Jesus
- Fredobbface
from Arpon Basu at the athletic
Don’t read to much into it” might be the favourite line used by head coaches during an NHL training camp.
Whenever you hear those words, maybe nine times out of 10, it should be a clear sign to read too much into it.
Claude Julien said those words about Jordie Benn on Sunday.
So here goes.
The Canadiens held their annual Red and White scrimmage at the Bell Centre, with roughly 16,000 people in attendance on what might have been the nicest day of the year in Montreal.
Benn played the entire game, or close to it, on the left side. He has spent most of training camp on the left side. He played the right side last season. The Canadiens are obviously looking for a partner for Shea Weber. Weber plays on the right side.
You put all those facts together, and you can come up with some pretty solid speculation.
The Canadiens see Jordie Benn as a potential first-pair defenceman.
“I wouldn’t read a lot into that situation to say we’re going to play him on the left,” Julien said.
Fine.
About five minutes later, Julien was asked specifically by François Gagnon of RDS if he had someone penciled in to the left of Weber on his lineup board in his office.
“I think we’ll look at that a little later in camp,” he began. “For now, I want to look at individuals one by one at the start of camp. As I said earlier, we saw Benn on the left and he’s a guy who can easily play on the right. I want to evaluate the defencemen as individuals more so as pairings. As camp progresses, with the eight preseason games, it gives us some time to start pairing people up.”
Wait a minute.
So we shouldn’t read too much into Benn playing on the left, but Julien mentioned him as a potential partner for Weber, which is exactly what we would be reading into Benn playing on the left.
Okay.
That’s great for Jordie Benn. He fits Julien’s oft-repeated criteria of being a good puck mover in the sense that he makes a crisp first pass, and is pretty decisive when it comes to head-manning it up to forwards. It’s honestly one of the first things I noticed when he was first traded to Montreal.
But to go from that to being a first pair defenceman might be a bit of a stretch.
The fact is, whoever the Canadiens choose to play with Weber will be far from ideal; they simply don’t have the personnel to fill that spot in the lineup. In that context, if they were to choose Benn, it probably wouldn’t be a bad decision.
In the grand scheme of things, however, it will remain a big problem for this team unless Marc Bergevin can somehow find someone to trade him a top pairing defenceman.
The domino effect of moving Benn to the left side, if indeed that happens and regardless of whether or not he plays with Weber, is that it would open a spot on the right side of the third pairing.
That’s where Brett Lernout comes in.
He is one of a small number of defencemen in Canadiens training camp who shoot from the right side. Among those who have a legitimate chance of making the team, there’s Weber, Jeff Petry, Zach Redmond, Noah Juulsen and Lernout.
Julien mentioned that Brandon Davidson and Mark Streit have played on the right side often in their careers. If Lernout is competing against those two along with Redmond and Juulsen, suddenly his chances of making the team become much, much better.
“There’s no doubt when you’re lacking, not necessarily on the right side, but in right-shot [defencemen], he’s a guy you have to look at,” Julien said of Lernout. “There’s no doubt he’s in the mix of those players that we’re looking at right now.”
Lernout had, by all accounts, a very good season in the AHL, his second year as a professional. He played against top opposition and acquitted himself well. He turns 22 next Sunday, and fits the profile of a solid, if unspectacular, third pairing defenceman.
Depending on what happens with Benn, this might be his time.
“The (defence) corps is really deep, they have a lot of older guys who are really good defencemen,” Lernout said. “There’s a right spot open on that third pairing so I’m just going to have to go out there and battle every day and hopefully surprise some people and impress some people.”
Julien, for his part, sounded pretty impressed already.
“His camp so far has been good,” he said. “He’s one of those guys that’s come in with a lot of confidence. He’s a physical guy, in the drills that we’re doing and the battles he’s been very physical. I like the way he played for us last year when we called him up for those few games, he was pretty steady, smart, making good plays.”
Hudon takes advantage of his opportunity
Charles Hudon should know this is the best opportunity he has ever had to stick with the Canadiens. He’s been skating with Tomas Plekanec and Artturi Lehkonen throughout camp. He would require waivers to be sent to the Laval Rocket. He has nothing left to prove in the AHL.
Hudon has decided to ignore all of that and approach training camp like he is a longshot to make the team. It’s exactly the right approach.
He had three assists and was the best player on the ice Sunday, and it wasn’t very close. The thing about a scrimmage like that is that it’s a scrimmage, so veterans will play as if it’s a scrimmage and it becomes easier to notice some of the fringe guys because they are playing like their lives depended on it.
That’s exactly what they have to do, and good on Hudon for taking that approach.
“For me it was a game like any other,” he said.
A line of Hudon, Plekanec and Lehkonen could be a dangerous third line, but a lot of that depends on whether Ales Hemsky can stick in the top-six with Max Pacioretty and Jonathan Drouin because Lehkonen would be a potential replacement for Hemsky if it doesn’t work.
There’s a long way to go before we can pencil Hudon in on that line, but he’s off to a great start.
“He got everyone’s attention today, including ours,” Julien said. “Now it’s up to him to make sure it continues as we go through camp.”
Drouin shows off his smarts
The scrimmage wasn’t a showcase for the Drouin line. They were okay, but they didn’t need to be more than okay. It’s a scrimmage.
But Drouin did have one moment where he displayed his hockey I.Q.
In the first period, Drouin got the puck in the neutral zone and Pacioretty was open for an instant near the offensive blue line. That passing lane was quickly closed by a defenceman, but Drouin still made the situation work for him.
Instead of keeping the puck and skating it into the offensive zone, something he could have easily done, he zinged a sharp dump in off the boards in the corner. The puck bounced off the boards and directly on to Pacioretty’s stick, who had the defenceman trailing him now, and he immediately took a dangerous shot on Carey Price.
“He was behind his defenceman, so he’s cutting off that pass,” Drouin said. “I don’t want him to stop at the blue line and be completely flat footed, even if I decide to come in with it. Even if he doesn’t shoot it, at least he’s got a zone entry and play down low and wait for the other guys to come.”
Pretty clever.
