It’s a complicated situation.
As the Montreal Canadiens work to becoming a more competitive team, they face a dilemma regarding their defence corps. It will be a challenge for general manager Kent Hughes to sort out his personnel, ice a balanced group on the blueline and put together a squad that is solid through all three pairings… a necessity for the team to become a true contender.
While the team is stacked with left shot defenceman with a wide variety of skill sets, the right side looks to be in disarray. There isn’t a top four defenceman in the group. The leader of the pack is David Savard but in an ideal situation he would be on the third pair and on one of the PK units. The only other RD on the roster is Justin Barron, who hasn’t shown enough to win a top four position. In addition, his skill set doesn’t exactly fit the stereotypical mold of a third pair d-man or penalty killer. More on that later.
When you look to next season, Logan Mailloux is a good bet to win a spot but it is early in his career to count on him as a first pair defenceman and it would seem like a waste of his skills to relegate him to the third pair. In that light, penciling in Mailloux on the second pair seems reasonable. However, given the right partner he could make the jump to the first pair.
David Reinbacher should also be ready to play next season but he has only seen action in 11 games in Laval since coming over from the Swiss league. It is unrealistic to expect him to jump into NHL action after missing a year due to injury and a having so little time to adapt to the North American game. At least a year of development in the AHL should be in the cards.
If Savard is re-signed rather than traded, it would leave Montreal with a reasonable talent on the second and third defence pairs – or first and third pairs. The trouble with that is, we don’t know if Savard will still be with the Canadiens after the trade deadline or if he would re-sign with the team this summer. Should Savard not return, that would leave the Canadiens with Barron and Mailloux as their two right shot defencemen.
Perhaps Mailloux could win a spot on the first pair and Barron could instill enough confidence in the coaching staff that they would play him on the second pair. But both of those scenarios seem like a long shot. A more likely situation would be Mailloux on the second pair and Barron on the third pair with someone who complements his offence first style of play.
The left side of the blue line has the opposite problem. There are more players than positions available and lots of internal competition for the various roles.
Kaiden Guhle has a lock on one of the d-men in the top four. In terms of all around play, he is the best Canadiens’ defenceman. It’s easy to see how Guhle paired with Mailloux, for example, could work.
Both Mike Matheson and Lane Hutson are offensive defencemen and both are regulars on the power play, with Matheson getting the bulk of the time to date. But is there even room for both of them on the roster? Neither is a third pair d-man. If Guhle is on the first or second pair, then one of Matheson or Hutson would have to play on the third pair or on their weak side. Neither of those situations is ideal and Hutson isn’t going anywhere.
If Guhle and Hutson were in the top four next season, the status of Mike Matheson’s future with the team becomes the elephant in the room.
The position of LD on the third pair would then boil down to Arber Xhekaj and Jayden Struble with Adam Engstrom waiting in the wings. Both bring an element of toughness to the game that would complement Barron’s style of play and perhaps they could rotate with him at the bottom of the lineup.
If it’s not Barron, the Canadiens could explore other options that would fit with their vision of how they want the defence to be built. A third pair d-man should not be an overly expensive acquisition in terms of salary or assets going the other way.
That leaves the unanswered question of who could be a defenceman that is available and who could play the right side on the first or second pair for the Canadiens. Optimists would say that player is David Reinbacher but those are lofty expectations for someone with so little experience. The 2026-27 is a more likely timeframe for the big Austrian to see his name in the lineup. Others might say that David Savard could fill that role for another season but he is not ideally suited to that role and there are no guarantees he will be back… for one reason or another.
The best result would be if Justin Barron could suddenly elevate his play over the next 30 games and show that he is capable of playing in top four situations on a regular basis. But don’t hold your breath on that one.
The final option from within the organization would be to have a LD play his weak side on the top four. Both the management team and the coaching staff have voiced their concerns about that option.
The answer seems to be in a trade or a free agent signing and it is easy to lend credence to the rumours that Kent Hughes is looking for a solid RD to add to his lineup, even it is for only a year or two. In the meantime, there is a lot of evaluation to be done and a lot of phone calls to be made before the situation on defence is resolved.
