{"id":234846,"date":"2025-10-10T05:05:13","date_gmt":"2025-10-10T05:05:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/234846\/"},"modified":"2025-10-10T05:05:13","modified_gmt":"2025-10-10T05:05:13","slug":"montreal-canadiens-may-finally-have-found-their-second-line-center","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/234846\/","title":{"rendered":"Montreal Canadiens May Finally Have Found Their Second-Line Center"},"content":{"rendered":"

Montreal Canadiens May Finally Have Found Their Second-Line Center <\/p>\n

\"Photo<\/p>\n

Photo credit: Canadiens<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tThe Montreal Canadiens began the 2025-2026 season with Oliver Kapanen<\/a> as the second-line center.We all know that Kent Hughes worked hard during the offseason to acquire a second centerman to support Nick Suzuki<\/a>.Because the trade market was rather difficult for getting a center, the organization is taking a gamble by going with the Swedish forward to pivot the second unit alongside Alex Newhook<\/a> and Ivan Demidov<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Montreal Canadiens have chosen their second center: Oliver Kapanen comes in as reinforcements for the top 6 this 2025-2026 season<\/p>\n

“Yes, Kapanen is a good hockey player and, yes, he has some long-term potential, but as of today, he only has 21 games of experience in the show.<\/p>\n

And he has collected only three small assists in his NHL career.”<\/p>\n

– Max Truman<\/p>\n

Even though Kapanen had a good camp with the Canadiens, the fact remains that few experts expected him to be second only to Nick Suzuki in the team’s center hierarchy.<\/p>\n

As you can tell, he’s off to a strong start already!<\/p>\n

“First two scorers last night: Kappy and Boldy
First two scorers tonight: Kappy and Boldy”<\/p>\n

– Canadiens<\/p>\n

You could even go as far as saying this shows a lack of confidence from the organization in Alex Newhook and Kirby Dach<\/a>, who were specifically acquired by Kent Hughes to address weaknesses at the center position.<\/p>\n

The two young talents from the 2019 draft have not managed to deliver what was expected of them when the Canadiens’ GM brought them in through trades in 2022 and 2023.<\/p>\n

Still, Kapanen must be given the chance to play on the second line, and if he happens to find chemistry with Demidov and Newhook, it would be a huge boost for the entire organization. And early signs suggest things are trending in the right direction.<\/p>\n

Previously on HabsFanatics<\/p>\n

POLL<\/p>\n

4 HOURS AGO\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0|\u00a0\u00a0\u00a081 ANSWERS<\/p>\n

Montreal Canadiens May Finally Have Found Their Second-Line Center<\/p>\n

Is Oliver Kapanen the long-awaited second-line center the Canadiens have been looking for?<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"HockeyRetourVosPOOL<\/a><\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\tHABSFANATICS.COM
COPYRIGHT @2025 – ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
TERMS<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0–\u00a0\u00a0POLICIES<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Montreal Canadiens May Finally Have Found Their Second-Line Center Photo credit: Canadiens The Montreal Canadiens began the 2025-2026…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":234847,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[633,5,638,2418,412,21,4,1618],"class_list":{"0":"post-234846","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-alex-newhook","9":"tag-hockey","10":"tag-ivan-demidov","11":"tag-lineup","12":"tag-martin-st-louis","13":"tag-montreal-canadiens","14":"tag-nhl","15":"tag-oliver-kapanen"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/115348132853719938","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234846","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=234846"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234846\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/234847"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=234846"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=234846"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=234846"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}