Alexandre Carrier Finding A New Gear Of Offence?

His defensive partner, Lane Hutson, is usually the one who produces the offence, while Carrier leads the defensive assignments for his pairing, but with Hutson now becoming a more responsible defensive player in recent months, it has allowed Carrier to go up and create offence of his own doing. The best example of this was clearly when he scored 2 goals in the matter of 20 seconds on Monday night against the Vancouver Canucks.

Before Monday’s game, Carrier had just one goal and would rarely try to create any offence, but with more confidence in Hutson’s defensive play, it has allowed the defensive-minded Carrier to take offensive chances of his own, such as going to the net to tip a pass by Juraj Slafkovsky for his 2nd goal of the game against the Canucks. Carrier saw his opening to go up ice with Slafkovsky, and he took it. While that may have been the best example of showing his offensive chops in that game, his 1st goal just 20 seconds earlier was also a good sign that he has underrated offensive abilities in his game.

His first goal of the night came as he received a beautiful pass by captain Nick Suzuki as he snuck in from the blue line uncovered to release a wrister past the Canucks goaltender that was a key tying goal at the time.

It seems like a lot of the offence that Carrier brings from the blue line is always related to him sneaking into a position for a prime scoring chance as of late. One thing that also shows his offensive abilities is just finding open space for good chances as of late, and as a result he has managed to score all 3 of his goals from different locations on the ice.

His 1st goal against the Canucks and his game-tying marker against the Senators may have been scored in a similar way, as he received a beautiful pass from Ivan Demidov before firing his shot to get his goal. However, the only similarities were that he scored because of a great setup pass and that he found himself in open space. The goal against the Canucks came from the left side of the ice, where he took a wrist shot from the slot to find the back of the net. Whereas the goal on Saturday came from a one-time snapshot from just inside the right faceoff circle.

The one thing that is evident about Carrier’s chances is that opposing teams don’t take his abilities seriously, which is what makes him so underrated as a blueliner providing offence. If Carrier continues to produce, that will surely change, but for now the Canadiens should take advantage of using their secret weapon to score important goals.

Do you think Carrier’s offensive game is underrated, or do you believe he just had a one-off good week on the scoresheet?