MONTREAL \u2014 Martin St. Louis has very transparently laid out how he wants his Montreal Canadiens to play this season.<\/p>\n
He has talked about how the team will need to defend hard in the offensive and neutral zones to prevent having to defend in their own zone, a priority that requires a commitment to details.<\/p>\n
Those details will be central to the identity St. Louis wants for the Canadiens, an identity he feels they established last December and carried them to a playoff berth in the final game of last season.<\/p>\n
The Canadiens played their final preseason game Saturday night against the Ottawa Senators, a 3-1 loss, but the most significant aspect of that game was someone who was not in uniform.<\/p>\n
St. Louis said Saturday morning that the line of Alex Newhook, Ivan Demidov and Oliver Kapanen had already shown him enough, so there was no reason for them to play. Everyone knew Newhook and Demidov had made the team, but Kapanen\u2019s status was a bit less clear.<\/p>\n
Kapanen being out of the lineup Saturday put that doubt to rest. What was most telling was the reasoning behind that decision that was revealed when St. Louis was asked what kind of NHL player Kapanen will be when he reaches his ceiling.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think he\u2019s got the potential of being a complete player,\u201d St. Louis said. \u201cI think he\u2019s a guy that could (penalty) kill, could play on the power play, but very, very predictable off the puck, defensively, what he\u2019s going to do, manages risk really well. That\u2019s why I say, \u2018200-foot player.\u2019 But I feel his offensive game is going to keep evolving because he\u2019s going to get more confident with the pace, the cues. And that\u2019s a normal path for a player of his type.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think his offensive game is the reason why he got games last year and the kind of camp he\u2019s had. I think his all-around understanding of the game is his ticket to get inside. And after that, I\u2019m sure his offensive game\u2019s going to keep evolving, but he\u2019s not going to be a guy that\u2019s going to evolve his offensive game at the price of the stuff that brought him inside the door going down. He\u2019s not that type of player. Very responsible.\u201d<\/p>\n
This is great news for Kapanen, and he\u2019s earned it with an excellent training camp. But it is also telling in that it identifies what St. Louis is looking for, the type of player he wants on his roster.<\/p>\n
Which is why that description of Kapanen is also great news for Joe Veleno.<\/p>\n
The Canadiens will announce their final cuts Sunday, but it is safe to assume Veleno will not be one of them. Because he has demonstrated that just about everything St. Louis said about Kapanen applies to Veleno as well.<\/p>\n
Kapanen can play centre or wing, so can Veleno. Kapanen can play up and down the lineup, so can Veleno, as he did Saturday night at left wing with Kirby Dach and Brendan Gallagher in the absence of the injured Zack Bolduc.<\/p>\n
The difference is that when Kapanen was drafted to be the player St. Louis described, it was always known that his door into the NHL would be as an all-around, 200-foot player. That was not always necessarily the case for Veleno. He was granted exceptional player status to play in the QMJHL as a 15-year-old. Offence was his calling card for his entire pre-NHL life.<\/p>\n
But it hasn\u2019t gone that way for Veleno in the NHL. The Canadiens are his fourth NHL team at age 25. He was traded to and immediately bought out by the Seattle Kraken at the end of last season.<\/p>\n
He needs to reinvent himself to carve out an NHL career, and the reinvented version of Veleno just happens to suit the Canadiens perfectly.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt the end of the day, you try to fill a role where it\u2019s needed,\u201d Veleno said. \u201cI think coming here, especially with the guys that they\u2019ve got, they kind of already have their offensive guys. I think what was missing, especially when you lose a guy like (Christian) Dvorak and (Joel) Armia, two guys who can kill penalties, play really well defensively, that are trusted, you take that into consideration when you\u2019re on the ice.<\/p>\n
\u201cComing here, I kind of knew that was a role that needed to be filled.\u201d<\/p>\n
joe veleNO#GoHabsGo<\/a> pic.twitter.com\/WHoZFC3vtb<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 Canadiens Montr\u00e9al (@CanadiensMTL) October 4, 2025<\/a><\/p>\n That mindset is healthy, and perhaps it comes as a result of being bought out and seeing his NHL mortality. Regardless of the reason, Veleno understands where he stands in his career and what he needs to provide in Montreal.<\/p>\n This game Saturday was a perfect example of it. Bolduc is out on the second line, so Veleno can slot in there. If Jake Evans were to go down due to injury, Veleno has the detail-oriented game to replace him on the bottom six. If Juraj Slafkovsk\u00fd were to go down on the top line, Veleno has the baseline of skill to replace him there, too.<\/p>\n That is a valuable player to have on a team, but it requires a player who was viewed as exceptional for most of his life to not only accept his new reality, but to embrace the fact that he\u2019s essentially a super-sub, a Swiss Army knife of sorts.<\/p>\n \u201cI think it\u2019s a good thing to be considered in that discussion,\u201d Veleno said. \u201cWhen guys are missing, especially guys in a top-six position, it doesn\u2019t really change my game a whole lot. I kind of experienced that in Detroit a little bit, where I had that opportunity playing with (Dylan) Larkin and (Lucas) Raymond when our lines were juggling a little bit. I had a lot of success, but I never tried to change my game. I knew who I was playing with, I knew they were two guys who demanded the puck, and I knew my role was getting it.\u201d<\/p>\n This is something Veleno has always had in him, despite the exceptional status label as a kid. Before being granted exceptional status into the QMJHL, he was also given the same status to play Midget Triple-A hockey as a 14-year-old under coach Jon Goyens, currently a colour analyst on the TSN 690 radio broadcast.<\/p>\n Goyens remembers once asking Veleno mid-game to change his angle of attack when taking a pass on the flank on the power play. On the very next power play, Veleno adjusted as instructed. The details St. Louis hopes to see on his team this season were part of Veleno\u2019s game back then, according to Goyens.<\/p>\n \u201cEven as an underage,\u201d he said, \u201che was very engaged off the puck.\u201d<\/p>\n The words \u201cexceptional\u201d and \u201cextraordinary\u201d are not the same, but they are very similar. Veleno was considered exceptional very early in life, which allows him to do extraordinary things with a puck on his stick. But it is what he does without the puck that will allow him to succeed in Montreal, and he seems to know it.<\/p>\n And his coach has taken notice.<\/p>\n \u201cThe game will ask you to use skill sometimes, but you can\u2019t just play the whole game with skill. You\u2019ve got to play the collective game, you\u2019ve got to manage your risk and all that, but every now and then, you\u2019re going to have an opportunity to do extraordinary things,\u201d St. Louis said after the game Saturday. \u201c(Veleno) has the package to do extraordinary things, but how many ordinary things can you do on the ice? I feel like he\u2019s shown that he can do those things, and I think those are very important. I think it leads to more extraordinary things when you can do the ordinary things.\u201d<\/p>\n That is a theme for the Canadiens this season: do the ordinary things that lead to opportunities to do extraordinary things. St. Louis said Saturday he wants that to be part of the Canadiens\u2019 DNA, and it is something that began with a bag skate in Washington last November<\/a> and has continued to become ingrained in how the Canadiens play hockey.<\/p>\n It is still early, and it is unlikely Veleno will be in the lineup on opening night in Toronto on Wednesday, assuming Bolduc is healthy by then. But it must be comforting for St. Louis to know that if there is just about any forward in his lineup who is not displaying that level of commitment to the type of hockey he wants his team to play, he has someone waiting in the wings who understands exactly what is expected of him, no matter where he slots into that lineup.<\/p>\n (Photo: Eric Bolte \/ Imagn Images)<\/p>\n