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Montreal Canadiens<\/a> coach Martin St. Louis will have a huge decision to make in the coming days. Michael Hage, the team\u2019s top prospect, is currently vying for a college national championship with the University of Michigan. Assuming the top-seeded Wolverines<\/a> make it to the title game, Hage\u2019s season would be over the night of April 11.<\/p>\n Montreal is widely expected to sign the star center whenever Michigan is finished playing. Nevertheless, there is still a debate over whether the Canadiens will bring Hage straight to the NHL or send him to the AHL\u2019s Laval Rocket. The phenom could only be available to play in Montreal\u2019s final regular-season game on April 14.<\/p>\n Montreal Gazette\u2019s Stu Cowan<\/a> firmly believes that the Canadiens will not only use the phenom but deploy him in their second line. If so, Hage would likely join forces with fellow rookies Ivan Demidov and Oliver Kapanen. Having a full line of rookies heading into the playoffs could be risky. This is, of course, if St. Louis ultimately sticks with Hage for the upcoming postseason.<\/p>\n On top of this, promoting Hate straight to the second line would push out a key Canadiens contributor. Alex Newhook has been used on the line<\/a> alongside Demidov and Kapanen. While he has played just 37 games so far this season, Newhook does have a respectable 23 points<\/a> on the campaign. Veteran forwards Kirby Dach and Alexandre Texier will also return soon<\/a> after recovering from injuries.<\/p>\n Michael Hage\u2019s Situation With Montreal Canadiens Feels Familiar GettyMichael Hage is trying to win an NCAA championship before joining Montreal.<\/p>\n Some Montreal Canadiens fans may compare Hage\u2019s situation to Demidov\u2019s from a year ago. The Russian was thrown straight into Montreal\u2019s lineup after signing a professional deal last April. Nevertheless, as The Athletic\u2019s Arpon Basu<\/a> points out, the circumstances are quite different. Due to the team\u2019s roster at the time, Demidov\u2019s inclusion was not a difficult decision.<\/p>\n Montreal also needed a boost just to make the playoffs at the time of the Russian\u2019s arrival. This time around, the Canadiens have already locked up a postseason spot and are currently eyeing an Atlantic Division title. Does St. Louis risk rocking the boat to help give his current group a shot in the arm?<\/p>\n The highly-rated Hage could certainly help out Montreal\u2019s offense. The Athletic\u2019s Scott Wheeler recently rated the phenom as the 21st-best prospect in hockey<\/a>. The former 2024 first-round pick has racked up 51 points (13 goals and 38 assists<\/a>) during his sophomore season in Ann Arbor. The tally is currently tied for fourth<\/a> in the entire NCAA.<\/p>\n Canadiens Could use More Offensive Depth<\/p>\n The Canadiens are heading to the playoffs as one of the hottest teams in the NHL. They are currently averaging an impressive 3.45 goals per game<\/a> on the campaign. Only four other clubs have a better figure in the league. Despite this, Montreal is fairly top-heavy. The team\u2019s top line of Cole Caufield, Nick Suzuki, and Juraj Slafkovsky has combined to score 105 total goals<\/a> this season.<\/p>\n However, the Canadiens have just one other player (Kapanen) who has managed to score more than 17 goals. To put this in perspective, the Carolina Hurricanes<\/a> have four players to reach 18 goals<\/a> outside of their top trio. The introduction of Hage would give Montreal more depth, while also potentially helping Demidov boost his scoring.<\/p>\n \n\t\t\tChristopher Moore<\/a> Christopher Moore has been a Heavy.com contributor since 2025. With over a decade of experience in the industry, he has published thousands of articles reporting on multiple professional sports. He was previously a sports writer for World Soccer Talk, the Yahoo! Contributor Network, and the Maryland Sports Blog. More about Christopher Moore<\/a>\t\t<\/p>\n \n\t\t\tMore Heavy on Canadiens\n\t\t<\/p>\n \n\t\t\t\tLoading more stories\n\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Getty Montreal Canadiens coach Martin St. Louis will have a huge decision to make in the coming days.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":545797,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5103],"tags":[265,5,264,21,5147,4],"class_list":{"0":"post-545796","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-montreal-canadiens","8":"tag-canadiens","9":"tag-hockey","10":"tag-montreal","11":"tag-montreal-canadiens","12":"tag-montrealcanadiens","13":"tag-nhl"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116364311171651734","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/545796","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=545796"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/545796\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/545797"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=545796"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=545796"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=545796"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/GettyImages-2267773297-e1775574979127.jpg\")
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