Martin St-Louis may tell the media he has no idea when “the kid will turn up” and that he’s “just focussing on locking a playoff spot” for the time being. Still, chances are somewhere in his busy mind, the Montreal Canadiens coach is thinking about how best to use Russian wonder Ivan Demidov.

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The new number 93 is still waiting for his work visas to clear, and there’s been no official word on his estimated arrival time, but his name is on everyone’s lips in town. Now that his jersey number has been confirmed, attention has turned to where he should slot in this Canadiens lineup.

The bench boss has been talking at length about how impressive his team’s collective game has been, how his players all know “what’s next” when they are on the ice and he’s also been very clear that he doesn’t want to overwork his team these days after they played five games in eight days. The coach doesn’t feel the need to do a lot of teaching these days, and that’s understandable, but it also means Demidov will have minimal time to get used to the “Canadiens’ concepts”.

The top line of Cole Caufield, Nick Suzuki, and Juraj Slafkovsky shouldn’t even be in this conversation. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. While they have slowed down a bit of late, the captain now has 86 points, and the sniper has 37 goals. That’s a winning formula if there ever was one, and they are even more efficient when Slafkovsky plays the physical game we’ve seen him bring at times.

The same reasoning applies to the Josh Anderson, Christian Dvorak, and Brendan Gallagher unit. While the first line has slowed down lately, they put the pedal to the metal and have been producing at a fantastic pace, so much so that you can’t split them up. The alternate captain has 13 points in his last 12 games, Dvorak has 11 in the same span, and Anderson has seven points and 25 hits.

Without Kirby Dach skating on the second line, there have been several tryouts to complete the duo made up by Patrik Laine and Alex Newhook; Owen Beck had a turn, Joshua Roy did as well, Michael Pezzetta took a few shifts there too before Emil Heineman landed there, but now he’s down dealing with a day-to-day ailment, which paved the way to Oliver Kapanen taking the coveted spot.

Does that automatically become the right spot for Demidov? In the future, absolutely, but right now, in a playoffs race for his first taste of North American hockey? I’m not convinced. However, the one certainty I have is that Michael Pezzetta should be the odd-man out who comes out of the lineup. No matter how hard he tries for the team, the gritty winger can only handle limited ice time, and in the final stretch, it would be a plus not to have to burn out the Canadiens’ best assets.

At least in the beginning, Demidov could be in a good spot, playing with experienced veterans like Jake Evans and Joel Armia. He won’t be as solicited and will have time to adapt to the Canadiens’ game. Putting the youngster with two defensibly responsible skaters makes sense.

If he takes to the game like a fish to water, you can swap him and Kapanen to give him some top-six minutes. As for the power play, Demidov is the kind of player who’s built to thrive on the man-advantage, and I think a second-unit start would make sense, replacing either Kapanen or Anderson.

As things stand, the general belief is that Demidov will get his NHL debut on Monday, April 14, against the Chicago Blackhawks at the Bell Centre, but that hasn’t been confirmed yet. Getting a couple of games in before the playoffs would be ideal. The Canadiens wrap up their regular season on the 16th by taking on the Carolina Hurricanes.

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