The Montreal Canadiens had lost five straight and the season seemed in jeopardy, but then the effects of Shea Weber began to kick in.
The Habs have seen four wins in their last five games, with Weber calming the situation down on a struggling blue line. The club tried to build on the recent positive run in Saint Paul taking on the Wild, who were desperate for a win falling out of the playoff picture recently.
After all, who would be hungrier in Minnesota?
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Wilde Horses
The best Habs player — and it was certainly hard to find one — was Jonathan Drouin.
Drouin isn’t known for his defence by any means, but he made two outstanding, goal-saving plays in the first period. He also took a labelled shot from distance down the left side. In the third period, Max Domi had a breakaway that he could not convert, then Jeff Petry broke the shutout bid of Devyn Dubnyk and that was it for the offence, really — for just about anyone in this one.
It was that awful a game for the Habs.
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A mention can be made for the fourth line, too, as they had some strong shifts, and Nicolas Deslauriers tried to impact the game with his first fight since taking off the cage after his facial injury. The fourth line has done good work for quite a few games. Kenny Agostino has put together a good point total with seven points in 16 games; that’s solid for a fourth liner. Any suggestion that there were other horses in this one for the Habs would be beyond charitable.
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The Habs and Antti Niemi were throttled in this one 7-1 by a team that had only one win in its last seven games. So what happened?
The Habs iced a set of blue liners that brought no speed to the game. The Habs are built for speed. The head coach needs to try to play a game that takes advantage of his speedy forwards, but when those forwards aren’t getting passes on the fly, then they aren’t speedy anymore.
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To get passes on the fly, out of the zone, they need blue liners who can do actually do that. The Habs have Victor Mete and Mike Reilly in their organization. Mete is in the minors. Reilly, even though he is a Minnesota boy, was not allowed to play in a game that would have meant a lot to him.
Claude Julien instead went with David Schlemko and Jordie Benn on the left side, with Brett Kulak joining them on the left flank. Having all three of those players on the left means you have no one who can head man the puck from that side of the ice with any great skill. You have no one who can skate it out quickly, either. You have made a fast team and you have turned it into a slow team.
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The Habs’ number one issue, by far, is left-side defensive talent. Their number one strength? Speedy forwards. Those forwards didn’t get one clean pass to free them the entire contest — not one. It was a completely abysmal effort by everyone, essentially, and the biggest reason it was an awful night is the head coach decided that he was going to match the Wild brawn with the Habs brawn.
In other words, when you play their game along the wall and not in the middle with speed, you play to their strength, and you get their preferred result. There will be nights like this — it’s a long season.
In this one, you had a chance to see why the Habs still aren’t that great a team yet. They’re on their way, but they’re not there yet. They may finish in that worst-of-all-possible-places in the standings — just out of the playoffs. They also need to have a management team and head coach who decide on an identity and go with it. If you say you are a speed team in a new NHL that features speed to win, then go with that identity. That’s the goal as the Habs move forward to next season. They have to improve the left side speed and puck moving on the blue line.
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This game against the Wild was the best example of the Habs’ frailty in that area that you could possibly find.
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The Habs special teams continue to be a head-scratcher.
The power play is 29th in a 31-team league. That’s a lot of bad hockey teams that still have a better power play than a Habs team that is in position to make the playoffs right now. The power play let in a short handed goal, so they should have just declined their chances in this one. The penalty kill is a little better overall at 19th in the league, but with a bullet downward when you see the stats revised Wednesday.
The Habs allowed four Minnesota power play goals in four opportunities. It was as if no one scouted Matt Dumba at all. Dumba leads all rear guards in the league in goals, but it didn’t seem as if anyone was aware of it when you saw all the space he was given the entire night.
Taking the opposing team’s best weapon away is the most obvious theory in all of coaching. But no one appears to have got the message, as their best weapon, Dumba, wasn’t challenged in the slightest.
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The rumour mill was running at full throttle on Tuesday.
The mill had Charlie Coyle becoming a Habs forward. But here’s the thing about that rumour: as fun as it was for a lot of bored people to chatter about all day, it doesn’t make any sense.
The Habs haven’t been this strong at the centre position for a decade. They have a first-line centre that is averaging a point-per-game in Max Domi. They have a second line centre, Phillip Danault, who is helping Tomas Tatar and Brendan Gallagher put up strong numbers this season. They have a third line centre in Jesperi Kotkaniemi, who is just getting started towards likely being the first line centre when he leaves his teenage years. They have Ryan Poehling, who is a point-per-game player in the NCAA for the top-ranked college club in the USA, the Saint Cloud State Huskies.
That’s four centres who are close to locked in — never mind Jake Evans or Jacob Olufsson who will also compete for jobs.
Why would Coyle be needed here? He has four goals on the season in 29 games. They already have that in Danault, who has two goals. They don’t need more of that. This would likely be a deal that would cost the Habs some future, so again, this deal doesn’t make sense.
In fact, it was early evening when insider Pierre Lebrun killed the rumour by suggesting the Habs were not in the mix.
If you’re looking to start a rumour, here’s my advice: the Canadiens need a left side defender if they want to truly compete this season. The likelihood that they’ll acquire one at the trading deadline from a team who is having a fire sale is high. Here’s a rumour: Jake Muzzin of the L.A. Kings to the Habs for one or both of the Habs’ second-round draft choices.
Bergevin has never had an issue giving up second round picks in the past, like the two he gave up for Andrew Shaw. He will do it again without issue.
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