With seven of a possible 10 points to start the season, the Montreal Canadiens headed into their affair with the St. Louis Blues at the Bell Centre as one of the positive surprises of the season.
The Habs are playing with a more aggressive style and it’s working. The Canadiens are simply causing more of the hockey to be played with the defence pressured less because the offence is pressing more. So far, push the play forward is working.
The Blues have in recent years had little trouble in Montreal, but overall they are struggling with only one win in five games. Let’s see if the winds of change are still blowing for Montreal to turn their fortunes around against St. Louis.
Wilde Horses
Max Domi sure is finding a home in Montreal quickly. This is better hockey than he played in Phoenix at any time. Some players like the spotlight or accountability or whatever you would like to call it, but it is easy to lose focus in Arizona with an empty building and one reporter at practice. In Montreal, you feel hockey in your bones and Domi is definitely feeling it. Only 39 seconds in, Domi puts the Habs on the board with a terrific rush and backhand goal. He protected the puck beautifully, had Jonathan Drouin as a decoy and fired it home. That’s the first goal in a Montreal uniform for Domi.
Noah Juulsen has had the odd moment when he’s been beaten one-on-one puck watching. That’s the small downside to an otherwise strong start to the season. The upside is how Juulsen hits. People better keep their heads up as Juulsen has the ability to just lay out some crushing contact. First period, Jaden Schwartz thought he was safe to make a cross-ice pass. He saw Juulsen coming, but the rookie rearguard still blew up Schwartz into the boards. Juulsen was taken 26th overall in 2015. That’s a draft zone of only 50 per cent success, so he’s a great win for Trevor Timmins. I expect a fruitful career for Juulsen.
READ MORE: Call of the Wilde: What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas
Tomas Tatar continues to be the best forward with the Habs this season. The throw-in for the Golden Knights in the Max Pacioretty deal is writing a story that will be a challenge for Nick Suzuki to equal when he starts for the Habs next season. Tatar had a dominant shift in the second period. It was perhaps the best shift of the season for a forward. He’s skating so beautifully. For all the heat that Marc Bergevin takes, he’s made some excellent trades. Dale Weise to Chicago comes to mind. This might be his best trade yet.
Speaking of excellent trades by Bergevin, Mike Reilly scored his first goal of the season and as a Hab in this game and it was on the power play. Reilly came from Minnesota for only a fifth-round draft pick. His skating skills to keep the puck in at the blue line were outstanding. Reilly is already a mainstay on the left side of the blue line this season. His play significantly better than last season. Young forwards take time to mature. Young defensemen take double that time to mature. You simply can not give up on a defender too soon — you will be punished for it. The Wild may be punished badly here.
Wilde Goats
There are a lot of things to like about the Habs this season, but Joel Armia on the power play is simply not one of them. Armia goes through long stretches of time doing very little, but that is magnified tenfold when that “very little” is on the power play when you’re supposed to be doing “very much.” Not sure how long this experiment can last. Head coach Claude Julien is coaching an excellent season, but the power play look is the biggest weakness for sure. It’s not just the set-up at times with two players behind the net that makes no sense, it’s also the manpower chosen. Don’t overthink this. Get your most talented players out there and let them do something. In no way is Armia one of the top most talented forwards on the Habs to deserve a power play spot. In fact, from the run of play so far this season, I would put him as the 12th most-effective forward. Paul Byron scores often the last two years. Where is he? Armia is a lunch-bucket player. He defends well. He goes in straight lines well. He doesn’t come up with a thing worth noting on the power play. That has to change. It should have changed already.READ MORE: Call of the Wilde: Plan the paradeWilde Cards
The Canadiens lost a player to the waiver wire on Wednesday. They were hoping to sneak Jacob De La Rose down to Laval, but only three teams passed on him before the Detroit Red Wings made a claim. The former early second-round draft choice was passed on by Buffalo, Arizona, and Ottawa, but when it was the turn of the Red Wings, they saw a player in the middle of the ice that they wanted. De La Rose has shown strong skills defensively as a pro, but his offensive game has not flourished at all, even though he was a first-line centre for Sweden at the World Junior Championships and the pedigree seemed to indicate that some offence was in his stick. It has never come. He was a 2013 draft year and the book is not yet written on whether he can still find his upside.READ MORE: Call of the Wilde: Opening nightHowever, for the Habs, they felt compelled to make De La Rose the player get sent down. They wanted to preserve a seventh defenceman in Alzner on the roster, and also not lose Nikita Scherbak. It should be interesting to see who is the next person sent down when Nicolas Deslauriers becomes healthy. He is expected to get clearance shortly. If De La Rose is taken, you certainly should expect that Scherbak would also get taken and be lost as well to waivers. This would be a much more dangerous loss to swallow than De La Rose. Scherbak has dominated at the AHL level, and it is only a matter of time before he figures it out at the NHL level. The Habs strong start could actually cause the management staff to think short term here and move Scherbak to Laval, and not a veteran who surely will not improve his game, but may be more useful in the moment. This would be a mistake that likely would haunt them in 2019 or 2020, but no one could cause much of a ruckus about it in 2018.WATCH: Habs players talk to reporters after Monday night’s game
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