The Canadiens will face the Boston Bruins Wednesday night (7:30 p.m., Sportsnet, RDS, TSN Radio 690) with an improbable No. 1 line.
Alex Galchenyuk, the 21-year-old who made a permanent move to centre this season, will be between top sniper Max Pacioretty and Sven Andrighetto, a 22-year-old who has spent most of the season in the American Hockey League.
Coach Michel Therrien engaged in a wholesale round of lineup shuffling as he attempted to bring his team out of a mini-slump. The Canadiens are in first place in the Eastern Conference, but they have only one win in their last four games and they have scored two goals in each of those games.
“We haven’t been scoring and I think the coach is trying to shake things up,” said Pacioretty, who leads the team with 13 goals. “(Galchenyuk) is a talented player and it’s going to take some time to feel comfortable with each other, but I have confidence in all the centres on this team.”
Pacioretty started the season with Tomas Plekanec and most recently played with longtime friend and linemate David Desharnais.
“We have so many good players on this team that the numbers don’t mean much,” said Pacioretty, who went on to say that the No. 1 line was the unit with Plekanec at centre.
When Galchenyuk made the move to centre at the start of the season, the Canadiens acknowledged there would be some growing pains. But the first-round draft pick, who was treated with kid gloves when he broke into the NHL as an 18-year-old, has grown in confidence. More importantly, Therrien is confident enough to give him a major role.
“I’m not surprised that we’re playing together because we were together at the end of the Carolina game,” said Galchenyuk, who has scored five goals and four assists in the past eight games. He is winning his faceoffs at a 53-per-cent clip and is playing a more aggressive game on offence.
Galchenyuk has also benefitted from the addition of Andrighetto who has claimed the right wing spot, which has been a problem area this season. Alexander Semin started the season in that spot and five others have moved in and out after Semin was found lacking. The Semin experiment ended Tuesday when the Russian veteran cleared waivers and was assigned to the St. John’s IceCaps.
Therrien noted that Semin couldn’t match the pace of his teammates, which is another way of saying he was slow. The coach said the team gave chances to some of its young players and they have fit in.
Andrighetto is young and fast, and he said he contributes speed to the line.
“I’m not happy with all of my game, but I’m working at getting better, particularly on the defensive end,” said Andrighetto.
Pacioretty conceded that there will be an added challenge for his line because they will be getting more defensive attention.
Conversely, there should be more room for the line of Dale Weise, Desharnais and Tomas Fleischmann.
“We were going pretty good earlier in the season and then we didn’t score for three games and they broke us up,” said Weise. “I feel good about getting back together. I’ve had some good chances lately, but they haven’t going in.”
Plekanec, whose 25 points tie Pacioretty for the team scoring lead, will have Lars Eller and Paul Byron on his wings.
There was one minor change on defence with Alexei Emelin reuniting with Jeff Petry as the No. 2 pair. Therrien said Nathan Beaulieu had some difficulties in Carolina, but he will stay in the lineup as Tom Gilbert’s partner.
With back-to-back games — the Canadiens are in Detroit Thursday — Therrien will divide the workload for his goaltenders. Boston native Mike Condon, who made 29 saves in a 4-2 win over the Bruins on Nov. 7, gets the start Wednesday, while Dustin Tokarski makes his first NHL start of the season in Detroit.
