Don’t mistake progression for perfection. There are still holes in Montreal Canadiens defenseman Justin Barron’s game, after all. That has been evident since he first drew into the lineup after Kaiden Guhle got hurt a few games into the season.
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Having made the team out of training camp, Barron had to wait for what has seemed like the inevitable injury bug to take effect in the Canadiens’ locker room. With Guhle now back and David Savard now injured (for significantly longer), Barron has become a fixture in the lineup, for better and worse.
For example, in the team’s latest game, a 4-3 shootout victory over the Winnipeg Jets on Oct. 29, Barron put one in on a mini-breakaway to tie the game just 37 seconds after Adam Lowry had opened the scoring. However, he also flipped the puck into the stands to take a potentially costly delay-of-game penalty late in the second period that bled into the final frame. It’s arguably only happenstance that Joel Armia scored just after the penalty was ending to tie the game. Armia never scores.
Canadiens Bail Out Barron
It was a pivotal point in the game. The Jets had had a 3-1 lead at one point and the Canadiens had pulled within one. Had the Jets scored on that man advantage, it realistically could have put the game out of reach, considering the Habs as a whole were getting badly outshot (45-29 in the game) and outplayed (albeit not as much as in a lopsided first).
Unfortunately, in his five games this season Barron has shown that same knack for taking inopportune penalties. Against the Columbus Blue Jackets on Oct. 26, another 4-3 comeback victory, he got called for tripping late in the first with the score already 1-0. Emil Benstrom subsequently put the Blue Jackets up 2-0.
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What’s worse is Barron was also indirectly responsible for the first goal against. He found himself in perfect position to prevent Jack Roslovic from scoring off a Johnny Gaudreau pass from the other side of the net, but couldn’t take the man in time, leading to an easy tip-in.
The Good in Barron’s Game
That’s obviously the bad. However, it’s hard to dismiss the good. Before Barron got his first of three on the season against the Buffalo Sabres on Oct. 23, no other Canadiens defenseman had scored in their four previous games. Now the team’s defense has five (two for Mike Matheson) in the four games since.
Furthermore, before Barron got into the lineup the power play had scored a meager single goal in 11 opportunities (9.1%). In the five games he’s played, it’s scored six (20 opportunities; 30%).
Granted, Barron hasn’t figured in on any of those goals, getting just 17 seconds of power-play ice time per game this season. However, he has helped on the penalty kill in Savard’s absence, contributing 1:14 per game shorthanded.
On one hand, it’s hard to dismiss Savard’s team-leading 5:12 per game on the penalty kill. It’s admittedly been stronger in the five games the Canadiens have played with him (23 for 29; 79%) than the three without (8 for 12; 66.7%). However, those are small sample sizes compared to his first two Habs seasons.
In 2021-22, the Canadiens were ranked No. 27 at 75.6%. In 2022-23, they were ranked No. 29 at 72.7%. The 2021-22 team had Ben Chiarot leading the team in shorthanded ice time. Aside from Savard there was also Alexander Romanov and Joel Edmundson. Edmundson meanwhile led the team in shorthanded ice time last season. Mike Matheson, Kaiden Guhle, Johnathan Kovacevic and Jordan Harris rounded out the leaders in that category in 2022-23.
Room for Barron… to Improve
So, it’s somewhat apparent the team is moving away from more of a purely defensive mindset in terms of the players they deploy. That kind of fits in with what general manager Kent Hughes mentioned as his mindset to construct the team when he first got hired, i.e., “an offensive-minded hockey club” in a perfect world.
That doesn’t necessarily render Savard obsolete. He’s under contract until 2025, and after Edmundson got dealt this past offseason, it seems unlikely the Canadiens would also trade away their last true stay-at-home defenseman. However, with more all-around defensemen like Kovacevic and Guhle poised to pick up the penalty-killing slack in Savard’s absence, it opens the door for Barron to prove he belongs, while also working on the undeniable deficiencies in his game.
Barron obviously had a bad training camp. However, the Canadiens keeping him up at the expense of someone like Gustav Lindstrom shows he still figures into their long-term plans, as if there was ever any doubt, based on the circumstances surrounding his arrival.
Getting into the lineup was one step, albeit out of necessity due to injuries. Barron’s realistically got a few months before Savard returns to prove he belongs. No one’s expecting him to completely realize his potential in that time, just take further steps in his development. Again, it’s a progression. The team’s headed in that direction too. He just needs to do his part.. at both ends of the ice.
