If all Chris Wideman accomplished in his second NHL stint was give some pause between who was a more deserving All-Star Game candidate between him and Nick Suzuki, consider it a job well done. Now that Wideman is retiring, it’s time to give him his due, not as a star who was even close to as valuable as Suzuki, but as an unheralded role player who filled a hole, and, as a result, clear need.
First things first: Any suggestion Wideman was a worthy Canadiens representative for the 2022 All-Star Game had to be considered blissfully ignorant at best. So, take NHL.com’s assessment to that effect with a grain of salt. It just so happens, at the time the piece in question was published, Wideman had enjoyed a fairly productive stretch of hockey. Through his first 22 games of that last-place 2021-22 season, he had scored two goals and nine points (a 34-point pace).
Wideman’s Triumphant NHL Return
The right-handed Wideman finished the season, his first back in North America after playing the infamous COVID-shortened 2020-21 campaign in the Kontinental Hockey League, with a career-high 27 through 64 contests. That 2020-21 campaign in the NHL, the Canadiens obviously made a surprise run to the Stanley Cup Final on the backs of Carey Price and the team’s top four on defense: Ben Chiarot, Joel Edmundson, Jeff Petry and captain Shea Weber.
Related: Canadiens’ Top 4 Defensemen Key to Stanley Cup
That was the right-handed Weber’s last action before he “retired,” effectively opening a spot on defense, further justifying then-general manager Marc Bergevin’s decision to take a one-year flyer on the offensively inclined Wideman. Of course, fellow-rightie David Savard, who also signed on that offseason earned more of the attention and ice time. In comparison, Wideman got the scraps, on a makeshift defense corps that featured 14 total names, with just Savard and Barron still remaining in the organization. That’s an impressive “accomplishment” and a reflection of how injured the Canadiens were at the time.
Another reflection of how badly that season went? All due respect to Wideman and those scraps he got, but he still led all Canadiens defensemen in average ice time on the power play per game, eventually tying Jeff Petry for the scoring lead from the blue line. It’s at least an extraordinary achievement in the sense the former had initially been seen as only capable of vying for a seventh-defenseman spot. It’s an admitted embarrassment in the sense that’s all Wideman really was, a seventh defenseman.
The Canadiens were always going to be in tough to replicate the previous season’s Stanley Cup Final run. On top of all the injuries, especially to Weber and Price, who went on to “retire” as well, the divisional re-alignment kind of indicated the deck was stacked against them from the drop. Bergevin’s shaky-at-best offseason didn’t help matters, which, on the bright side, did lead to his termination and the team’s eventual rebuild led by his successor, Kent Hughes. However, in spite of Bergevin’s questionable moves, which arguably includes Savard’s three-year contract, Wideman’s was just right for what he brought to the team: a body with experience and puck-moving ability.
Wideman Finds Fit with Canadiens
Proof came in the form of the two-year extension Hughes, whose mandate was to tear Bergevin’s team down, gave to Wideman. As alluded to at the time of the signing, extending Wideman is something you do when you’re rebuilding and in need of bodies. And that’s what the Canadiens got, a veteran who ended up taking a back seat to the team’s younger defenseman during the changing of the guard in 2022-23.
Sitting out all of 2023-24 due to a back injury, which ultimately ended his career, Wideman effectively gave the Habs what they needed, for as long as they needed him. Due to the well-documented logjam on defense, even if he had been healthy last season, there realistically just wouldn’t have been room for him. That isn’t to say the injury worked out for everyone involved. Clearly it didn’t, as Wideman retires at Age 34, when Weber had been 36 when he left the game.
Wideman could have had a few seasons left at least. An Eddie Shore Award winner as the American Hockey League’s best defenseman in 2015, he (re)proved himself as an NHL-calibre one with the Canadiens, at least one capable of putting the team above himself. They did give him job security, but he seemingly repaid that with loyalty and a willingness to do whatever or however little was required of him. On a team as reliant on its young defensemen as the Habs have become, that’s actually huge. Had he been healthy, well… there’s no shortage of rebuilding teams in need of something similar as to what he delivered over his three, technically two seasons in Montreal.
Teams need their Suzukis. They also need their Widemans, though. Suzuki was the right choice for the 2022 All-Star Game, eventually his first of three straight. Wideman was the right choice for the Canadiens on defense the previous offseason. It should be noted making the NHL is an accomplishment in its own right. Making it back is arguably a bigger one. Earning an extension to justify the second chance someone took on you? Wideman did all that. That’s not even taking into account all he did (so much more) for the Canadiens.
