Who Should Be Called Up To Help?

The Montreal Canadiens were enjoying some smooth sailing of late, winning games and keeping the injuries at bay...until fate hit Emil Heineman with a car. Now, the rookie will miss between three to four weeks and as we've seen last night, the right piece for the hole he leaves in the lineup isn't with the team already.

While it was understandable to see Martin St-Louis give little to no ice time to Michael Pezzetta when he was meant to fill in for Patrik Laine on the second line, one would have thought the situation would have been different on the fourth line, but it wasn't. The penalty he took in his first shift last night sealed his fate.

Who should be called up? Somebody who will thrive in a fourth line winger role. Not Owen Beck even though he's had a great season so far, he's a center and not a wrecking ball of a winger. Not Joshua Roy, he's a scoring winger and he just won't thrive down there.

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Two candidates should be seriously considered: Luke Tuch and Jared Davidson. In 26 games so far this season, the former has only put up nine points and picked up 35 penalty minutes while keeping a plus-three rating. As for the latter, he has been dressed for 31 games and gathered 22 points and 30 penalty minutes along the way and he's a plus-12.

Emil Heineman led the team in hits with 101 before being injured, but he also brough regular secondary scoring. 10 goals in 41 games for a rookie is impressive, but it's even more impressive given his limited ice time. More importantly though, he's "annoying to play against" as St-Louis has often said because he plays an heavy forechecking game.

Tuch and Davidson could both fit the bill, but considering the latter has performed better so far this year, he should be the one getting the call. Ultimately, Kent Hughes will have the last say as the GM and if they call someone up today, we won't get to speak to the player until tomorrow as the Canadiens have a travelling day today and there's no press availability scheduled.

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