Carrier – Guhle: the first pair of Canadiens currently

The Canadiens had a challenging schedule last week, facing the Lightning, the Red Wings, and the Devils, two teams currently in the top eight in the East and another just a few points behind.

The Montreal team started poorly in each of their games, as they found themselves down 0-2, 0-3, and 0-3… but they still managed to grab three points out of a possible six. We avoided the worst.

However, a worrying trend – which seemed to have vanished for a month – has returned: the Canadiens are once again being completely outplayed by their opponents in terms of shots on goal.

35-22 against the Lightning on Tuesday, 45-29 against the Red Wings on Thursday, and 44-32 against the Devils on Saturday. Let’s remember that two of the three games were held at the Bell Centre.

In their last five games, the Tricolore has given up 7, 4, 2, 4, and 4 goals. The team’s defensive play is problematic once again.

Yet, the arrival of Alexandre Carrier, linked to the departure of Justin Barron, had seemed to solve everything…

Not Carrier’s fault
I was listening to Anthony Marcotte this morning on BPM Sports and he made a good point: only the pairing of Carrier – Guhle is reliable defensively. Hutson and Matheson are always a bit risky, while the duo Xhekaj – Savard cannot handle 20 minutes per game anymore.

On Saturday night, the top four defensemen each played more than 22m57 on the ice, while Xhekaj and Savard had to settle for 13m56 and 12m37 respectively. Does Savard still have juice left in the tank?

Alexandre Carrier has not finished a single one of his last seven games in the negatives. The same goes for Kaiden Guhle.

Carrier has three points in his last five games, while Guhle has four.

Since joining the Canadiens, Carrier has collected 10 points in 18 games (compared to just 7 points in 28 games in Nashville). Not bad for a defenseman who’s considered mainly defensive…

On his side, Lane Hutson has been held scoreless in his last two games and has a cumulative differential of minus-8 since the game against the Leafs, which is since the beginning of the stretch where the Canadiens are allowing too many shots (and too many goals).

Matheson has not scored a single point in six games, also showing a differential of minus-4 last week.

You can see where I’m going with this?

It seems obvious to me that for the past few games, the most useful, effective, and best pairing on the Canadiens has been the one formed by Guhle and Carrier, not Hutson and Matheson.

Guhle and Carrier are genuinely performing like a first pair right now.

Beware! This is not to throw stones at Lane Hutson and Mike Matheson (many of you are already doing that for the BAD pass he received from Patrik Laine in overtime on Saturday), but rather to applaud Alexandre Carrier and Kaiden Guhle.

To think we got Carrier in return for Justin Barron, who has only three points in 13 games in Nashville, faced criticism from some teammates and journalists, and has a differential of minus-2 there.

At least, things seem to be turning around for him recently. Good for him!

Overtime

The Canadiens will host the Jets (Tuesday) and the Wild (Thursday), before heading west afterwards. The two weekday games will actually take place at 10:30 PM next week…

We should expect to see Jayden Struble recalled as the seventh defenseman.

But will Rafaël Harvey-Pinard and Michael Pezzetta really be the 12th and 13th forwards on this trip? Will Emil Heineman be ready to return, which would likely send RHP back to Laval?

The next few days will be interesting for the Canadiens.

Looking forward to seeing if the pairing Guhle – Carrier will once again be the most complete and effective.

If so, we’ll have to start talking about them as the first pairing…