Victor Mete Playing On Wrong Side
Written by Fred Arshoff & Chad Martin
Some of you may have noticed that, since the qualification round of the NHL (National Hockey League), Victor Mete has been playing right defence as a LH dman.
Mete has been partnered with Xavier Ouellet who also is a left defence normally.
We don’t like the ideal of any defence accept in special circumstances such as on the power play, playing on their opposite normal side, as all the plays are reversed. This can lead to mistakes by turning the wrong way, not easily corralling the puck on the blue line, or blocking out goalies line of sight with his stick positioned incorrect in the defensive zone.
What we don’t know or try to guess (as we’re not medical professionals or athletic trainers) if this is due to the broken foot Mete had before the stoppage of hockey due to the Corona virus. If can’t turn as well in his normal direction this is understandable and in that case we fully understand this move,
If this due to to Brett Kulak passing Mete on the team’s depth chart, or that Kulak is bigger thus able to handle the bigger players on the opposition, in this case we can also understand Mete being on the third pairing defence.
Its not like the Montreal Canadiens don’t have any right defence with them in the bubble in Toronto. For right handed defence they have and haven’t played yet are Cale Fluery, Noah Juusen and Josh Brock, Of these three Brock has the least professional hockey experience as this is his first year playing professional so we can fully understand not playing him unless there where a lot of injuries to the defence. In the case of Juulssem we can see them being a bit afraid due to his history of injuries missing most of last season and a good part of this season (although just before the hockey stoppage he resumed playing and had no side effects). The biggest concern the is if early in the game he takes a hard hit and gets concussion like systems they would be down to five defence for the rest of the game, which would put added pressure on the others. Who we would like to see be dressed instead of Ouellet is Cale Fluery and this season before being demoted played with Mete so there is no chemistry problem. We’re sure that when Fluery was sent down to Laval Rockets ( Montreal Canadiens AHL (American Hockey League) affiliate that head coach Joel Bouchard and his assistants worked with Flurry to get him NHL ready. Just recall last year when Mete was sent down how quickly the Laval coaching staff fixed Mete’s game and he hasn’t been sent back down since.
It’s also not due to Ouellet having a lot more NHL playoff experience then the others as going into the qualification round Ouellet has only played one NHL playoff game and the other no playoff games at the professional level. If it was forty games We could see why they would want an experienced playoff player being with a sophomore player and helping calm his nerves, To us one game is not really any different than none.
Add to all of this the aggressive end to game 5 and Fluery becomes a clear candidate to pair with either Mete or Ouellet.
Please Kirk Muller play Fluery on the RH side so we will have a right and left handed defence on each pair..
Montreal Sports 