Canadiens fans enjoyed the season in which Arber Xhekaj, Jordan Harris and Kaiden Guhle all debuted, but now, there's a new crop of defensemen on the horizon.
The down side to a full rebuild is obvious, fans do not get to see a lot of wins which can be hard to cope with, especially if said rebuild lasts forever (looking at you Buffalo Sabres). However, there are a few good sides as well, getting rid of older player not worth their pay checks anymore and of course, seeing brand new players grow right before your very eyes.
At the start of the 2022-2023 season, Montreal welcomed four new rookies in its line-up; first-overall pick at the 2022 Draft Juraj Slafkovsky and blueliners Kaiden Guhle, Jordan Harris and Arber Xhekaj. All season long, fans were delighted to see the Xhekaj's fights, the Guhle hits, Slafkovsky finally learning to keep his head up. What's in store this upcoming season? Will some young blood manage to make its way to the NHL?
Four New Defensemen
This season, four young defensemen could be invited to make their mark with the big club. Two of them have already have their baptism of fire while the other two will be hoping to get the opportunity sooner rather than later. Let's take a peek at all four.
Lane Hutson
Let's face it, since Marc Bergevin gave P.K. Subban his marching orders, the Canadiens have been a little light on the exciting offensive defenseman side. If things go according to plan with Hutson though, all that will only be a distant memory.
Hutson mixes dynamic skating with incredible puck handling and smooth hands. At five-foot-10 and only 161 pounds, he's not your average blueliner size wise, but he has the skills which could allow him to escape opponents while carrying the puck. If his game translates well to the NHL, Montreal will be in for a treat. He might not be the next Quinn Hughes, but he would certainly produce more than current options.
Does he have a shot at the NHL this season? Hard to say since he's only got two games of NHL experience but coach Martin St.Louis might just want to keep his offensive defenseman in the making close to him. Why? Because he's confident in his own teaching and development skills, but also because the AHL has got a lot of very physical career AHLers who would love to flatten the featherweight against the boards. You can't hit what you can't touch, but sometimes it only takes one misstep. Finally, in Montreal, he would beneficiate from working with skills coach Adam Nicholas as well.
David Reinbacher
While the Canadiens ruffled some feathers picking him at fifth-overall in the 2023 Draft in what was a pretty deep class offensively speaking, that's all been forgotten. Why? Because the fans now known the Canadiens could pass on Matvei Michkov and Ryan Leonard, they had their eye on Ivan Demidov (thanks to the four team picking ahead of them).
While the bickering about his drafting was going on in Montreal early in the season, the Austrian kid was back in Switzerland to keep developing far from that animosity. By the time the Laval Rocket was in the tail end of its season, the right-shot defenseman had finished his European season and came over to play in the AHL.
He got to tip his toe in the water with 11 matches in which he got a taste of the smaller ice dimensions, the rhythm and the physicality of the North American game. Will that have been enough? I doubt it, perhaps he'll get an extended look at the start of the season though.
Logan Mailloux
This will be his second season of professional hockey and if someone's got a chance to make it, I would say it's him. Could he be the one to send back Kaiden Guhle on the left where he belongs? Doubtful. Guhle is often playing on the first pairing and the 2020 draft pick could not handle that workload, not with his current defensive lapses in any case.
That being said, he did have a good season in Laval, putting up 47 points in 72 games, gathering 91 penalty minutes and finishing the year with a minus-eight rating. He was the team's representative at the AHL All-Star Game and formed quite the duo with Arber Xhekaj when the Canadiens' tough guy was sent down to work on his defensive game.
Logan Mailloux during a game against the Syracuse Crunch
Photo credit: Syracuse Crunch
There could however be an obstacle in his way...the fact Justin Barron now has to go through waivers to be sent down to Laval. Barron has never really managed to impose himself in the NHL yet, but there's no way Kent Hughes would be willing to waste him with nothing in return. Not when he gave Artturi Lehkonen to pry him away from the Colorado Avalanche.
Adam Engstrom
Finally, Adam Engstrom is the latest blueliner to sign an entry-level deal with the Canadiens. Since being drafted 92nd-overall in the 2022 Draft, he has been playing in the Sweden HL earning praise for his performance from afar.
Considering he's a European and has yet to play in North America, he is likely to need some time to acclimate to the game on this side of the pond and it seems highly unlikely that he will make his way into the Canadiens line-up this season.
His ELC does not include a European assignment clause however and he doesn't have a contract agreement with any team in the Swedish league, meaning that if he doesn't make the team, he'll be heading down to Laval to start his career in a North-American setting.
While the prospect of seeing all of these young blueliners join the Canadiens, is no doubt exciting, there is and there will be for a while a logjam on defense. If there's no room for rookies when they are ready to make the jump, their progression will be hindered. However, if you cut ties with your experienced defensemen too quickly, the defense may become unhinged and that too could hurt their development. Quite the balancing act Hughes has got on his hands.
