While results matter very little in the preseason, it was clear after the Montreal Canadiens’ coach was not pleased with his team’s display on Thursday night against the Toronto Maple Leafs. One of his primary concerns was ensuring that his lines could play a two-way game, and his projected second line, featuring Patrik Laine, Kirby Dach, and Ivan Demidov, was a cumulative minus-9.
On Monday morning in Brossard, St-Louis was at the helm of a smaller group, and it felt like the team was entering the second stage of this training camp. After the weekend’s cuts, there were only 27 players on the ice, and there were a couple of surprises.
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Firstly, Joe Veleno, Samuel Blais, Florian Xhekaj, and Owen Beck were all wearing dark blue jerseys as the extras or the fifth line, if you will. That meant that for now at least, Oliver Kapanen had a little bit of an edge on the competition.
Secondly, while the first and fourth lines remained intact, the bench boss had decided to mix things up a bit, moving Zack Bolduc over to the second line with Laine and Dach. At the same time, Demidov joined Alex Newhook and Oliver Kapanen on the third line, with the latter sharing the center duties.
The team also communicated an updated list of the players at camp, including the weight variations and some numbers were surprising, including the fact that Patrik Laine has put on ten pounds since the last update.
St-Louis put his players through a long and high-paced practice which involved plenty of skating and transition games. The drills included a lot of odd-man rushes but also plenty of work in close inside the bluelines.
Noah Dobson and Kaiden Guhle, who are day-to-day with groin injuries, both took part in practice, but they’ve yet to be cleared for in-game action. Still, the defense pairing remains the same we’ve seen throughout the first week of camp, with Guhle skating with Hutson, Dobson with Mike Matheson, and Arber Xhekaj with Alex Carrier. As for Adam Engstrom, he was paired with Jayden Struble.
Meeting the media after practice, St-Louis wasn’t in a very talkative mood when it came to explaining what prompted him to opt for the changes we saw on the ice and what he believed they would bring: I don’t know, we’ll see. I don’t know how it’s going to go, I don’t know what it will bring, I have no idea, that’s why we’re trying it. He did, however, stress the importance of playing a complete game:
What I hope to see? I hope they can play the collective game, going on both sides on the ice, and use their skills when the game allows it. We’ll see.- St-Louis on wanting his lines to compete going both ways
Pressed to say if he believed Demidov would be best served with Newhook and Kapanen’s speed, the coach once again shrugged and said he didn’t know and we’d see. Quickly adding that the press seems to believe he has all the answers, while he doesn’t.
From what we’ve seen from camp so far, though, I believe Bolduc’s presence on the second line will bring both speed and brute force. He moves really quickly out there and plays a challenging game around the boards, something Dach and Laine don’t really have. He’s also got a very responsible defensive game; the work he has put in with Claude Julien last year really shows, and given the fact that Dach and Laine’s forte isn’t the defensive side of the game, it should help.
As for Demidov, he wasn’t the issue on the second line, but I firmly believe he’ll be in the best position skating along Newhook and Kapanen, who are both better defensively than Dach and Laine but still have the offensive skills necessary to play with a player as creative as the young Russian. Furthermore, skating on that line will also take some of the pressure off him to be the driver of the line, which is not a bad thing given that he’s only 19 and just about to embark on his first full professional season in North America.
When asked how he felt about having the opportunity to play with Demidov and Kapanen, Newhook explained:
Yeah, it’s exciting for sure, a big opportunity for us. I think I played with Demi last year, and I know what he’s all about, so continue to work off him, be as different a maker as we can as a line.- Newhook on playing with Demidov
As for the center’s responsibilities, he added:
Yeah, shared, I think, depending on which side the draw is, but I think it will mostly be shared there.- Newhook on center duties
Speaking of draws, Newhook gave us a bit of a peek at the work he did with former Boston Bruins' ace Patrice Bergeron this summer:
I think a lot of the guys take faceoff differently. You know, Patrice, for example, has a specific technique that other guys haven’t heard about much before talking to him, and I took some of that from him, and I feel comfortable doing what he was doing. The way he explained it was instead of standing further away from the puck, the majority of the time, linesmen don’t drop the puck on the other side of the dot, they drop it closer to them, so owning like that side of the dot, it made sense, and it was pretty helpful.- Newhook on Bergeron's tips
The Canadiens will hold a morning skate in Brossard on Tuesday morning before heading to Quebec City for their evening game with the Ottawa Senators, we should know more about the lineup for the game then.
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