Patrik Laine Has High Expectations For Himself

A huge reason for that is that Laine loves hockey again and can’t wait to play in front of a full Bell Centre crowd once again. When a player with that much skill is that excited to play, that is a dangerous combo for the opposing teams. This proves my point on the bold prediction of Laine finishing top 5 in goals from last week; he sounds ready to take the league by storm. A healthy Laine could be an absolute game-changer this season for the Habs. 

In today’s on-ice sessions, Laine and his linemates Kirby Dach and Ivan Demidov were part of Team A, meaning that they didn’t get to scrimmage this morning. Laine did, however, look really good with his puck protection in the drills that they ran. We will get to see Laine and his linemates officially scrimmage tomorrow against Team C, which includes the top line of Cole Caufield, Nick Suzuki and Juraj Slafkovsky. 

It should be interesting to see how the newly formed second line performs against the Habs’ top line tomorrow. For those of you who can go to the scrimmage live in Brossard tomorrow, it starts at 10:30 am ET. 

As for today’s scrimmage featuring Team B and Team C, the game ended 2-0 with  Slafkovsky and Israel Mianscum getting on the board late. The game featured a lot of good play from both sides as the goaltenders looked very solid. 

Habs fans got to see who the coaching staff expects to play together throughout the lineup, and there were a few surprises. The suspected 3rd line seemed to be newcomer Zachary Bolduc with Alex Newhook and surprising prospect Owen Beck. 

What this line shows is that Beck will get a real good look to prove himself ready for the NHL. In fact, he may get to take a lot of faceoffs if this line is used in the pre-season. 

Considering Newhook’s struggles with the draw and Beck being a specialist in that category, it could be a good fit to play them together. Plus, the line will also have a scoring punch to it by having a young power forward with a great shot in Bolduc. He will be expected to carry the offensive load in the bottom-six, but he should be able to handle that role against weaker defensive pairings.

Expect the majority of Bolduc’s goal scoring to come from the man advantage this season, but he should manage a nice share alongside Newhook, who has some good offensive ability in his own right despite a tough season last year. Both players will be on standby to go up to the top 6 if there are any injuries or someone is simply struggling.

To no surprise, Josh Anderson and Brendan Gallagher are still linemates on the expected 4th line alongside Jake Evans. This line will be used to create energy throughout the lineup and should be resilient on the forecheck. As long as these three players are healthy, they should be sticking together throughout the full season.

On defense, newcomer Noah Dobson has started camp in a pairing with veteran Mike Matheson. The only issue is that Matheson and Dobson are both offensive-minded minded which means that this pairing could end up being a very up-and-down pairing, much like when Matheson played with Lane Hutson last year. The truth is, Matheson and Dobson both need a strong defensive-minded guy alongside them. It will be interesting to see how this pairing progresses throughout camp.

After finishing the year as likely the top pairing, Lane Hutson and Kaiden Guhle have been paired up yet again, with Hutson playing on his off-side. Besides the fact that they are both left-handed defensemen, their games complement each other amazingly, with Hutson as the puck mover and Guhle as the strong defensive presence.

The third pairing is looking like it will be Alexandre Carrier alongside Arber Xhekaj, who looked really good in this team’s first scrimmage. As it stands, Xhekaj is being given the edge to be in the lineup over Jayden Struble, which is probably the way to go with the lack of grit outside Anderson and Xhekaj in the lineup.

What are your thoughts on the new lines and pairings to start Training Camp?