Newhook’s return to Canadiens spurs competition needed for playoff sprint

BROSSARD, Que. — Kirby Dach left off on the foot he’d always hoped to stand on with the Montreal Canadiens — with five points banked over a 4-0-1 chase before the Olympic break, with his position in the top six seemingly solidified, and with the confidence of a player who’d finally processed everything needed to be the best version of himself at this level.

Alex Newhook watched from the sidelines undoubtedly pleased for Dach, but also eager for the opportunity to knock his teammate off his perch.

It’s been 10 weeks of waiting. It must’ve felt like an eternity to Newhook after having his best start to an NHL season painfully abbreviated by a displaced fracture of his right ankle on Nov. 13 that forced him under the knife Nov. 14.

But now the 25-year-old is out to reclaim his place in the Canadiens’ hierarchy.

“I’m not trying to ease back into it,” said Newhook, “I’ve done the work to get back and I’m trying to get back to where I left off.”

It’s exactly what you’d want to hear from him on the eve of his long-anticipated return to the Canadiens’ lineup. 

This team needs that level of hunger — from Newhook, Dach, and from everyone else battling for position in the strongest internal competition that’s taken shape here since the rebuild began in 2022.

“For me, as a coach, it’s the first time I have that type of depth,” said Martin St. Louis, after keeping Dach next to Nick Suzuki and Cole Caufield for Wednesday’s practice.

The coach also united Newhook and Alexandre Texier with Jake Evans, and pushed Joe Veleno, Zachary Bolduc and Jayden Struble to the bubble of the lineup, where Patrik Laine remains (without official clearance to return to games, despite returning as a full participant to practice in the middle of January). Then St. Louis called managing the team’s bolstered depth “an adaptation” before predictably referring to it as “a good problem” to have.

We’d consider it the best problem for a Canadiens team that’s not guaranteed an upgrade on the trade market before the March 6 deadline.

Their game against the New York Islanders at the Bell Centre Thursday will be their first of 25 games over the 47-night sprint to the Stanley Cup Playoffs. They’re positioned to enter it in sixth place in the NHL and second place in the Atlantic Division — a cushier spot than the ones most the teams they’ll face before the end of the regular season occupy — and they will need that heightened internal competition to help them manufacture the urgency their pursuers will naturally have.

“I think that’ll keep pushing everyone to be at their best every time,” said Canadiens captain Nick Suzuki.

He’ll likely be right if the players handle it the way they’re supposed to.

“Your mind has to be stronger than your emotions in any thing and, as a player, I’ve lived it,” said St. Louis. “You want to do everything you can to be part of the 12 forwards, the six forwards, the two goalies. You try to control what you can and stay hungry. When you get your chance, you’ve got to take advantage of it.”

That’s how Bolduc, Veleno and Struble must approach it.

But not just them.

Arber Xhekaj has been in the driver’s seat of the competition with Struble since the start of the season, and yet his fight to remain there will have to be stronger than it’s been to date. Texier’s impressive start with the Canadiens — which earned him a two-year extension just two months after having his contract ripped up by the St. Louis Blues — doesn’t guarantee him a position ahead of Bolduc and Veleno. And while Dach and Newhook are positioned to be mainstays in the lineup, they’re in direct competition with each other for the most premium position.

Dach’s recent play, since being placed next to Suzuki and Caufield shortly after returning from an eight-week absence from a fractured bone in his ankle, gives him the narrowest edge.

For now.

“He came in with what I feel like were some great defensive details,” said St. Louis. “And, obviously, he’s been rewarded offensively, but I feel like it starts with these actions away from the puck defensively, whether it’s blocking shot, a hard backcheck, whatever it is. Just feel he’s been very engaged.”

That’s the way Dach must continue to be, because everything the coach said about him applies to what led Newhook to post six goals and 12 points and a plus-7 through the first 17 games of the season.

St. Louis plans to ease the Newfoundlander back in after such a lengthy absence.

But he also might be able to vault Newhook up the lineup sooner than expected.

“It’s been a long time since he played, but watching practice this week — I know it’s just practice, and we’ll see how he looks in games — I find he’s got jump,” St. Louis said.

Dach’s had it, too, leaving both players in position to have the type of impact president of hockey operations Jeff Gorton and general manager Kent Hughes hoped they’d have when they traded premium assets to acquire them.

The goal in fetching Dach from Chicago for first- and third-round picks at the 2022 NHL Draft, and in going to get Newhook out of Colorado a year later for first- and second-round picks, was to accelerate the rebuild. 

Major injuries for both players got in the way, but both are now primed to help the Canadiens emerge from an even more critical phase.

And Newhook and Dach both know it.

“I think you look at the teams that win in the playoffs, that have success, they’re four lines deep, and they have depth, and they have guys that can score on any line,” said Dach. “So, for Newy and myself, it’s about coming back and being confident and playing our game. I think we can add a lot, and if we’re both healthy, it adds to the team quite a bit.”

It should add the depth and balance that makes the Canadiens even better than they’ve been.