It baffles me that some posters are concerned with the 2nd line winger than the 1st line center position. Some suggest Galchenyuk should play center, others will point that this will leave a big gap on wing for the 2nd line.
Our biggest weakness right now is our 1st line center position and this will most certainly hurt us in the playoffs.
How hard is this to understand?
The problem is not just one of wing versus center. It's who do you play Galchenyuk with? If you play him as first line center with Patches, the second line's quality plummets. The opponents can key on just one line.
If you play him at center, and don't put him with Patches, there are no other scoring wingers he can feed (Gallagher is mostly a garbage goal scorer, not someone to feed pretty passes to).
It is better to split the two players at 5-on-5 at this time, given who our other wingers are. It is better to have two 1A and 1B lines, or even call them 2A and 2B, by putting Galchenyuk with Plekanec and Gallagher, and Pacioretty with Desharnais and Weise or Parenteau or even Smith-Pelley. I wouyd actually consider the line that has three of our four best forwards (Pleks, Chucky and Gally) the "first" line, and the one that has one of our four best forwards (Patches) the "second" line. The first line can even play more minutes because it needs no sheltering.
Where I disagree more strongly with the coach is in not putting Pacioretty and Galchenyuk together on a the first wave of the PP for 1min20.
There is nothing wrong with occasionally putting 67 and 27 together, but there is more value in splitting them at 5-on-5 like the Hawks do with Toews and Kane (most of the time).
Perhaps once McCarron and Scherbak arrive and are legitimate top-6 players, Galchenyuk could play on a super-strong first line with Patches and say McCarron, while Pleks and Gallagher could get Scherbak, who would sort of replace Chucky in the latter's current role, once he is capable. Or the Habs could sign a top offensive player as a FA or get one via trade, if we aren't willing to wait for Big Mac or Nikita.
So again, it isn't a question of forcing Galchenyuk into the center position so much as balancing more than one line of offensive punch. Plekanec may not be one of the top first-line centers in the league, but he is good enough to keep us way,way up n the standings.
Desharnais is small and not overly speedy, and may only have middle-six scoring potential, but that is acceptable if our 3rd and 4th line centremen are big guys who are strong defensively like Eller, DeLaRose or Malhotra. Pleks can play in any situation, Eller and DeLaRose can handle bigger opponents, and Desharnais can play in an exploitation role at 15 minutes. But get Davey off the first PP unit!!!
