Before Martin St. Louis, the club couldn’t win two games in a row all season. It was 50 games without a streak of even the most modest number. Under the new head coach, there was a chance for a fourth straight victory, if they could finally figure out the Buffalo Sabres.
And they did.
The hot streak continued with a 4-0 win at the Bell Centre. Sam Montembeault got the shutout — the first in his career — and he barely faced a challenge.
Wilde Horses
It’s extremely difficult to get a goal-per-game line going in the NHL.
The Canadiens would love to have a real number one line that can score everytime they play. The club had a number one line last season with Tomas Tatar, Philip Danault and Brendan Gallagher, but it was a number one line in terms of playing some of the best defence imaginable.
That line was scored on 5-on-5 last season only three times. It was phenomenal and sad that it had to come to an end.
Fast forward two-thirds of a season, and a first line is emerging again. This one, though, doesn’t prevent, but creates. Josh Anderson, Cole Caufield and Nick Suzuki have been together only four games. In that short time, they have combined for 16 points.
The creation of the line by the new head coach has rejuvenated Anderson, and signalled the professional arrival of Caufield. Under Dominique Ducharme, Caufield had one goal all season. Under St. Louis, Caufield has six goals in seven games. Caufield is also operating with a better than point-per-game pace under the new head coach with 10 points.
So why would you trade a 27-year-old Anderson contractually committed to the club for the next five seasons?
The only real season you would think of trading Anderson is if the management team sees this rebuild taking until 2027-28. If this is a five-year rebuild and Anderson is 32 when the rebuild is over, then yes, you can argue that he should be traded. His abilities would be reduced and his contract would be over when Montreal imagines greatness again.
However, management surely does not see this rebuild taking that many seasons. They are more likely to see it taking two seasons, and if it is not working out to that optimistic conclusion, they can still trade Anderson then for likely close to the same value that they could get now.
To keep Anderson, the Canadiens have him helping two young kids to gather momentum on their careers. Imagine the scenario where the line grows together as St. Louis has already indicated that he sees a bright and long future for them. They support each other and pile up the points together while the team continues its rebuild.
A rebuild moves many parts, but it cannot realistically move all of the parts.
Jeff Gorton and Glenn Sather indicated to Rangers fans that they were starting a rebuild four years ago. They even wrote a letter. At that time, Chris Kreider was 26 years of age. They cleaned house, but they did not trade Kreider. Past is the future logically here unless Gorton has changed his M.O. Gorton has already kept a 26-year-old power forward during a rebuild. It is highly likely that he keeps a 27-year-old power forward as well.
It would seem that his age of demarcation in his rebuilds is somewhere between 27 and 29 as he did not keep Tyler Toffoli who has a good contract, and was contributing to the lineup extremely well. However, Gorton deemed 29 was too old for Toffoli to stay with the club during a rebuild.
This means that Jeff Petry is too old for the rebuild. It also means perhaps even Brendan Gallagher is on the trading block even though he is much-loved in Montreal.
It’s going to be fascinating to see what happens in the next month as we head to the trading deadline. However, a rebuild does not need to be a complete teardown. The Canadiens have a lot of good parts already that are young.
They do need to rebuild their defence to be able to move the puck out of their own zone, and that is on the way already. Draft picks have been made.
Odds are that Jordan Harris will be resigned out of Northeastern University. Kaiden Guhle is dominating in Edmonton with the Oil Kings in junior hockey. Logan Mailloux was an extremely controversial pick, but if he can turn around his personal issues, and show a level of contrition that society finds acceptable, he is certainly good enough to be in the NHL on skill.
Jayden Struble and Mattias Norlinder are also ready to make a breakthrough soon. Add to that, with Alexander Romanov already arriving, the defence of the Canadiens has the chance to be a lot more modern in the future than it has in the past.
Add a top-five pick this season and a late first-rounder, as well, and the foundation already built doesn’t seem to indicate that this is going to take five years. They say two years to three on the outside.
So why in heaven’s name would you abandon Caufield and Suzuki when Anderson wants to be here, and is performing so well with many years left in his game and his contract?
You don’t. You keep him.
Only a pessimist would think you should plan for a five-year collapse into the basement. Look at the discourse among the fans for where we are overall: their bigger fear is that the Canadiens are already too good to stay in the basement even this season, nevermind 2025-2026.
Wilde Goats
The only low in this one is the health of Josh Anderson, who took a puck to the face on a shot from close range. It seemed to strike his cheek bone. He went immediately to the locker room and did not return for the third period. Hopefully, Anderson not returning was precautionary and pain-related, and didn’t involve a fracture to his cheekbone.
If it is, then we know that there is something to get excited about when he returns. Let’s hope for the best at this point. We should know on Thursday.
Wilde Cards
John Sedgwick received a well-deserved promotion this afternoon from the Canadiens’ top brass. Sedgwick worked under Kent Hughes for only one month, before gaining the trust of the new general manager to take on a bigger role with the club.
Sedgwick began his career with the Canadiens in 2013 in the legal affairs department. He then became vice-president of hockey operations in 2017. That essentially means he was the club’s cap-ologist. No organization can function these days without a strong legal mind to understand how to spend every dollar wisely to stay under the salary cap.
Sedgwick will continue in that role under Hughes, but has now taken on the title of assistant to the general manager. Sedgwick has proven to be extremely valuable to the daily workings of the entire organization. He also helped launch the Laval Rocket and the Trois-Rivieres Lions.
There hasn’t been a single bad move by this new leadership and many good ones already.
Brian Wilde, a Montreal-based sports writer, brings you Call of the Wilde on globalnews.ca after each Canadiens game.
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