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Ivan Demidov and his minuscule playing time
Charles-Alexis Brisebois
Ivan Demidov and his minuscule playing time
Credit: Getty Images
Let’s talk about Ivan Demidov.

This season in Russia, it was obvious: when Ivan Demidov had game time, he produced. And when he didn’t get much playing time, he couldn’t make his mark offensively.

And despite the fact that we only have a slim sample of three NHL games, we can see the same thing taking shape for Demidov under the Habs’ colors.

In his first NHL game, Demidov played about 17 minutes. He had his chances in the offensive zone and was the best player on the ice against Chicago.

Against Carolina? He played less and was more discreet. We saw less of him on the ice.

And yesterday, in his first NHL playoff game (in which he was… discreet), he only played 11:57. He played as much as David Savard, and only Emil Heineman was used less than the Russian.

That’s not much. And that’s even if it was fast and furious for the man who finished the game at minus-2.

During the Carolina game, the CH played to protect the lead, so it was only natural to see Martin St-Louis use less of his worst defensive trio (and in general), that of Demidov, Patrik Laine and Alex Newhook.

But yesterday, most of the CH’s focus was on scoring. And that’s the strength of Laine and Demidov.

What works against Demidov is that the other three trios can’t really be broken down just for him. This leaves him with the most unreliable trio defensively, which affects his playing time.

If the CH had a better second center or if Demidov had arrived at the start of the season, when the trios were forming, it would have been different. But here, it’s not.

Playing with Newhook means he plays less. And Laine, on the other hand, is going to get his playing time on the first wave of the power play, which changes the game.

But even if we understand why Demidov is playing less, the fact remains that a club looking for offense would have benefited from using a player of this calibre.


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