Grant McCagg sees Kirby Dach on the first line to start the season

DansLesCoulisses.com
Grant McCagg sees Kirby Dach on the first line to start the season
Credit: NHL.com

The Canadiens were unable to sign a top-6 forward during the offseason. At least, not yet.

On Thursday night, Grant McCagg revealed his projected lineup for the Canadiens at the start of the upcoming season.

We expected some surprises in this lineup, and McCagg didn't disappoint. He believes Kirby Dach will start the season on the first line!

Dach would thus play alongside Nick Suzuki and Cole Caufield. That's quite a workload for a player who finished last season with 15 points in 37 games.

McCagg's take is that a player drafted third overall should be in that spot. He's absolutely right, but when you're talking about a 25-year-old, it might be a little too late.

McCagg wants to see Dach get his chance on the first line. In his view, the Canadiens wouldn't have extended his contract if they didn't expect him to play like a top-6 forward this year and in the future.

It's understandable to want to try—for the umpteenth time—to give Dach a full season. The guy has had some bad luck with injuries.

Let's say Martin St-Louis thinks the same way as McCagg—they shouldn't drag this out too long if the experiment turns out to be a failure. If he plays poorly for about ten games, it might be time to finally pull the plug.

The good news about having Dach on the first line is that it would allow Juraj Slafkovsky to return to the second line, where he's had a lot of success alongside Ivan Demidov and Oliver Kapanen.

We saw clearly in the playoffs that Kapanen doesn't really have what it takes to be a second-line center, but if he's supported by Slafkovsky and Demidov during the season, he's capable of putting up solid performances.

Dach isn't the only surprise in McCagg's projected lineup. McCagg has placed David Reinbacher on the second defensive pairing alongside Lane Hutson.

It's not a crazy idea, but Reinbacher will really have to impress at training camp to have any hope of earning that spot on the roster. As a well-rounded defenseman with a defensive bent, he could form a perfect pairing with Hutson, but again, he needs to prove he's at the level required to play significant minutes in the NHL.

This is just a prediction from McCagg, but let's not forget that last season, he saw Oliver Kapanen leading the Habs' second line—and against all odds, that's exactly what happened.


In Brief

– Caleb Desnoyers is an assistant captain on Team Canada's junior squad.

– Gavin McKenna sees the Maple Leafs as contenders.

– A story to watch.

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