Who should be Shea Weber’s partner? This is the big question that the Habs have to answer following the acquisition of the defenseman.
The bright side of the World Cup is that it gave Carey Price some much needed game experience prior to the season, but unfortunately it also made Weber unavailable for the team during preseason, which is the ideal time to test defensive pairings.
The Canadiens don't really have an obvious answer in the mold of Ryan Suter or Roman Josi, Weber’s previous partners. The ideal defenseman would have the following characteristics:
- He’d be left-handed, since Weber is right-handed;
- He’d have strong puck transition skills, as this is an area where Weber prefers to defer to his partner
- And last but not least, he would have the capacity to play a large workload of minutes, and to regularly face top pairing opposition, as this is the role that Weber is likely to fill.