The Montreal Canadiens had an intense practice on Monday morning in Brossard as they get ready to take on the Minnesota Wild on Tuesday, and they could do so with Kirby Dach in the lineup.
After stealing a couple of points from the Ottawa Senators on Saturday night and enjoying a day off on Sunday, the Montreal Canadiens were back on the ice in Brossard on Monday morning. It was almost a full house on the ice with just one player missing, Alexandre Texier, for a therapy day.
Since the Frenchman was missing, Kirby Dach was skating alongside Cole Caufield and Nick Suzuki on the first line. Meanwhile, the other lines remained unchanged with Juraj Slafkovsky, Ivan Demidov, and Oliver Kapanen on the second line, Josh Anderson, Phillip Danault, and Brendan Gallagher on the third unit. At the same time, Joe Veleno, Jake Evans, and Zachary Bolduc formed the fourth line. Samuel Blais and Patrik Laine were the odd men out, and Blais alternated on the third line with Gallagher while Laine did the same on the fourth with Bolduc.
While practice was set to start at 10:30, at 10:10, many players were already on the ice with Adam Nicholas, working on one-timers. By 10:15, almost everyone was there, and Nicholas had them taking turns, taking a couple of one-timers from far out on the wing before taking a couple of wristers after skating in nearer the middle of the ice. Considering the Habs could only muster 16 shots on net in regulation on Saturday night, it was a wise move to have the players work on their shots. Practice makes perfect, as they say. Meanwhile, at the other end of the ice, Jayden Struble was warming the goaltenders.
At 10:30 on the dot, everyone was watching Martin St-Louis explain the first drill on his whiteboard. The first drill was some three-on-three play with the third attacker coming in a bit later to give the first two players a chance to work on their dump-in and forecheck. Unsurprisingly, the exercise was quite intense, and nobody was taking it easy on anyone, even though Dach and Laine have yet to return to action.
Then, St-Louis had his regular lines play some three-on-two against his defensive pairings (which remained unchanged with Struble alternating with Arber Xhekaj on the third pairing) within the two bluelines. While it’s still only practice, it was encouraging to see that Laine’s timing when executing a one-timer seemed to be back, an improvement from what we saw at the start of the season.
The next drill featured real five-on-five hockey at each end of the ice, with the goalies on high alert since whoever had the puck was trying to score on them. Finally, there were some two-on-two on the length of the ice, which resulted in a few breakaways under pressure, something the Canadiens need to improve on, since they rarely score on those. P
Practice wrapped up at 11:10, and when Martin St-Louis spoke to the media afterwards, he said there was a good chance Dach could play tomorrow night, and that it could even be on the first line, depending on how things go with Texier. That would be quite an ambitious spot to star him in since he’s been out for so long.
Evans was also made available to the media, and when he was asked what the most significant adjustment was in his first game back, he replied:
I mean everything, it’s speed, it’s the physicality of it, just certain plays, it’s hard to replicate that in practice, as much as our training staff does a great job getting you back, you can’t replicate a game. I’m happy with how it went. I feel like I just played a pretty boring game for everyone, pretty simple. As the game went on, I felt like I got up to speed a bit more.
If Evans felt like that after missing just four weeks, Dach will have to come a long way after missing nine weeks. Still, there is no doubt that the Canadiens could use the talent of a healthy Dach.
The Canadiens will hold a morning skate on Tuesday morning at the Bell Centre, before taking on the Minnesota Wild at 7:00 PM. John Hynes’ men are a force to be reckoned with this season, currently second in the Western Conference with 63 points, tied with the Dallas Stars and trailing the Colorado Avalanche by 11 points. The two teams have not met this season, but they will play each other twice in two weeks.
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