The defense had a blowout this morning at the Habs' practice
The Montreal Canadiens were back on the ice before continuing to fine tune some neglected details. Another facet that absolutely had to be reviewed was the defensive brigade and it was at the end of the morning that Dominique Ducharme shuffled it considerably.
Chris Wideman was left out of the six regular defensemen this morning as Sami Niku was paired with Brett Kulak on a third pair. Ben Chiarot was paired with Jeff Petry, while the 2nd pairing was Alexander Romanov and David Savard.
About Wideman, did you see him hit his stick hard on the ice to receive a pass? Seriously, I have rarely seen a player so intense when he "calls" a teammate. Anyway, during the Friday morning session, he was skating as the 7th defenseman.
Just like that, it looks like Niku will go from the bridge... to a massive wave of offense. Not bad!
The defensive picture looks better this way, but it's still a far cry from last year's stuff at this level.
On offense, Adam Brooks was taking reps at center of the 2nd trio, perhaps indicating discomfort on Christian Dvorak's side.
Hoffman - Suzuki - Gallagher
Drouin - Dvorak/Brooks - Anderson
Toffoli - Perreault - Caufield
Lehkonen - Evans/Paquette - Armia
Jake Evans and Cedric Paquette, on the other hand, would alternate at the 4th center position... Logically, could we really see Paquette steal Evans' spot on the 4th unit? The CH has good depth on offense, yes, but it is slow to produce.
For Dvorak, it's just a speculation with the elements that are circulating, so I guess we'll quickly learn the reason for sharing the job with Brooks soon.
