Your Montreal Canadiens are not an offensive powerhouse, and I don't think I'm enlightening any of you by writing that.
The absence of Tomas Plekanec only makes that fact even more obvious, at least it did Tuesday night in a 2-0 loss to the Buffalo Sabres where Ryan Miller could have pitched the shutout in his sleep.
Plekanec taking the ice with his teammates at practice Tuesday morning makes his presence Thursday night in Boston a very real possibility, one I think may have shifted into the realm of a guarantee after his teammates were unable to generate anything of a dangerous nature against Buffalo.
It's been four straight games the Canadiens have not been without their leading scorer, and it just so happens that in one of them they managed to produce a season-high eight goals.
But the power play over those four games is 2-for-14, producing 20 shots on goal on those 14 chances, while Tuesday was the first time over those four games the penalty killing unit was perfect.
Jacques Martin said after Tuesday's game that when you spend too much time in your own zone and you get tired trying to get the puck, you take penalties. That, to me, shows the dire need for Plekanec to return in order for the Canadiens to have any semblance of a chance in Boston, because his presence would cut down on the number of shifts where Montreal is pinned in its own end.
Don't get me wrong, the Canadiens have done an excellent job competing in the absence of Plekanec and Jeff Halpern, and it's given an opportunity for Lars Eller and David Desharnais to assert themselves and gain some confidence.
I found the Desharnais line to be Montreal's most dangerous against Buffalo, taking advantage of favourable match-up situations most of the night, and Desharnais has stepped right into Plekanec's spot killing penalties with Travis Moen.
Yes, Desharnais was on for Nathan Gerbe's game-winner on one of those exhausting shifts Martin was referring to, but he had himself a solid game in my eyes in spite of his minus-2 rating.
Eller, on the other hand, did not have one of his better games, but that will happen from time to time. Overall, he's been good, showing consistent improvement and building confidence.
With Plekanec playing, those two guys become the team's bottom six centres, the ones that can find ways to beat the opposition's third pair of defencemen or third and fourth lines. Without Plekanec, one of the two is forced into a less favourable match-up.
Against a team like Boston where three lines roll without skipping a beat, and a fourth can come and lay a pounding on you while playing a regular shift, pushing everyone down the depth chart a notch by sliding Plekanec in would be vital.
