Welcome back to another edition of NHL Rumours from the crew at Last Word on Hockey. We’re at the quarter mark of the season, and teams are starting to get a glimpse of where they stand in the league. Some teams have been bitten hard by the injury bug and are looking to make improvements to keep their position in the standings. One of those teams is the Montreal Canadiens. In this edition of the NHL Rumours, we focus on the Canadiens search for a centreman given their recent injury concerns.<\/p>\n
All NHL Rumours come from their original source and are subject to change.<\/em><\/p>\n Rumour: On the latest edition of 32 Thoughts<\/a>, Elliotte Friedman mentioned that the Canadiens are currently looking for a stopgap at centre, given the recent injuries to Kirby Dach<\/a> and Alex Newhook<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n Analysis: It’s no surprise that the Canadiens are in the market for a centre. They have been since the beginning<\/a> of the season. However, with their recent injuries, there’s a sense of urgency there to get something done. There was some thought that the Canadiens may have attempted to make a claim on John Beecher<\/a>, who was placed on waivers by the Boston Bruins<\/a>. However, the Calgary Flames<\/a> evidently swooped in and claimed him. They were also rumoured to be interested in David Kampf<\/a>, who ended up signing with the Vancouver Canucks<\/a> after his contract was terminated in a mutual agreement with the Toronto Maple Leafs. With both those options off the table, the Canadiens head back to the drawing board.<\/p>\n Realistically, a stopgap isn’t what is needed in Montreal. They’ve been in the market for a centre since the beginning of the season for a reason. That thought hasn’t changed; it’s only become more evident. The only left-handed centres on the roster are Newhook and Joe Veleno<\/a>. With Newhook out and Veleno only actually getting into the lineup when the Canadiens suffered injury problems, this is not good enough to move forward with for the rest of<\/em> the season.<\/p>\n To further the centre problem, their second-line centre, Dach, is now out for 4-6 weeks<\/a> with a fractured foot. Injuries have been a constant problem for Dach throughout his career, so the Canadiens need a more concrete option there regardless. With all due respect, Kampf nor Beecher were the answer to this problem. If they truly want a stopgap, players like Owen Beck<\/a> or Florian Xhekaj could be recalled from Laval, or the aforementioned Joe Veleno could step in.<\/p>\n The market is extremely thin when it comes to inexpensive centres. It would also be a waste of assets for the Canadiens to make any sort of move for a stopgap centreman. What they need is a true number two centreman so that when their injured players finally return, they will have the player they’ve been longing for. Players like Nazem Kadri<\/a> or Ryan O’Reilly<\/a> have been named and should continue to be the focus for the Canadiens.<\/p>\n Main Photo: \u00a0Eric Bolte-Imagn Images<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Welcome back to another edition of NHL Rumours from the crew at Last Word on Hockey. We’re at the quarter mark of the season, and teams are starting to get a glimpse of where they stand in the league. Some teams have been bitten hard by the injury bug and are looking to make improvements […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2506,"featured_media":476069,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2,4547,7,34,4548,4321],"tags":[6126],"class_list":["post-478093","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-hockey","category-canadiens","category-news","category-nhl","category-rumours","tag-montreal-canadiens-rumours"],"modified_by":"Colton Osmond, Dept Manager","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/478093","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2506"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=478093"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/478093\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":478182,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/478093\/revisions\/478182"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/476069"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=478093"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=478093"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=478093"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}NHL Rumours: Canadiens Looking to Improve at the Centre Position<\/h2>\n
Canadiens Need a Second Line Centre<\/h3>\n