played a lot of minutes on the third pairing with Kovacevic last season, but proved to be a steady defensive player, smart positional defender and trusted penalty killer as a rookie. In 65 games, he had just four goals and 17 points, but did prove to be a capable puck mover, but in a slow and steady and not a flashy way. He just makes smart reads and high percentage plays on a regular basis.
Jordan Harris, signed to a 2x$1.4M extension by MTL, is a young defenceman who had put up very strong results in a third-pairing role as a rookie, especially on the penalty kill. #GoHabsGo pic.twitter.com/k3LCPdYNDT
— JFresh (@JFreshHockey) February 10, 2023
He is the kind of player who routinely makes good plays but rarely makes a play where you leap out of your seat. He profiles as the kind of player who could soon turn in to a big minute muncher that can play against tough competition and keep them off the scoresheet while moving the puck up ice for his teammates to create offense.
With Edmundson gone, Harris is going to get a bigger chance to prove his abilities at even strength. This gives the 23 year old an excellent opportunity to prove he can shut things down just as well at five on five as he already does on the penalty kill, which should lead to him taking a big step this season and proving to be a super steady top four defenseman.