Glory be, Chuck’s at C!
It appears that the Hockey Gods have heard our collective prayers and have moved Marc Bergevin and Michel Therrien to use Alex Galchenyuk at centre.
This news was met with praise from Habs fans world-wide and we here at Habs Eyes On The Prize are going to satisfy those early-season cravings by giving you some potential line combos.
There are a lot of ways this can go. Existing centers moving to wing, crazy center depth, let’s have some fun.
Option A:
Max Pacioretty – Alex Galchenyuk – Brendan Gallagher
Alex Semin – Tomas Plekanec – Zack Kassian
David Desharnais – Lars Eller – Dale Weise
Jacob de la Rose – Torrey Mitchell – Devante Smith-Pelly
This option intrigues me because it gets some combos together that I think would really be effective on the ice. The big takeaway is David Desharnais moving to the wing.
Alex Galchenyuk gets his shot at being a 1st line center with Max Pacioretty and Brendan Gallagher, a combo that would give opponents fits.
The combo of Semin-Plekanec-Kassian moves Semin over to the left but that may not be a bad thing as he scores most of his goals from the left side anyways.We also see the classic Sniper-Playmaker-Power Forward make up on line 2.
Option B:
Max Pacioretty – Tomas Plekanec – Alex Semin
Lars Eller – Alex Galchenyuk – Brendan Gallagher
Jacob de la Rose – David Desharnais – Zack Kassian
Devante Smith-Pelly – Torrey Mitchell – Dale Weise
This breakdown moves Lars Eller to the wing alongside Galchenyuk and Gallagher in an offensive role. The EGG line reborn. We see Plekanec in between Pacioretty and Semin which could be a deadly combination.Desharnais moves to the 3rd line in between Kassian and JDLFR.
Option C:
Max Pacioretty – Alex Galchenyuk – Brendan Gallagher
Alex Semin – Tomas Plekanec – Zack Kassian
Jacob de la Rose – Lars Eller – Dale Weise
Devante Smith-Pelly – David Desharnais – Brian Flynn
4 centres, 4 lines. This gives the Habs extreme depth down the middle. It leaves them thin on the wings but this could be a way to ease Galchenyuk in to the position. I would definitely sub in a young scorer at wing where JDLFR or Weise slots in here as well. To be honest I would add in a rookie scorer on the 2nd or 3rd line in any of these combos.
So which will it be? We will undoubtedly see a plethora of line combinations this season and these three options represent the overall strategy of the lineup rather than the lineup themselves.
Let us know which strategy you like best.
Which line combo strategy do you like best?
| Combo A | 908 |
| Combo B | 372 |
| Combo C | 183 |
