After a poor defensive effort against the St. Louis Blues, the Montreal Canadiens wanted to tidy up all of that.
What they did instead is put in an even poorer defensive effort.
The Tampa Bay Lightning enjoyed the double whammy of Montreal’s bad defence and bad goaltending, skating to a 6-1 win.
Wilde Horses
There was a lot of consternation that one of the top power play units in the league was broken up in this one. Ivan Demidov was taken off the first unit in favour of Zach Bolduc yet again.
However, it also meant that on the second unit, Oliver Kapanen got his first power play time of the year.
Kapanen looked strong. It was the second unit that counted the Canadiens’ late second-period goal. Ivan Demidov won the blue line on the rush, feeding it beautifully to Nick Suzuki who hit the goal post. Kapanen was in front of the net for the rebound. He was forced to bat it out of the air waist high while being checked to the ice. It was an outstanding play from Kapanen.
It was appropriate that Demidov counted an assist. He was the best Canadiens player. Demidov was setting up his teammates time and time again, but they could not convert.
It was extremely difficult to take the puck off him, too. The Lightning players struggled with Demidov’s skills.
Wilde Goats
The first goal against was the entire season in a nutshell when the Canadiens struggle.
Brayden Point took on Jayden Struble on an innocuous one-on-one and beat him. The positive for Struble was that he had taken Point to the outside enough that just a simple save from a bad angle would have been enough.
However, nothing is simple for the Canadiens goaltenders this season. After a decade and a half of Carey Price being outstanding, then Sam Montembeault taking over with strong seasons, there’s finally an idea of what poor goaltending feels like for the home team at the Bell Centre.
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Point is a right-handed shot, and he was on the right side. He essentially had nothing to shoot at if when he looked up, the goalie was in his net. Dobes somehow had pivoted into a terrible angle for the stop. The shot beat him easily far side.
Not sure what the goalies are working on in practice, but they lose their net with shocking regularity. They are using too much force pushing side-to-side on their pivot leg. Both goalies have been sliding too far all season.
The third goal against was a tragedy as well. Joe Veleno had a chance to clear but he panicked and fed it right back into the slot. One quick lateral pass and Dobes was nowhere close to a save.
It was one of those opening periods when both the zone coverage and the goaltending was suspect. The second period saw Montembeault take the net. He was scored on the first shot that he faced.
On the Lightning’s sixth goal, Montembeault pushed off in the wrong direction on a 55-foot shot, as if he was trying to get out of the way. The shot taken from the middle of the ice hit the middle of the net. Completely confounding.
The Canadiens are 28th in the league in goals against. However, they are 12th in Expected Goals Against. The 28th ranking suggests they can’t defend; the 12th ranking suggests that they can’t get a save. While 12th isn’t upper echelon, it’s not bad defending, and it sure isn’t this mess.
In the Wilde Cards below, find an assessment of how the Canadiens can turn the corner on this problem.
Wilde Cards
While mistakes defensively are costing the Canadiens results recently, a bigger-picture examination is not as bleak.
Teams don’t win championships giving up odd-man rushes. The Canadiens are struggling on this account and that has to change. That’s step one, and it’s correctable.
When a team’s issue is no one can skate, shoot, stick-handle, score, or has any vision, that team has uncorrectable problems. A lack of talent remains a lack of talent.
However, when a forward simply isn’t buckling down to make sure he is covering for a defender who goes deep offensively, that team has less to worry about. Being smarter about a simple defending tactic is not a long-term issue.
There’s been a lot of discussion recently about Martin St. Louis and his system, as if it’s too much for this group to comprehend. That’s nonsense. This is not beyond an NHL players’ comprehension. It’s not beyond their intelligence. It’s certainly not beyond their athletic abilities.
The number of defensive breakdowns the Canadiens suffer on the cycle is not out of line with the rest of the league.
What is out of line is the odd-man rushes against. When watching around the league, you’ll see great teams play game after game with not a single two-on-one or breakaway allowed. They may give up chances on the cycle, but they won’t give up the high-danger odd-man rush.
They need to clean that aspect up, and then they need goaltending. No one survives without goaltending.
Overall, it’s expected that this is a tough stretch for the Canadiens. They have a brutal schedule with four back-to-backs, with no games against weak clubs — all with four major injuries to contend with.
If they get through December successfully, get the odd-man rushes cleaned up, get better goaltending and get some important players back, they’ll surge in the new year.
This is the big test right here. Keep fatigue at bay. Keep concentration high. Get healthy.
On this lowest of nights, it says here that the Canadiens are going to surprise to the upside starting in 2026.
Brian Wilde, a Montreal-based sports writer, brings you Call of the Wilde on globalnews.ca after each Canadiens game.
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