From La Presse Canadienne
Steve Bégin is the biggest loser of the musical chair game happening on the fourth line. The 30 year old veteran is left on the press box more often than not by Guy Carbonneau who has too many veterans on his team.
Bégin played in only five of the 13 games so far and everything seem to indicate that he will still be sitting in the rafters Thursday against the Boston Bruins. He question his place on the team and asked to meet with his coach.
“I’m nervous, even during practice” he said.
The meeting was held Wednesday morning, just before the team practice.
“We had a good meeting” said Carbonneau. “Bégin is part of our team like Mathieu Dandenault or Patrice Brisebois. But we have a couple of extra veterans since the acquisition of Robert Lang, Alex Tanguay and Georges Laraque.”
“I could have asked to have some players traded but I didn’t. The team prefers to have depth. Sadly, we can only have 20 dressed players.”
Later in the article
“I can’t sit one of our top nine players. Those are players that can change a game. I don’t want to ssend Laraque in the stands. We didn’t hire him for that. As for Lapierre, he’s playing well.”
Carbonneau argue that a team can never have enough depth. Ask the New Jersey Devils who added a sixth player on the injury list.
Bégin is playing his sixth season in Montreal, if you count the lockout year. He will be Free Agent at the end of the season. It would be surprising to see the Canadiens offer him a contract. That’s why he hopes to see as much ice time as possible to help elevate his value on the market.