CH special unit combinations unveiled

The Montreal Canadiens were back in training today on day three of training camp. Montreal Canadiens latest acquisition Corey Perry jumped on the ice for the first time at the Bell Sports Complex in Brossard. He was absent yesterday as he was finishing his quarantine. Here are the trios and duets of defencemen with the addition of Perry:

Group A

Tatar	Danault	Gallagher
Drouin	Suzuki	Anderson
Toffoli	Kotkaniemi	Armia
Byron	Evans	Lehkonen
Frolik	Poehling	Perry

• The trios remained intact, except for Jordan Weal who lost his regular spot to Corey Perry.

• But it’s not a given for Perry as he’s not yet in the fourth trio. That means he won’t be granted special treatment and will have to prove he deserves his place in the starting line-up with the Canadiens.

Chiarot	Weber
Edmundson	Petry
Kulak	Romanov
Ouellet	Mete

• The duos of defencemen remained intact.

Price

Allen

McNiven

• For the second day in a row, McNiven is in Group A. Does this mean he will be part of the « Taxi Squad »? To be continued…

The special units also did some drills before the session. Here are the first and second combinations of the power play:

Drouin	Suzuki	Toffoli
Weber	Petry

Tatar	Gallagher	Kotkaniemi	Anderson/Perry
Romanov	Mete

• I like Claude Julien’s combination, but I’m having a hard time with the fact that Mete is deployed on the second power play unit. He hasn’t proven anything offensively yet. I’d rather opt for four forwards and one defenceman (Romanov).

Group B jumped on the ice at 1:00 pm. Lukas Vejdemo is expected to be back with the group after missing Monday’s practice.

Group B

Vejdemo	Dauphin	Weal
Teasdale	Lynch	Belzile
Baddock	Blandisi	Lucchini
Olofsson	Juulsen
Leskinen	Fleury
Lindgren	Primeau	Demchenko

As my colleague Richer Cloutier said yesterday, the players mentioned above will not be part of the line-up on January 13th unless someone is injured.

translated by Michel-Alexandre Broekaert