Habster:
It doesn’t make a lot of sense to recall Ryan O’Byrne if Guy Carbonneau doesn’t show more patience with the hulking defenseman.
O’Byrne has enough potential that Carbo should give him a good 10-15 games playing along side veteran Roman Hamrlik to prove himself. Let’s be honest, the Canadiens defense has struggled as a whole with Josh Gorges and Hamrlik playing below their usual steady selves (it goes without saying that Brisebois should be added to the list).
The defense has particularly struggled with clearing the front of the net and down low containment, something O’Byrne does fairly well.
The area where he has had problems is his tendency to play the puck instead of the man when forwards are coming into the defensive zone with speed. He relies too much on his long reach which leaves him vunrable to being turned inside out thus resulting in quality scoring chances/goals.
Here’s a prime example: Johan Franzen’s AMAZING Goal Against The Habs
In the end, I welcome the return of Ryan O’Byrne to the Canadiens roster. Hopefully, he has received some fine tuning under the watchful eyes of Don Lever and Ron Wilson in Hamilton while being afforded the same with the Canadiens coaching staff when/if he gets the call-up.
