Follow me @KarineHains for all updates about the Montreal Canadiens and women's hockey Follow @Karinehains
Renaud Lavoie reports that Jonathan Drouin, Rem Pitlick, Evgeni Dadonov and Joel Edmundson are all on the ice this morning and speculates that it probably means they’ll be scratched tonight which should be confirmed this afternoon. So much for the theory that you don’t change a winning formula. Although Thursday’s result was a combination of fantastic goaltending from Samuel Montembeault and inspired play from the Anderson-Dvorak-Gallagher line and there’s nothing to indicate that this line will be dismantled.
If the players skating right now are scratched though, it would mean that Slafkovsky and Armia are back and that Michael Pezzetta finaly gets to play. If that’s the case, what will the lines look like? Of course, the head coach could play it safe and put Slafkovsky back on the 4th line with Evans and put Armia on there as well, or, since the youngster has watched the last few games from high up, perhaps now is the time to try him in a more prominent position? Problem with this is though, St-Louis won’t have the last change and the matchups could be tricky.
Given Guhle’s goal last game and the fact that the five forward power play unit is producing very little results, now might be the time to give him a look at the blue line on the man advantage? This year is meant to be about development, isn’t it? Why not throw caution to the win and go with something like this:
Caufield-Suzuki-Slafkovsky Dach-Monahan-Hoffman Anderson-Dvorak-Gallagher Pezzetta-Evans-Armia
Honestly, had it not been for the third line’s performance last game, I would have put Gallagher on the first line with Caufield and Suzuki, but given how well he worked with Anderson and Dvorak, I’m not ready to call time on that experiment. With an incredibly anemic power play, it could be good to shuffle the deck there as well, maybe his time on the press gallery will have given Slafkovsky a chance to see how it should be done (learning from the others’ mistakes so to speak).
Again, at this time, this is all pure speculation on my part, but I’ll admit that I’m enjoying the start of this season with the performances of the kids at the blue line and the abundance of forwards allowing for some mix and match when more offensive punch is needed.
Jonathan Drouin, Rem Pitlick, Evgenii Dadonov and Joel Edmundston on the ice this morning. You have to expect they won’t play tonight. Confirmation later today. @CanadiensMTL
— Renaud Lavoie (@renlavoietva) October 29, 2022