“If you asked me this summer if I thought we’d be where we are in their development, I would have paid a lot of money for that," coach says.
SEATTLE — The Canadiens have been playing four rookie defencemen since the start of the season.
While Kaiden Guhle has played in every game, the other three — Jordan Harris, Johnathan Kovacevic and Arber Xhekaj — had been rotating recently as healthy scratches.
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That was until veteran David Savard suffered an upper-body injury, forcing him to miss the last two games of the Canadiens’ four-game road trip in Vancouver on Saturday and Seattle on Tuesday.
“If you asked me this summer if I thought we’d be where we are in their development, I would have paid a lot of money for that,” head coach Martin St. Louis said before Tuesday night’s game against the Kraken at Climate Pledge Arena. “You can’t speed-farm development. Those guys have taken a huge step in a short amount of time.
“Is it the amount of reps they get to have because of the early injuries we had?” St. Louis added. “Is it the style of play we allow them? Is it the brand that we play? I don’t know. I think it’s all a combination of everything, but it all starts with them.”
The Canadiens were missing veteran defenceman Mike Matheson for the first 17 games this season with an abdominal muscle strain, so St. Louis has had to use his four rookies a lot. Harris has been a healthy scratch four times, Kovacevic three times and Xhekaj twice.
Heading into Tuesday night’s game, Guhle ranked third among rookie NHL defencemen in ice time with an average of 20:18 per game, trailing the Buffalo Sabres’ Owen Power (23:36) and the Ottawa Senators’ Jake Sanderson (21:04). Harris ranked fifth (18:37), Kovacevic ranked ninth (17:05) and Xhekaj ranked 15th (15:37). Xhekaj led all rookie defencemen in goals with four.
“You can take them to the water, they got to drink it,” St. Louis said about his rookie defencemen. “I think they’ve done a really good job. Even with that said, they’ve done a good job but, still, there’s constant communication with them and constant teaching and stuff because you get to a point in development it is how long it’s going to take? When do you go to how far can you take it vs. how long it’s going to take? I don’t know when that is. But these guys are great players, great kids and I’m curious how far we can take it.”
Monahan sits out
Forward Sean Monahan has been playing in pain since this four-game road trip started last Thursday in Calgary, wearing a plastic-boot walking cast on his right foot when he wasn’t on the ice.
The pain finally got to be too much and Monahan wasn’t in the lineup Tuesday night in Seattle after playing in all of the first 25 games and posting 6-11-17 totals. He scored one of the goals in the Canadiens’ 7-6 overtime loss to the Canucks Monday night in Vancouver before having to leave in the second period.
“He’s a great example of what it takes to have a long career and be relevant in this league for a long time,” St. Louis said about Monahan, who is in his 10th NHL season after spending the first nine years with the Calgary Flames. “You’re not going to play at 100 per cent all the time and he’s given us some great hockey, great minutes at not being 100 per cent. And now he’s at a certain percentage, I guess, that he just can’t go. What that percentage is I don’t know and it varies from player to player. But we have some warriors in this locker room.”
Injuries are nothing new for Monahan. He had two hip surgeries in the last two years to repair the labrum on both sides. During his time in Calgary, Monahan also had wrist surgery, groin surgery and two hernia surgeries.
Flames GM Brad Treliving wanted to dump the final year of Monahan’s contract with a salary-cap hit of $6.375 million after the 28-year-old played through pain in his right hip last season and was limited to 8-15-23 totals in 65 games. Monahan had his second hip surgery in April and Canadiens GM Kent Hughes acquired him in August.
The Canadiens also received a conditional first-round pick at the 2025 NHL draft in the deal, which freed up money in Calgary so Treliving could sign free-agent Nazem Kadri to a seven-year, US$49-million contract.
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