The Vancouver Canucks and Montreal Canadiens are finished playing each other this year, and it was Montreal domination. The Canadiens took at least a point in all nine games. They had a massive advantage over Vancouver this season. To win at least a point in nine games is a tremendous feat, though it sure didn’t feel like it with the overtime woes. The woes ended on Saturday night with a 5-4 win in a shootout.
Wilde Horses
- The Canadiens with a dominating first period. Montreal outshot Vancouver 10-2. The Canucks couldn’t get out of their own zone for two minutes as the Canadiens even managed to do a full line change without losing possession of the puck while the Canucks were getting exhausted. Vancouver did not get a shot for the last 16 minutes and 32 seconds of the first. It was domination, but Montreal only scored a single time on a snipe from Nick Suzuki into the top corner. The unfortunate element is when you only score one after the first when you dominate, everyone knows who scores next, and when they do, everyone knows it’s going to be a close game.
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- It is still difficult to say what is the ceiling of Jesperi Kotkaniemi, but one thing is certain — he is still pushing it upward. Kotkaniemi physically is a twig turning into a tree and the results are obvious as he has gone from winning almost no puck battles in his rookie year to winning almost all of his puck battles in season three. He now has much more time with the puck on his stick that naturally leads to his outstanding vision coming to the fore. Kotkaniemi made Artturi Lehkonen look strong in his first game back after being demoted. In fact, Kotkaniemi made Lehkonen look like Paul Byron shouldn’t be playing anymore when Tyler Toffoli returns from his lower-body injury. It is easy to forget that Kotkaniemi is still just 20 years of age in a league when 25 to 28 is your peak performance statistically. Kotkaniemi could really turn into a player here. It is possible. He has the shot. He’s winning puck battles. He has the vision. He is intelligent defensively. There are really no limitations to his game. Perhaps 55-60 points is not the ceiling for Kotkaniemi, but 65-70. Whatever the ceiling, the kid is an NHLer, and there were times last year that not everyone was so certain of that.
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- Victor Mete or Xavier Ouellet? This can’t be a difficult decision. It simply can not. It’s not close between them. Mete had his best game of the season in this one. He is a flyer and he needs to fly. Here’s the rub though: It’s hard to fly when you don’t play much. It’s hard to use those skating legs when you are worried about making a mistake. He should be an offensive defenceman considering he has the best skating skills on the club, but he needs to feel that if he uses those skills to lead a rush that breaks down that he won’t be punished. Coaches encourage this or they discourage this. He needs to be encouraged to head up ice. In Vancouver, they have a flyer in Quinn Hughes. He makes many errors, but they keep letting him fly. Management in Vancouver has decided they will live with his mistakes, and he will learn from them in time to become a better player. However, in Montreal, it doesn’t work like that. Mete is behind Ouellet on the depth chart since the Ben Chiarot injury. Mete had a breakaway in the second period that he earned with tremendous speed. He turned the defenceman easily. On Tomas Tatar’s tying goal in the second, it was Mete who was behind the Canucks net creating excitement. This is how Mete must play. All he has likely heard under Claude Julien is how to be safe. However, if Mete is going to be an NHL regular, it’s because he’s moving the puck up ice. The defence will take care of itself on your shift, if you are playing on offence. That’s Mete’s challenge. He needs to play the type of game where when he assesses it after, he simply looks at each shift and asks himself, “Did we play in my end or did we play in their end?” The answer will tell you if he is in the press box the next game or the line-up.
Wilde Goats
- After the disappointment of nine straight losses in overtime, the night they finally break that most horrible of records can not have any goats. The shots on goal were 40-18 for Montreal. The Canadiens dominated this game, but everything Vancouver shot seemed to find the net. Carey Price was not strong at times, but he more than made up for it in the shootout stopping five of six shots. This one should have been easy. Territorially, the ice was tilted by a wide margin. A decision has been made to not be at all negative considering what was achieved in the shootout breaking that goose egg, and considering the tenor of the game.
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Wilde Cards
One of the most difficult aspects for someone who follows the draft as closely as I do is not being able to spread knowledge effectively enough about what constitutes draft success or draft failure. There is a feeling among hockey fans and media that if you haven’t landed your first rounder, then you are a failure.
The math is so different than this assumption. The truth is, very few picks make the league overall, and in the first round, the numbers are not even close to as strong as most think.
The first round numbers are that 95 per cent of the time, the first five picks land as NHLers. From picks six to 10, it has already dropped to an 85 per cent rate. From 11 to 20 overall, we are down to 65 per cent success rate. From 20 to the end of the first round, the pick lands only 50 per cent of the time. That means 50 per cent of the time after 21, the pick doesn’t even make the NHL — in the first round!
In the second round, we are at 30 per cent success. In the third round, we are down to 15 per cent. After that, the rest of the draft, it’s only a 5 to 10 per cent chance that a player lands in the NHL.
If your favourite GM or head scout picks late in the first round, and you think he’s a bum when the player he picks fails, think again. It was a 50-50 proposition.
Another difficulty is there is a common habit of looking at the roster of a team and announcing that the head scout is doing a poor job because only a small fraction of players were drafted by that scout. Or the team has no idea how to develop players because you can’t see their draft picks on the roster.
That brings us to the Montreal Canadiens and a look at now how poorly you may believe that they are doing, but in fact, how successful they are at building a team through the draft. And that’s a big saviour for the Canadiens, because Montreal is not a hot spot for free agents with poor winter weather, a huge fish bowl of unwanted attention, and taxes that are not favourable.
You might look at the Canadiens roster and see only Brendan Gallagher from the fifth round, Victor Mete from the fourth round, Jesperi Kotkaniemi from the first round, Alexander Romanov in the second round, Carey Price from the first round, Artturi Lehkonen from the second round and Jake Evans in the seventh round, and then announce, “See, look how terrible they are as there are only seven players.”
It would be incorrect to say this. The number is considerably higher.
Shea Weber is on the Canadiens because a second round pick PK Subban was good enough to acquire him. Jonathan Drouin is on the club because Mikhael Sergachev was a first round draft choice that landed at the nine spot. Josh Anderson is on the Canadiens because Max Domi was worth him and Domi was worth Alex Galchenyuk from the three spot as a rare player to land in a horrific draft year. Nick Suzuki and Tomas Tatar are Canadiens because former first round pick Max Pacioretty was worth these two players.
The players acquired through free agency, trade or the waiver wire are Phillip Danault, Joel Edmundson, Brett Kulak, Jeff Petry, Tyler Toffoli, Corey Perry, Paul Byron, and Joel Armia.
The truth is there are 12 players on the Canadiens right now that are only on the Canadiens because the Canadiens made a strong draft selection.
Drafting is hard for all teams. Overall, if you pick 26th for the first time in a draft year, the math is not even in your favour that you land a single player at all in an entire draft.
The Canadiens have more players that are in Montreal because of drafting than all of the other ways to acquire a player combined. So the next time you look at Josh Anderson, remember that he is here because Trevor Timmins took Alex Galchenyuk. He could have taken Griffin Reinhart. He was the next pick.
See, it isn’t easy, and the surrounding narrative is mostly not a fair one.
Brian Wilde, a Montreal-based sports writer, brings you Call of the Wilde on globalnews.ca after each Canadiens game.
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