The Canadiens ran the following forward lines during practice this morning:
#Habs practice lines:
Pacioretty-Galchenyuk-Gallagher
Lehkonen-Plekanec-Radulov
Carr-Desharnais-Shaw
Andrighetto/McCarron-Mitchell-Danault— John Lu (@JohnLuTSNMtl) October 5, 2016
With the recent news that Mark Barberio has been placed on waivers, the Canadiens may have opened up an extra forward spot, which could bode well for Sven Andrighetto.
I assumed they would run with eight defencemen to start the season, but it appears that they’re not willing to risk losing Andrighetto on waivers, and since both Paul Byron and Brian Flynn are dealing with injuries, forward depth is necessary at this point.
Here’s what the defensive pairings looked like:
#Habs D & G:
Beaulieu-Weber
Markov-Petry
Sergachev-Emelin
Redmond-PaterynPrice
Montoya
CondonMissing: Flynn (neck), Byron (pneumonia)
— John Lu (@JohnLuTSNMtl) October 5, 2016
Interestingly, Sergachev is practicing in the top six, although he still faces an uphill battle to make the team. Windsor is set for a big season in the OHL, including a Memorial Cup appearance, and it would probably be wise to send Sergachev back to his junior team, so as to see at least 25 minutes of ice time per night, and hopefully continue his already very encouraging development.
It should also be noted that Nathan Beaulieu finds himself beside Shea Weber. Those two seem to be a perfect fit, seeing as Weber is quite adept at stopping high-danger scoring chances, and Beaulieu is perhaps the best skater on the team, which means he can drive the offense while Weber takes care of business in his own end.
