The Canadiens are shopping for a rugged forward to complete their “bottom 6”.

Only 30 hours remain before the Canadiens’ last preparatory game in Ottawa – is it going to be a bumpy ride? – and only five days before the Montreal team kicks off the regular season.

We can’t wait to see if Kent Hughes will opt for Joshua Roy and Oliver Kapanen to complete his line-up, or if he’ll try to get his hands on a quick fix from elsewhere. According to Marco D’Amico, solutions will come from within, and a guy like Kapanen could well start the season in Montreal (and not in Europe). But for how long? We’ll see.

According to my information, Kent Hughes and Jeff Gorton are active and evaluating a few options to move. But D’Amico’s information isn’t wrong: we wouldn ‘t be shopping for a top-6 winger to complete one of the first two trios right now. We’d be looking for a sturdy winger to play on the fourth line.

Georges Laraque dropped a little scoop yesterday during my segment on the Laraque – Gonzalez show. According to Georges, Martin St-Louis realized that his team was getting shuffled around too much since the start of the preparatory schedule, and he told the players – including Arber Xhekaj – that he approved of what Xhekaj had done to defend his team in the last two games.

That’s 180 degrees!

According to my information, Habs management would love to get their hands on a tough, physical player to play on their fourth line. We’re well aware that Pezzetta can’t do the job alone up front… and that Arber Xhekaj, when he sits in the penalty box or is kicked out of the game, puts his team in trouble (with only five defenders).

And Martin doesn’t like dressing 11 forwards and 7 defensemen…

So it will be interesting to see whether the Habs demand such a player profile via the waivers, or whether they manage to complete a transaction to fill the need. Jeff Gorton probably knows that a lack of toughness may have cost him his job in New York, and he certainly doesn’t want to make the same mistake in Montreal.

And Martin St-Louis remembered André Roy’s role during his best seasons in Tampa!

Extension

The Montreal CF will play (another) important game tomorrow in Charlotte. Laurent Courtois, Jonathan Sirois and George Campbell spoke to the media this morning. Here’s what I got out of the media availability: