After Tuesday’s optional morning skate at the Bell Centre I asked Canadiens head coach Martin St. Louis about his top defence pairing of Mike Matheson with Lane Hutson.
The two offensive-minded defencemen had played together since Alexandre Carrier was acquired from the Nashville Predators on Dec. 18. Since the trade, which sent defenceman Justin Barron to Nashville, St. Louis had basically stuck with the same three defence pairings for 18 consecutive games: Matheson with Hutson, Carrier with Kaiden Guhle and David Savard with Arber Xhekaj (apart from the four games Savard was injured and replaced by Jayden Struble). During those 18 games, the Canadiens had posted a 12-4-2 record to get back in the mix for a playoff spot.
I asked St. Louis Tuesday morning if he had asked the veteran Matheson to change his style of play a bit — being more defensive-minded — while paired with Hutson.
“I think for both guys I want them to be calculated in what they’re doing on the ice,” St. Louis said. “Not just do what they want to do. They’re going to get to do what they like to do at a certain point in time in the game … I don’t know when that is. So to me, for any players like that, I don’t know when the home-run ball’s are going to be. They can hit home runs, but you can’t just swing at everything. It’s pick your spots and I feel like for the most part they’ve done a good job.”
St. Louis didn’t mention anything about splitting up that defensive pairing, but when the puck dropped Tuesday night against the Winnipeg Jets Matheson was playing with Carrier and Hutson was with Guhle. The Canadiens ended up losing 4-1 and Matheson and Carrier were both minus-2.
When asked after the game why he decided to mix up his defence pairings, St. Louis said: “It looked like it would work.”
This was the third straight loss for the Canadiens (0-2-1) but they didn’t lose any ground in the Eastern Conference wild-card playoff race because the Boston Bruins and Tampa Bay Lightning also lost Tuesday night. The Canadiens remained two points behind Tampa for the second wild-card spot and three points behind Boston.
But the loss to the Jets could end up being very painful for the Canadiens, since Guhle left the game in the third period after appearing to suffer an injury to his right knee when his skate caught a rut and he fell awkwardly into the boards. Guhle had to be helped off the ice and into the locker room and didn’t return to the game. The Canadiens were expected to provide an update on Guhle’s condition Wednesday afternoon.
St. Louis said losing Guhle for even one game hurts.
“It’s a guy who plays a lot of minutes with big responsibility,” the coach said. “It’s not easy to replace him with just one player.”
The player who will replace Guhle is Struble, called back up from the AHL’s Laval Rocket before Wednesday morning’s practice in Brossard. The Canadiens sent Struble to Laval last Friday for a conditioning assignment after he had been made a healthy scratch for seven consecutive games.
Guhle is averaging 21:14 of ice time this season, while Struble has averaged 14:16 in the 26 games he has played with the Canadiens. The injury to Guhle probably means even more ice time for Matheson and Hutson, who lead the team in that category, averaging 24:39 and 22:39, respectively.
Carrier and Savard are the only two right-hand shots on the Canadiens’ blue line, meaning one of the left-shot defencemen has to play on the right side. Against the Jets, it was Hutson who was moved to the right side with Guhle as his partner.
“Some of our lefty D now have to play the right side,” St. Louis said after the game. “And based on how we’re doing as a team, individually and stuff, sometimes we’ll give somebody else a turn on the right side and I thought Lane did a good job on the right side.”
During his two seasons at Boston University before joining the Canadiens, Hutson never played more than 39 regular-season games. He has now played 50 games with the Canadiens, posting 3-36-39 totals to lead all NHL rookies in scoring to go along with a minus-13 differential. St. Louis said he isn’t worred about the 5-foot-9, 162-pound Hutson running out of gas with 32 games still left in the season, including Thursday’s matchup with the Minnesota Wild at the Bell Centre (7 p.m., TSN2, RDS).
“I think he’s got a lot of energy … and the next game is going to be the most that he’s played ever, too, and the next one after,” St. Louis said with a chuckle about the 20-year-old defenceman. “I think he’s getting used to playing in the NHL. He’s a kid that loves the game and the passion of the game I think always energizes somebody. So I’m not worried about Lane.”
But the injury to Guhle is very worrisome and it could be enough to knock the Canadiens out of the playoff mix.