Alexandre Texier came into this camp needing to lock down a job with the Canadiens. Several observers think he's drifting the other way.
He landed in Montreal last November after St. Louis let him go.
Columbus took him in the second round back in 2017. He's up to 111 points across 283 NHL games.
Last season with the Canadiens brought 20 points in 43 games. That's perfectly respectable work.
The résumé was never the problem here. The number of bodies standing in front of him is.
Florian Xhekaj has spent this camp forcing management's hand and hasn't eased off once since it opened.
He dropped the gloves with Marshall Rifai in Toronto, picked up a shorthanded assist, then drew a slashing minor out of William Nylander.
Alexandre Texier facing serious competition as Habs camp winds down
Kreider, Bolduc and Alex Newhook are all chasing regular work inside that top nine.
Kreider's stall now sits directly beside Nick Suzuki. Nobody parks a fourth liner there.
He put up 50 points across 75 games last season on a $6,500,000 cap hit.
Montreal added several new faces over the summer, and every single one of them takes a chair.
Renaud Lavoie reported Kirby Dach is still sitting in trade discussions. That's another forward being sorted.
Camp runs until September 26. Two more days to change somebody's mind about anything.
Ottawa on Saturday, then Toronto on September 29 to open the real thing.
Montreal is 3-0 through the exhibition schedule. Cole Caufield scored twice in Monday's 3-2 overtime win.
Three goaltenders are still on that roster too, and Kent Hughes has said he won't open the year carrying all of them.
Nobody from the club has said a word about Texier either way.
That silence is doing most of the talking with two days left on the clock.
So how does a player reverse this in 48 hours? Fighting for a spot in a camp this crowded works like applying for a job where the manager already knows six other applicants.
Martin St-Louis has watched every shift of it. The list gets shorter Saturday, and somebody finds out what those observers were seeing.
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Should Alexandre Texier make the Canadiens opening night roster?
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