Montreal Canadiens: Excitement Over Joel Edmundson’s Return Says Everything About Habs Season

The Montreal Canadiens season might be over already after a disastrous 21 game stint to begin the year.

There are several reasons for their difficult start, and injuries are certainly part of the problem. When a team is missing players like Carey Price and Shea Weber, they have to be expected to stumble a little bit.

No one could have expected the Canadiens to stumble to a 5-14-2 start. It has the team grasping at straws on how to change their fortunes. It has the team franticly looking for something to draw hope from. It has the team very excited about the return of … Joel Edmundson.

Now, Canadiens defenceman Joel Edmundson is a fine, reliable, defensive defenceman. He can be counted on to play big minutes and he isn’t going to hurt the team. He can kill penalties and is willing to block shots and play against tough competition. He did it all the way to the Stanley Cup Final last season. Now, he will be expected to fix the broken Canadiens when he makes his likely return tonight against the Buffalo Sabres.

But he isn’t going to fix all the problems these Canadiens are dealing with right now.

While Edmundson is a fine defensive defender, he is very limited offensively. The team does need help in the defensive zone, and Edmundson will likely end up on the first pairing with Jeff Petry, playing tons of minutes at even strength and the penalty kill.

That will help, but everyone being so excited about Joel Edmundson getting back into the lineup says an awful lot about the state of the team.

They are so down, bad and beaten up that a reliable defensive blue liner who is best suited as a number four option on a good team is going to be asked to fix the team’s entire defensive scheme, its penalty kill and also it’s best defenceman.

Jeff Petry has not played well this season. He played all of last season with Edmundson and the pair were a terrific duo, shutting things down defensively while Petry also piled up points as well. This season, Petry has two points in 21 games without Edmundson.

Now that Edmundson is returning to the lineup, many fans will expect to see the Petry of old show up this evening. With his familiar partner back, Petry should have a little boost, but will he flip the switch and start playing like a fringe Norris candidate again?

That’s a lot of pressure on Edmundson. Please, after a 21 game absence, step in and fix the defensive system, the entire penalty kill and turn Jeff Petry back into Jeff Petry.

So much of the team’s success in the near future relies on Edmundson fixing all its ails. Edmundson is just fine at his job and in his role, but the fact the team needs him to be Larry Robinson to be successful says an awful lot about the state of the Montreal Canadiens right now.