The Arizona Coyotes were the visitor as the Montreal Canadiens opened a six-game home stand at the Bell Centre. It was also a contest that could have some bearing on who has the better odds to draft first as this was a match-up between 30th and 32nd in the league.
This time it was the 30th who won it as the Coyotes continued their strong play with a 6-3 win over the Canadiens.
Wilde Horses
There was absolutely nothing of any positive note until Cole Caufield took over in eight seconds. He scored the fastest two goals in Canadiens history since 1987 when Stephane Richer scored two goals in seven seconds.
Caufield, on the power play, aimed at the top corner just under the bar with a laser of a shot. Right off the ensuing face-off, it was Caufield again and he ripped another shot into the top corner just under the bar only eight seconds later.
The offensive magic continues under Martin St. Louis. With Dominque Ducharme as his head coach, Caufield got only eight points in 30 games. Under the new head coach, in 15 games, he has 10 goals and nine assists for 19 points.
Under Ducharme, that’s a points-per-game number of .266. Under St. Louis, Caufield is scoring at 1.27 points-per-game. He is completely unchained under this new head coach. It’s one of the most remarkable in-season turnarounds that has ever been seen. From flailing away to star is a transformation in-season that simply does not happen.
The sample size is small, so the exuberance still needs to be tempered a bit here, but the potential looks good that he is a point-per-game player. A total of 19 points in the last 15 says it is possible.
The club hasn’t had a 40 goal scorer since Vincent Damphousse in 1994. If the next one is on the roster now, it is Caufield. Again, a word of caution that 10 goals in 15 games is a small sample, and it is by no means 40 in 60 games.
At the very least, though, we can get excited. Go ahead and get excited. They may have finally found a player who can regularly bring the fans out of their seats.
Wilde Goats
There are three or four game stretches where it feels like Samuel Montembeault is going to be a regular NHL goalie one day. However, he then has a game where he just does not have it. And that is what makes a bona fide NHLer — the consistency.
Montembeault put together a night in Dallas where he stopped 48 shots and stole a win, but some nights he can’t maintain a save percentage of .850. This was one of those nights.
Montembeault had a save percentage of .429 against Arizona allowing four goals on only seven shots, before he was replaced in the second period.
This isn’t to say that Montembeault was the only issue in the contest. For whatever reason, the Canadiens were horrific on defence missing a ton of assignments and allowing a bevy of odd man rushes. The Coyotes looked like the Central Red Army in the offensive zone at times in the first half of the game.
They made Jeff Petry look like he was coached by Dominique Ducharme.
Hockey is an odd game. Montreal won in Calgary against a club that is almost unbeatable at home, but against the weaker clubs recently, they also have looked weak, such as a loss to Seattle and a loss to Arizona. The good teams can compete against Calgary, but the good teams also steamroll the weak clubs.
Wilde Cards
Operation: Protect The Asset began on Tuesday night as the management team made sure that their prime trade bait didn’t get injured before they had a chance to move him.
Ben Chiarot is healthy, but he was left out of the lineup and will be sidelined until he is traded. Chiarot is an unrestricted free agent, so there is no need at all to keep playing him considering Montreal has no chance to make the playoffs.
It’s hard to know exactly what Chiarot will fetch in a trade but the market seemed to be set on Monday night when the Anaheim Ducks dealt to Colorado a player with a similar footprint as Chiarot.
Josh Manson went to Colorado for a second-round draft choice and a fairly solid prospect Drew Helleson, who was a second-round draft choice as well. Chiarot may be slightly better than Manson overall, but they are close.
That means the market return for the Canadiens defender will be two assets in some capacity. It may be two second-round style assets, or it may be a first-round draft choice with the prospect being a little weaker, or it also may be a first-round style of prospect with a third-round draft choice.
Any combinations of this type of return would be what is expected, and that’s a very nice return for a rental.
Not to suggest that these scenarios are going to happen, but this is what Jeff Gorton and Kent Hughes are hoping for: Jakob Pelletier and a third rounder from the Flames, or Nils Lundkvist and a third rounder from the Rangers. Both teams are in the hunt for Chiarot and those returns would be excellent for Montreal. Again, this is only to give a working example. It is not to suggest that Calgary or the Rangers are prepared to make this deal.
In those two scenarios, it’s the prospect that is already showing that they have NHL pedigree, and therefore, nothing more than a third-round pick could be hoped for. Conversely, it is also possible to get a second tier prospect from a possible acquiring team, but the Canadiens then get that team’s first-round draft choice.
The scenario that Anaheim attained seems like it is a good reward. Helleson played in the World Junior Championships and the Olympics recently. The goal has to be to get one top tier hopeful whether it be the draft pick or the established prospect and the Ducks attained that in the prospect.
The draft location that Anaheim will pick from is very late second round because of Colorado’s strong record. Historically, in the late second round, a player makes the league only 15 per cent of the time.
The goal is to have one asset with a 50-50 chance of being an NHLer. That’s a first-tier prospect or a first-round pick. Helleson has a good chance to make the league. It doesn’t matter what the secondary asset is. Just make sure that one of the two has a 50-50 shot of being an NHL player.
So there is the lowdown. And now we wait.
Brian Wilde, a Montreal-based sports writer, brings you Call of the Wilde on globalnews.ca after each Canadiens game.
Comments