MONTREAL – Walking into the Bell Centre this week, you could feel the electricity in the air.
On Saturday night, the elevator attendant outside the Canadiens’ locker room was making small talk, as usual.
That night, she turned to me and said, “so…Dale Weise, right?”
Right.
Dale Weise is the talk of the town and shows no signs of cooling off.
Dale Weise
Dale Weise, tied for team leader in goals and top 10 NHL sniper, is arguably the guy in the room with the best nickname: Dutch Gretzky.
There’s a lot of talk about how he can only be having a hot streak, how he’s on pace for an at-least thirty goal season, how he can only be a flash in the pan.
Face it, we’re a month and a half into the season.
When are people going to start thinking he’s for real?
When will it be acceptable to say he’s going to have a career year and maybe, just maybe, it wasn’t crazy to have him getting top line minutes last season?
Dale Weise took an incredible amount of criticism last season after being labelled “undeserving” of being on the top line.
While I agree he’s not first-line material, I think the amount of heat he took filling that right-wing spot was unreasonable.
He scored 29 points, a far cry from his first line teammates David Desharnais and Max Pacioretty.
What doesn’t show on the score sheet is that he was used in a mostly defensive role.
Now, if you’re anything like me, you might get intimated looking at the next picture.
Take a deep breathe, before you get bogged down thinking, ‘oh my, that’s a lot of numbers’ all you need to do is look at the last column.
That shows how much time a player spends in the offensive and defensive zone.
Ok, here we go.
So clearly last season, although he was playing with the team’s top line, he was being used in a much more defensive way.
That means fewer scoring chances and playmaking.
Still, he managed to hold his own.
Now that he’s playing on the third line and not being matched against the most elite defensemen and spending his time trying to contain other teams’ offensive threats, he can be much more mobile.
See – numbers aren’t so scary!
What I like most about Weise is he plays a no-nonsense style of hockey.
Why is he good?
He works hard.
His goals aren’t fancy, they’re usually not highlight reel material, they are goals scored from simply playing the game hard.
This year, the bounces have been coming because he does a lot of basic things right – like crashing the net, choosing to take a shot instead of waiting for the perfect play and using his legs to get space.
It’s a simple formula, but it’s making Weise look like a whiz.
Hot ‘n’ cold
With Weise on fire, some players who are cooling off with the weather have flown under the radar.
With the exception of Saturday’s empty netter, Max Pacioretty hasn’t scored since October 24 against the Toronto Maple Leafs.
Although it’s worth noting he did pick up two assists on Thursday against the New York Islanders.
Subban’s lone goal of the season came in that same Leafs game and he hasn’t looked like the threat from the point that he was last year.
Despite that, he’s currently ranked second in the NHL in assists.
Is Subban turning into more of a playmaker than a sniper?
It’s something to keep an eye on.
I’m not going to use the ‘s’ word to lump them together (see what I did there) but they’re the dependable production units of this team.
They got the power
What a difference a year can make.
I harped on this last week, so I won’t go into too many details about it, but the Canadiens’ powerplay was again a game changer.
Five powerplay goals in three games this week, including two off Weise’s stick (have I mentioned him yet?) means the main advantage is actually having an advantage this year.
The Canadiens are currently sitting third in the league in the powerplay department, scoring 27 per cent of the time.
All the good points from last week carry over to this week.
Coming Up
After a four-game home stand, the Canadiens now head out on the road to face the Pittsburgh Penguins on Wednesday.
They’ve climbed to fourth in the Eastern Conference and a very respectable 9-4-0 record, despite pressure on Sidney Crosby’s slow start.
Their week is rounded out with the Colorado Avalanche visiting on Saturday and yes, the return of Patrick Roy.
Comments