The Canadiens have one more option at center
Mathieu Perreault has sort of offered himself as an option at center for the Montreal Canadiens, as he remains a natural center. If he plays on the wing since the 2015-16 campaign, it is because of persistent back pain, but today, he no longer feels any discomfort.
"I played center until my back started to get sore during faceoffs. That's when I switched to winger. My back is fine now and it's no longer an issue for the center position."
In his NHL career, Mathieu Perreault has taken a total of 3075 face-offs and won 1554 of them, for a total of 50.5%. This is far from bad. While he doesn't practice the basics of being a center as regularly as he used to, he has continued to take faceoffs here and there in recent years. He would undoubtedly get back to full strength quickly.
However, let's not get carried away with this option that the Habs have in their cards. Do you really think that a center line composed of Nick Suzuki, Jake Evans, Mathieu Perreault and Cédric Paquette is worthy of an Oscar nomination? It takes some meat to back up Suzuki creatively... Evans, Perreault and Paquette are still hard workers, but they don't have what it takes to back up Nick Suzuki.
Marc Bergevin must be scratching his head right now, having added Mike Hoffman and David Savard to keep the team's window open. Finally, it could close suddenly!
