Habs hint at some curious changes during bizarre Sunday practice.

An unusual day for the Habs.

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HockeyFeed
Published 2 years ago
Habs hint at some curious changes during bizarre Sunday practice.
Eric Bolte/USA Today

The Montreal Canadiens are on the brink of elimination after going down 0 - 3 in the Stanley Cup Final and there has been an expectation that we will see significant changes on the part of Habs head coach Dominique Ducharme and his coaching staff ahead of Game 4, especially with 2 days to prepare ahead of what could be his team's last game of the season.

I suspect Ducharme will keep most of his cards close to the vest prior to Monday's game but on Sunday, during what was something of a bizarre practice session for the Canadiens, he did hint at some curious changes to his lineup as his players took to the ice. Ducharme appeared to take forward Jesperi Kotkaniemi off of the team's powerplay unit entirely, a somewhat surprising move in its own right, and instead appeared to go with the following two groups as his powerplay units:

1st PP unit:

Corey Perry

Cole Caufield - Tyler Toffoli - Nick Suzuki

Jeff Petry

2nd PP unit:

Eric Staal

Joel Armia - Brendan Gallagher - Josh Anderson

Shea Weber

According to Montreal Canadiens insider Arpon Basu, veteran defenseman Ben Chiarot was also rotating in on the second power play unit and he was replacing Joel Armia when doing so. 

It is important to remember that at this time of year we could merely be witnessing gamesmanship on the part of Ducharme here, but that being said I suspect that instead the Habs' head coach is genuinely searching for answers to the riddle that has been the Tampa Bay Lightning in this series. I mentioned earlier that this was something of a bizarre practice for the Canadiens and it was with almost the entire session focused in on the two power play units and their work on special teams. I suspect that this was also a product of Ducharme looking for an answer to this puzzle or working on potential solutions that he has in mind for Game 4.

The Canadiens are in good hands with Ducharme here given that the head coach is one of the few with any experience in this type of scenario. During his time behind the bench of the Halifax Mooseheads, Ducharme once overcame an 0 -3 series deficit to defeat the Quebec Rampart 4 -3 in the playoffs. He will need to draw on all that experience to get his team prepared for the next game.

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