Canadiens Defensive Pairings Options Should Carrier Be Injured

Montreal Canadiens defenceman Alexandre Carrier did travel with the team ahead of their Game 5 matchup with the Washington Capitals, however, it remains to be seen if he’ll be cleared to play.

Carrier was levelled by Capitals forward Tom Wilson in Game 4, and the mere fact that he’s travelling should be considered a good sign. But if he is forced to miss a game, the situation becomes rather complicated for the Habs.

They will not call up any players from the AHL, as the team’s affiliate, the Laval Rocket, are set to begin their playoff push on Wednesday. It’s also worth noting the Rocket are the top team in the league, which explains why the Canadiens are not in any hurry to pilfer their talent.

Brendan Gallagher, Josh Anderson et David Savard (journée de traitements) ainsi qu’Alexandre Carrier (sous évaluation quotidienne) ne participent pas à l’entraînement d’aujourd’hui.

Brendan Gallagher, Josh Anderson and David Savard (maintenance day) as well as Alexandre Carrier…

— x – Canadiens Montréal (@CanadiensMTL) April 29, 2025

Montreal Canadiens Defensive Options

Of course, defenceman Jayden Struble can re-enter the lineup, which means Montreal will have six healthy defencemen available, but the finding the best combination will be difficult.

The Lane Hutson and Kaiden Guhle pairing has been dominant versus the Capitals, controlling well over 58 percent of the shots, and almost 57 percent of the high-danger chances. Without Carrier in the mix, head coach Martin St-Louis could be tempted to spread the talent a little more evenly. The risk in this situation is that you’re disassembling your best pairing in a desperate attempt to prop up a broken pairing. Given the team is in a do-or-die situation, it doesn’t feel like a logical approach. At the very least, you want to enter the game with one dependable pairing.

That leaves the Canadiens with four healthy defencemen: Mike Matheson, Jayden Struble, Arber Xhekaj, and David Savard.

The only combination that worked well in the regular season was Xhekaj – Struble, and there’s certainly logic to re-uniting them, but they did most of their strong work on the third pairing. If St-Louis uses them sparingly, it would leave a Matheson – Savard pairing in place, and their results during the regular season were far from encouraging, if not limited. In 50 minutes of 5v5 ice time alongside each other, the pairing controlled slightly more than 30 percent of all the important statistical categories. In other words, it was a bloodbath.

If we continue our dive into some of the potential pairings, we can also suggest Matheson struggled alongside most players not named Hutson during the regular season. To his credit, he and Carrier actually did pretty well in a difficult situation against the Capitals, but the pairing has lost its stalwart defensive presence.

Assuming St-Louis is not going to demote Matheson to the third pairing, as it stands, the best bet according to the stats would be to use Struble on the second pairing with Matheson, while keeping Xhekaj and Savard on the third pairing.

It’s not perfect, but few things are by the time you’re in the playoffs.

Projected Potential Montreal Canadiens Defensive Pairings

Lane Hutson – Kaiden Guhle

Mike Matheson – Jayden Struble

Arber Xhekaj – David Savard