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Time to Mix Things Up

November 22, 2019, 5:40 PM ET [123 Comments]
Karine Hains
Montreal Canadiens Blogger • RSSArchiveCONTACT
Since both Jonathan Drouin and Paul Byron fell on their sword against Washington, the Canadiens have lost their last 3 games managing to score only 6 goals in the process. The attack has looked flat at best and it definitely needs a boost so Claude Julien decided to mix things up at practice this morning and those were the lines and pairings on display in Brossard:

Tatar - Danault - Gallagher
Lehkonen - Domi - Suzuki
Hudon - Kotkaniemi - Armia
Cousins - Thompson - Weal

Chiarot - Weber
Mete - Petry
Reilly - Fleury
Kulak - Folin

Price
Kinkaid

There are quite a few changes in there so let's take them in turn:

-Domi is back at centre: While Nick Suzuki did fine work pivoting the second trio, Max Domi was uninspiring playing left wing and Julien was clear: Domi is better at centre than on the wing and that was the reason for that move.

-Lehkonen on the second line: Armia had his turn with Domi and Suzuki and not much came of it so Julien decided to give the other Finn a chance. Personally, I highly doubt that this is the answer , Lehkonen has had issues putting the puck in the net since his second season and I don't see that changing anytime soon.

-Hudon on the third line: Julien said it in his post practice comments: Hudon can score so putting him in a more offensive role just makes sense. I've said before that I'd try him on the second line, to me, he has better odds of scoring than Lehkonen does but hey, time will tell if Julien stroke gold.

-Armia on the third line: There was some definite chemistry between Kotkaniemi and Armia last season and we can only hope that magic happens once again now that they are reunited. To be honest, Kotkaniemi had a good game Wednesday and I'm hopeful that playing with Armia again will help him.

-Weal back on the 4th line: No complaints here. This is in my opinion, the best 4th line option we have and I have full confidence that these 3 players together will be able to accomplish whichever mission Julien entrusts them with.

-Reilly back in on the third pairing: The team is struggling offensively so it just makes sense to bring him back in. It's a shame for Kulak but Reilly is the more offensive of the 2 and has some mobility.

-The first two pairings: I'm really hoping to see more of the Mete-Petry pairing, I believe they've done well so far and Mete looks more comfortable playing alongside Petry than he did with Weber. As for Chiarot, he looks like he's finally got used to the Habs' system and he works well with Weber.

The Habs will get to showcase these new lines and pairing tomorrow night when they host the Rangers at the Bell Centre. The Rags will be on the second game of a back to back as they are facing the Sens tonight and they are currently 14th in the conference. Is that good news? Well, that's hard to say...Our Habs do tend to perform better against better teams. Right now, the Canadiens are 3rd in the Atlantic division, 3 points ahead of Toronto (who have played 2 more games, 4 in front of Buffalo (they've played 22 games just like Montreal) and 5 ahead of Tampa Bay (but they do have 3 games on hand). There's no time and no points to lose, Montreal has got to get in gear and start winning again because it's highly unlikely that Tampa Bay won't start performing better and when they do, they'll be a playoffs team.

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