Montreal Canadiens: Ryan Reaves, Mike Brown, and the Rebuild Enforcers

Habs Tried This Tactic With Mike Brown

For as strange as it may sound, the Canadiens have been without a true enforcer in their lineup for many, many years now. While second-year defenseman Arber Xhekaj and fourth-line winger Michael Pezzetta currently serve as Montreal’s go-to tough guys, both of them still have a place in the lineup that isn’t just dropping the gloves.

Pezzetta brings energy, physicality and the occasional nice offensive play, and Xhekaj is as solid as they come on the blue line in regard to both his skating and decision-making. While you can argue Reaves value for the Leafs all you want, the fact of the matter is that if he wasn’t the NHL’s most feared enforcer, he wouldn’t be in the NHL anymore.

While it might seem like a millennium ago now, the Canadiens year after year made a point of giving ice time to players like Reaves, enforcers who didn’t really provide much outside of duking it out with the other team’s top heavyweight. This brings up my main point regarding why Treliving’s decision to not only sign Reaves, but sign him long-term was a misguided one, as said players only serve a role for one kind of a team. A rebuilding one, something the Leafs, well, clearly aren’t anymore.

Look at any Habs roster from the mid-2000s to mid-2010s. Alongside established names like Tomas Plekanec, Saku Koivu and Alex Kovalev, you had the likes of Mike Brown? Aaron Downey? Greg Stewart? Brad Staubitz?

While it seems like insanity when compared to the modern-day style of play in the NHL and that of the Canadiens in particular, former GMs Pierre Gauthier and Marc Bergevin had a thing for bringing in guys who had to fight for every minute of ice time they saw, literally and figuratively.

The difference is that, in pretty much every season that featured one of these players, Montreal was a bare playoff team or in the lottery and didn’t necessarily have any top-line talent munching at the bit to get some ice-time in the NHL.