The Canadiens should consider bringing Alex Newhook back to center on the second line.

Marc-Olivier Cook
The Canadiens should consider bringing Alex Newhook back to center on the second line.
Credit: Vitor Munhoz/NHLI via Getty Images

There is a hole in the Montreal Canadiens' top six.

You could even say there are two, in fact. On the first line, they need to find a quality player who can play with Cole Caufield and Nick Suzuki. And on the second line, ideally, they need to find a center who can play big minutes.

Oliver Kapanen seems to have hit a wall, and in the long run, that solution may not be viable either.

Perhaps the solution can be found internally as well. Renaud Lavoie and the guys talked about it on the morning show on BPM Sports: Could we see Alex Newhook get his chance at center, since he did well in his first game after returning from injury?
Is he the one needed to inject some energy into the second line?

In an ideal world, Oliver Kapanen would play center on the third line.

But with Phillip Danault and Jake Evans already occupying the third and fourth center positions, it gets a little more complicated at that level… And that's why I wonder what will happen with Kapanen if he continues to struggle.

The kid has four points in his last 12 games. And it looks like he's starting to get a little tired…

On the other hand, the Canadiens could still shake things up by bringing Juraj Slafkovsky back to the first line.

The idea was discussed on Tony Marinaro's podcast… and while there are logical arguments for keeping Slaf on the second line, it's still a solution for Martin St-Louis to complement Nick Suzuki and Cole Caufield.

We know they can be good together, after all.

The problem is that bringing Slaf back to the first line… could hurt Ivan Demidov.

But I think I'd like to see Kirby Dach and Demidov reunited. It wasn't a huge success at the start of the season, but Kirby seems to be regaining his confidence… and that could change things too.

The good news?

Martin St-Louis has the depth he needs to try some things if he sees that changes are necessary to his lineup, which wasn't necessarily the case before.

And it will help even more if Kent Hughes manages to get his hands on a quality top-6 forward…


In brief

– The Stars will have more flexibility.

— It's coming!

— What do you think?

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