If all Chris Wideman accomplished in his second NHL stint was give some pause between who was a more deserving All-Star Game candidate between him and Nick Suzuki, consider it a job well done. Now that Wideman is retiring, it’s time to give him his due, not as a star who was even close to as valuable as Suzuki, but as an unheralded role player who filled a hole, and, as a result, clear need.
First things first: Any suggestion Wideman was a worthy Canadiens representative for the 2022 All-Star Game had to be considered blissfully ignorant at best. So, take NHL.com’s assessment to that effect with a grain of salt. It just so happens, at the time the piece in question was published, Wideman had enjoyed a fairly productive stretch of hockey. Through his first 22 games of that last-place 2021-22 season, he had scored two goals and nine points (a 34-point pace).
Wideman’s Triumphant NHL Return
The right-handed Wideman finished the season, his first back in North America after playing the infamous COVID-shortened 2020-21 campaign in the Kontinental Hockey League, with a career-high 27 through 64 contests. That 2020-21 campaign in the NHL, the Canadiens obviously made a surprise run to the Stanley Cup Final on the backs of Carey Price and the team’s top four on defense: Ben Chiarot, Joel Edmundson, Jeff Petry and captain Shea Weber.
Related: Canadiens’ Top 4 Defensemen Key to Stanley Cup
That was the right-handed Weber’s last action before he “retired,” effectively opening a spot on defense, further justifying then-general manager Marc Bergevin’s decision to take a one-year flyer on the offensively inclined Wideman. Of course, fellow-rightie David Savard, who also signed on that offseason earned more of the attention and ice time. In comparison, Wideman got the scraps, on a makeshift defense corps that featured 14 total names, with just Savard and Barron still remaining in the organization. That’s an impressive “accomplishment” and a reflection of how injured the Canadiens were at the time.
Another reflection of how badly that season went? All due respect to Wideman and those scraps he got, but he still led all Canadiens defensemen in average ice time on the power play per game, eventually tying Jeff Petry for the scoring lead from the blue line. It’s at least an extraordinary achievement in the sense the former had initially been seen as only capable of vying for a seventh-defenseman spot. It’s an…
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