The Montreal Canadiens are 14 games into the season and their start could be described as nothing less than dismal. Fans are looking for scapegoats and fingers are being pointed at the the coaching staff, the goaltenders, the defencemen and the forwards. The truth is that all can shoulder some of the blame.
The Canadiens may be lucky to have as many points as they do right now. They certainly didn’t earn them in the season opening win against the Maple Leafs and if you take that game out of the equation their disastrous record looks even worse.
The optimists will tell you that the return of Patrik Laine and another 20 games of NHL experience for the young defence corps will see the team turn around in January and look much better than they are today. Really!?
Laine’s return isn’t going to fix a defence that looks completely lost and the troubling thing is that one of the most lost defencemen is Mike Matheson. With 561 regular season games under his belt, another 20 games isn’t going to change much. But does the blame fall on his shoulders or that of the coaching staff who seem to have implemented the most baffling defensive coverage system ever implemented in Montreal. It’s probably a bit of both but keeping Matheson around as a mentor may not be the most productive decision every made.
Truthfully, a defensive combination of Guhle and Barron might be an improvement over Guhle and Matheson where Guhle is forced to play on his weak side. But so many find it easy forgive Matheson’s mistakes and dwell on every miscue made by Barron.
Savard and Hutson are providing what we should expect. The calm, experienced veteran and the raw rookie will have good moments and bad but there is a learning curve. It is a defensive pairing where we can expect to see gradual improvement over the course of the year as we live with Hutson’s mistakes and subsequent adjustments.
Arber Xhekaj and Jayden Struble have been targets of criticism, particularly Xhekaj but they are third pairing defencemen. Both bring a physical element to the game that others don’t. They are filling their roles better than those at the top of the lineup and should be judged on that basis. But they are frequently penalized by being benched or with reduced ice time. Yes, they have made mistakes but that is not the big problem. The same applies to Barron.
But at least the team has Cole Caufield and Nick Suzuki. Right? Not so fast. At the moment, Caufield’s shooting percentage is sitting at over 26% while his career average is closer to 12.5%. Historical averages would suggest he should be closer to five goals than 10. By extension, Suzuki would be closer to four assists than nine.
If you think that is being too pessimistic, some of the more advanced stats would disagree. Caufield has the worst Corsi numbers among forwards on the team at 40% and Suzuki isn’t far ahead of him at 42%. Those are not first line numbers and it hasn’t mattered whether Slafkovsky or Dach is patrolling the wing with them.
Perhaps adding Laine to the Suzuki-Caufield line would have a positive domino effect. Would a line of Alex Newhook centering Slafkovsky and Dach? The elements are there but expecting immediate chemistry upon Laine’s return is probably a little optimistic.
Turning the focus towards the other forwards, any line that has included Anderson and Gallagher this year has been doing its job. But third lines aren’t supposed to carry teams, they are there to support them and that is what they have been doing. That hasn’t been the problem even though many wanted one or both of these players to be moved in the off-season.
Jake Evans play this year has been a revelation and has more than held up his end of the bargain. Michael Pezzetta and Emil Heineman have not been part of the problem either. It’s hard to lay the blame at the feet of two players with limited ice time, particularly when they have, for the most part, done their jobs.
Everyone is looking for fall guys and one of the most frequent targets has been Christian Dvorak. Yes, he sits at a minus six in the +/- stat line but is that a fair measure. While he doesn’t have the offensive flair of a Caufield or Suzuki, Dvorak has been Montreal’s best face-off man and is third on the team in Corsi behind only Pezzetta and Heineman. You might say “What?” but those are the 5v5 numbers according to moneypuck.com.
Joel Armia is another story; the enigmatic Finn has returned to his old ways. It’s hard to dislike the guy but he hasn’t been contributing. He forfeited a golden opportunity to play on the second line but that completely flopped and his future with the Canadiens is virtually non-existent beyond this season.
So far Montreal’s top six has been a disappointment and shuffling the deck hasn’t worked. It has been too easy to blame the bottom six forwards or those playing on the bottom pairing on defence but it is the top of the lineup that is supposed to carry the team. Simply put, they aren’t.
On offence, there seems to be little sustained pressure with limited puck cycling and if the top lines don’t score off the rush they don’t seem to score with any frequency. On defence, no one seems to be confident in their assignments, chasing players they shouldn’t, abandoning coverage and looking for forwards who should be in position to receive an outlet pass but aren’t. Defence also includes forwards who have assignments in their own end of the rink but they are as lost as the defencemen in that regard.
It is the top of the lineup that is failing this team. Whether it is the fault of the individual players, the fault of the coaching staff or a bit of both remains to be seen.
Everything about this team needs to be looked at in a harsh light. Truthfully, fans have been far too forgiving
The final weakness has been Montreal’s goaltending, Sam Montembeault’s season opening performance aside. But that situation deserves further analysis and for now, it can be said that the inconsistency of the the Habs goaltending tandem has contributed to the team’s abysmal record. Longtime Habs fan, JD Lagrange has been beating this drum for a couple of years and it is time to admit he is right.
Given the disarray that currently surrounds the team, expecting a turnaround to happen in the new year seems optimistic. An air of resignation seems to have developed among fans and it’s unfolding as another year of waiting for the future. How long will their patience hang in there? It’s a question everyone from Geoff Molson on down should be asking.
