The Montreal Canadiens have a 4-4-2 mark after 10 games this season.
It’s not a convincing record for a team with playoff aspirations, but it’s quite early in the season, so it could just as easily be a blip in a strong season. The Habs had an important match-up Saturday night, taking on division rival Toronto at the Bell Centre.
It’s a match-up in which the Canadiens prevailed, defeating the visiting team 5-2.
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Jonathan Drouin continues to impress this season. He was even laying out the body against the Maple Leafs — that’s how engaged he is this season.
But the real tell for Drouin is his legs. If they get into a parallel position on the ice where they are not moving and he is gliding, then expect Drouin to be checked off the puck a half second later. If Drouin’s legs are moving when he is puck battling, then expect him to do something good only seconds later. That’s his tell.
So far this season, Drouin’s working hard, engaged and winning puck battles. You can’t expect to have open ice all season long to do what you do best, which is score goals like he did on the breakaway in the first period, and then a second goal on another breakaway in the third period. You have to also work hard for your success with active skating legs when you battle with another hungry player.
Last year, the Habs saw Drouin get off to a good start, but then he faded. This season, expect to see this better Drouin in March and April.
It’s a bold prediction, but he’s learned what it takes. You can see components of his game that he didn’t show before. The skill has always been there. This hard-working aspect of Drouin’s game is new and it’s going to make all the difference. That’s growth. Sometimes it can take a while. The video of his play that he watched in the off-season that he talked about has actually paid off in real dividends — a real understanding of what was missing.
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One of the holes in this season so far for the Habs has been the first line of Tatar–Danault–Gallagher. They’ve been on for a lot of goals against. Add to that the fact that every time you looked, it seemed as if Tomas Tatar was headed to the penalty box. Last season, Claude Julien put this top line out against the best that an opposition had to offer. He also put them out for the majority of defensive zone starts. They came through as one of the top five lines on the season in Corsi numbers. They rivalled lines like MacKinnon in Colorado and the Bergeron line in Boston. They were that good in 2018-19.
This season, it’s been vastly different. They’ve been on for many goals against and often dominated. However, they found last year’s form in this contest against the Maple Leafs. Right from the opening shift of the game when they pressed early and almost counted, the shift set the tone for the night. The line also got that vital first goal as Brendan Gallagher worked his tail off to take two whacks at it from the crease area to count.
If the Habs are going to have success this season, they must have this line dominating like last season. This was an extremely important night toward that end.
Joel Armia continues to play the best hockey of his career. His best-ever goal total was 13, which was last year in 57 games for the Habs. This season at the third-period marker, only seven seconds in, was already his sixth goal of the year. Barring an injury, he will easily surpass the best season of his career. While the GM’s errors get a lot of ink, the wins should be noted as well, and this one was definitely a win taking a contract off the hands of a cap-strapped Winnipeg Jets team.
What a steal for Marc Bergevin.
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The first period was all Habs, with the shots on goal 19-5 in the Habs’ favour. The Corsi 5-on-5 was 75 percent to 25 percent in the Habs’ favour. The Habs did everything right.
It was the best period of the season for the local heroes. They looked like world-beaters, and against a talented Leafs team, too. The high-quality chances were nine to one in the Habs favour, as well. Unfortunately for Habs fans, though, the perfect period wasn’t perfect at all, as the Leafs scored on their only opportunity. The play started simply enough as Mike Reilly had the puck, but he heard an onrushing attacker and he got soft. He simply stopped battling hard, then found himself stripped quickly.
The Leafs then made one cross-crease pass that left Carey Price unsettled as the shot came from Jake Muzzin. Suddenly, 2-1. The Leafs didn’t deserve to have any life, but the good teams will make you pay quickly. They had life. Many pointed to Carey Price on the goal, but a cross-crease pass is not ever an easy save. In fact, the cross-crease pass has been a real sore spot for the Canadiens this season. It’s been a massive problem, especially on the penalty kill, that’s allowing far too many passes through the seam in the middle of the ice. All goalies will tell you that it’s a challenge to get set while moving laterally to the correct side of the net.
The real issue was not the goalie on the 2-1 Leafs tally, but the soft player getting stripped cleanly in the open ice. That play started out as nothing, and it should have ended as nothing. For Reilly, it was an easy moment that he made difficult. On the second goal for the Leafs, there was traffic in front of the Habs’ net with Reilly and Cale Fleury on the ice, but no Leaf was nailed with a hit, and no one got taken out. It was just Habs players searching for the puck and not finding it first.
Hockey is not as violent a sport as it used to be, for sure, but there has to be some punishment paid for standing in front of Price for five steamboats. As fans like to say, “hit somebody.”
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The first goal against presented challenges for any goalie with a cross-crease pass, so Price gets forgiven there, but the second goal against didn’t present that much of a challenge that one can easily forgive. If you are Carey Price here, the job is simple: when in tight, cover the targets along the ice. You can’t cover the top part of the net, but that’s fine because the shooter can’t find the top part of the net from two feet out either.
The one job for a goalie is simple: just make sure you are not beaten along the ice. Instead, you could see that Price didn’t do that. In fact, he was not square to the shooter at all when the 2-2 goal was scored. Price was pointed more at the sideboards when the puck went in.
The quality of shot that Price is facing this year is far too high. There have been so many shots where he needs to slide across the ice laterally to stop one-timers. That’s too difficult too often. With that said, Price has a save percentage of .900 this season. He needs to be somewhere in the area of .920 to .925 for the Habs to have success.
This is basically one additional goal against per game. Look no further than this to see why it’s been a challenge for the Canadiens this season.
However, let’s point the finger at the defence here, too. It is no better than the defence last season. The manpower is essentially the same; the result is essentially the same. That ultimately means you have to point the finger at the GM, Marc Bergevin. He tried to fill a hole on the roster, but he didn’t. The Habs’ GM tends to love the type of defender that he was when he played. The NHL is moving to 200-foot defenders who move the puck quickly, and can add their talent to every part of the ice.
Bergevin keeps signing Karl Alzners and Ben Chiarots, and the results that we are seeing are not shocking. The Canadiens want to use their strength, which is speed at the forward position, but when the defenders don’t move the puck quickly, the speedy forwards become static waiting for the puck to arrive from a defender who does not have the fast transition skill in his game to hit them on the fly. You want to win at the modern game, which is 200-foot hockey? Then make sure all your players can play all 200 feet.
It didn’t cost them in the end Saturday night, but it has this season, and it will many times more. The championship calibre team is missing two top four defenders.
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The Rocket still have not made the playoffs since they moved to Laval, and it’s not going well this season so far, either.
Laval have only won three wins in nine contests. Many of the veterans are doing little, instead of leading the charge. On the positive side is top prospect Ryan Poehling. The first-round draft choice is starting to heat up after a sluggish start. Poehling said that he was extremely disappointed to not make the Habs, and it impacted his start on the farm. In the last six games, however, Poehling has recovered with three goals and two assists. That’s a good pace in a league that is not high scoring as most teams concentrate on teaching the best prospects how to play defense at an NHL level.
It’s a serious defensive league, so Poehling is doing well so far. He will, no doubt, be the first call-up at forward as soon as there is an injury at the NHL level.
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