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In Hainsight: An Overabundance of Riches |
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Follow me @KarineHains for all updates about the Montreal Canadiens and women's hockey
Prior to the start of last season, Kent Hughes said that in an ideal world, he wouldn’t go into the season using too many rookies on the blue line. Clearly, the Canadiens’ general manager wanted a good mix of veterans and rookies to patrol the Habs’ zone and he probably thought that with David Savard, Joel Edmundson and Mike Matheson, he was well on his way there and it could have been true, if there hadn’t been so many injuries. That’s the one thing you cannot predict and, in the end, both Edmundson and Matheson were unable to go when the regular season started, and Montreal’s blue line was one of the youngest of the league.
With so many injuries poisoning their season, the Canadiens ended up using as many as 5 rookies on the back end at times. Kaiden Guhle (44), Jordan Harris (65), Arber Xhekaj (51), Jonathan Kovacevic (77) and Justin Barron (39) all featured in a significant number of games and showed what they were made of. Guhle stands out as top of the class, playing with pace, calm and maturity, he spent an average of 20 minutes on the ice and showed first pairing potential. He’s solid on his skates, can land some punishing hits and moves the puck instinctively, like Shea Weber but adapted to today’s game.
Waiver pick-up Jonathan Kovacevic came to Montreal with only 3 NHL games under his belt in which he averaged near 11 minutes of time on ice, but throughout 77 games with Montreal, he’s spent 17:25 minutes on the ice on average and he’s been a pleasant surprise. Arber Xhekaj quickly became a fan favorite by bringing some much-needed toughness to the line-up, there’s a new sheriff in town and everybody’s loving it. He’s not just a tough guy though, he can also play, and he seems to have a knack to take timely shots and land them on net to create opportunities. The undrafted youngster has got an attractive package of skills and was one of the most pleasant surprises of the season.
Jordan Harris had played 10 games with the big club last season and continued his apprenticeship this year in an increased role. He spent an average of 18:39 on the ice and blocked nearly 100 shots on top of putting up 17 points, at nearly 23 and having completed his degree in the NCAA, he’s more mature than some of his teammates and it shows on the ice.
As for Justin Barron, he was in for a rude awakening at camp. He had played 5 games the previous season before an ankle injury forced him to take some time off and at the end of training camp, he was sent down to the Rocket as he looked like his game needed some polishing. Fortunately for him, the injury situation meant he was able to come back up with the big club in December and after looking shaky early on, he hit the ground running and improved by leaps and bounds, putting up 15 points in 39 games. The right shot defenseman who was obtained from Colorado in return for Arturri Lehkonen looks like he’s got a bright career ahead of him, even if there’s still some development to be done there.
While this young D core showed us some good things, we must not forget that the Canadiens came 28th in goals against allowing 307 goals which is an impressive number and not in a positive way. The league leading Bruins only allowed 177 in comparison, of course, goaltending also has an impact on that stat, but there’s no denying there’s room for improvement on the back end. That’s just fine, a rebuilt doesn’t happen overnight and defensemen often take longer to reach their full potential than forwards do.
However, there are a lot of other D prospects in the Canadiens’ pipeline knocking on the NHL’s door, even though some won’t be ready right away, it could make sense for the Canadiens to use one of the guys that have showed they can make it in the NHL as bait to fix some other organizational needs. Sooner rather than later, Logan Mailloux and Lane Hutson will be looking to make the team and I do not think Hughes will be tempted to move them even with the PR issue Mailloux can be and with Hutson’s smaller frame. Jeff Gorton has stated that he expect Kent Hughes to be aggressive and creative on the trade market and I wouldn’t be surprised if one of the Canadiens’ young defender was packaged with the Panthers’ first round pick to get some help up front… Which one? Well, I think Guhle is untouchable, Xhekaj brings something different with his physicality and Barron has got great mobility on top of being a right-shot D, which appears to be in short supply in Montreal so, if I was to guess, I’d say Harris or Kovacevic could be dangled as trade bait. Of course, this is just my opinion, who knows what the Canadiens’ brass thinks, but I believe the overabundance of riches on the blue line is something worth keeping an eye on this offseason.
Montreal Canadiens Blogger • 
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