While practice was only set to start at 10:30, Lane Hutson jumped on the ice at 9:45 and started his warm-up well ahead of most of the group. Still, everyone was on the ice by 10:15. Once again, this Montreal Canadiens’ side looked like a group of kids who really enjoy playing hockey and who are enjoying each other’s presence. While some players dutifully worked on their passing, a number formed a circle at center ice, and a couple stood in the middle, trying to intercept the passes made by the players in the circle. This young group is working hard but is also having a blast doing it.
If Martin St-Louis gave us a look at his starting lineup at Monday morning’s practice, on Tuesday morning, practice was all about the special teams. The combinations that were on display were the same as we’ve seen in the exhibition games, meaning that only two defensemen are on the power play: Lane Hutson on the first wave and Noah Dobson on the second one.
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The top line forms the first power play unit, joined by Zack Bolduc, while Kirby Dach, Patrik Laine, Ivan Demidov, and Brendan Gallagher join Dobson to create the second unit. Meanwhile, the players who didn’t find a spot on the power play units will be used on the penalty kill, aside from Joe Veleno and Jayden Struble, who didn’t feature on any special team, which makes sense since they’ll be starting the year as extras.
Jake Evans, Josh Anderson, Mike Matheson, and Kaiden Guhle form the first penalty kill, while Alex Newhook, Oliver Kapanen, Arber Xhekaj, and Alex Carrier form the second pairing. Assigning a special team role to nearly every player on the team is an interesting strategy; it means the players no longer really need to “earn” their special team ice time, as they are getting it in any case. Still, for players like Laine and Demidov who are really offensively gifted, there’s no doubt the hope will be to move up to the first power play unit, and that will likely happen if performance at even strength is deemed worthy of promotion, especially in Laine’s case.
Speaking about Newhook and Kapanen, St-Louis said:
There are two players who complement each other, I feel. And what I see mostly right now, can Newie play the power play? Absolutely, right? Can Kapi play the power play? Yes. But their role right now is going to be killing penalties, and what I see is two guys that are embracing that, and they’re doing what the team needs them to do, and that’s the most important thing. Now, how do they do it? I feel they can be very efficient together. Newie’s got that jump; he doesn’t get tired easily. I feel Newhie can be a threat shorthanded because of it. I think Kapi is very cerebral; he makes great reads off the puck defensively and stuff. I wasn’t sure who they were going to be, but it became very evident to me that I had two guys who could be very good at it.- St-Louis on Newhook and Kapanen
For Demidov, starting him on the second unit is reminiscent of Hutson starting there last season, but the blueliner was soon promoted to the top unit. Will the young Russian receive the same treatment? It remains to be seen, but his presence on the second unit makes that combination much more productive and creative. The youngster does like to cross the needle cross-ice to get the puck to Laine to unleash one of his patented one-timers.
While Martin St-Louis does have a lot more options this season thanks to the depth in his roster, it’s hard not to think just how creative and mobile a unit reuniting Hutson and Demidov would be, but for now, at least, it doesn’t appear to be in the cards. If chemistry blossoms between Laine and Demidov, and the goals are coming, the big Finn might not be that worried about not being on the first wave, although that will, of course, depend on how the ice time is divided between the two units.
Last season, the top unit would often get three-quarters of the power play time, leaving very little time for the second combination to set anything up and create interesting opportunities.
It will be interesting to see how these special team units perform at the start of the season, given the tight schedule this year. St-Louis will need to get results sooner rather than later, but if something doesn’t work, he knows he has options.
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