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Dans les coulisses

Who’d have thought it: Christian Dvorak’s return is good for business

At the start of training camp, when we learned that Christian Dvorak would officially miss significant playing time, we thought it would give the Habs a more offensive identity.

After all, with Nick Suzuki and Kirby Dach at the center of the first two units, that left either Sean Monahan or Alex Newhook to pilot the club’s third trio.

And that’s what happened… for, like, a game and a quarter .

When Dach was there, Nick Suzuki and Cole Caufield did what they had to do, Kirby Dach helped Alex Newhook and Sean Monahan rolled an unlikely gray-haired third trio.

But when Dach was injured, the CH was forced to move Newhook back to center. He, Josh Anderson and Juraj Slafkovsky formed one of the worst top-6 trios in living memory (at least in my memory… which isn’t great either) for a few games.

Because Sean Monahan was successful, he couldn’t budge from his trio. So there was a hole on the right of the first trio that was insolvable, and the second trio did nothing.

Why do you think, as expected, the chain came down the road?

And it’s because we can see that Dvorak brought stability (if not an offensive dynamo) to the line-up that, yes, we can say – more or less ironically – that his return did some good.

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I’ve always wanted to see clubs have more centers than not enough. It avoids having wingers at center (with all due respect to Jonathan Drouin) and it avoids disasters.

That’s why, at the start of the 2023-2024 season, the Habs lost two centers before the end of the second game of the season (Dvorak and Dach) and still came through.

And still in the case of the Habs, it gives Martin St-Louis options.

I know, I know: it was only one game. But on Saturday, even if Dvo didn’t dominate – give him time – against the Blues, he allowed his coach to do this with his lineup:

  • Replace Alex Newhook on the wing
  • Remove Juraj Slafkovsky from a trio where he wasn’t performing

We know that Slaf, who scored his first goal of the season away from Newhook and Anderson, looked better. We also know that Newhook will be able to breathe a little easier playing with a veteran like Dvorak.

At the moment, the center line features two veterans (Dvorak and Sean Monahan) who can help the youngsters. Nick Suzuki and Jake Evans, on the other hand, are young veterans.

If the club wants to bring Newhook back to center to give him some mileage, or to send Sean Monahan on the first trio, for example, it can now be done following Dvorak’s return.

I’m not the president of Dvorak’s fan club, and at $4.45 million for almost two more years, teams around the league can’t want him that much right now. So his best value is in Montreal… and all the better if he can maximize it for Martin St-Louis.

In brief

– He’s the ECHL’s goalie of the week.

– Hurricanes goalie takes a break.

– Bomb in the MLB.

– Good morning, Kent.