The Montreal Canadiens are disappointing many of the people who wish for the team to pile up the losses so they can draft higher. The truth is, while Montreal is not upper echelon, they are too good to draft top-five.
Montreal registered a third straight win at the Bell Centre by drubbing the Chicago Blackhawks 4-0.
Wilde Horses
One of the great lessons for everyone involved in hockey is repeated year after year with player after player, as if we truly cannot embrace the lesson overall. It is as if it is human instinct to not completely absorb the lesson that development takes time.
So many players have been written off at ridiculously young ages. You can go back far in time to mention even Guy Lafleur needed many seasons to develop his skills, or you can mention a recent example like the Blackhawks writing off their third pick overall, Kirby Dach, by making the error of trading him.
Imagine there was a time early in his career when people thought Lafleur was a bust. They did. It happened.
Every player is different, but if a general manager is giving up on a high draft pick before four or five seasons are up, then that GM is eventually going to look bad.
In the Canadiens camp, everyone will have to be patient with Juraj Slafkovsky. The Slovak is only 18 years of age and it will take time for him to develop his skill set at the NHL level. As the process continues, many will write him off. It has always been this way.
In the spotlight at the moment, an example of the cautionary tale of writing off a player too soon is Justin Barron. Acquired in the Artturi Lehkonen deal with Colorado, the former first-rounder got off to a rough start for Montreal last season. His camp in September was equally full of struggles as he was sent to Laval to work on his game.
The half season he spent with the Rocket was outstanding for Barron. He played well. He was the best defender on the team. After the tutelage, he has arrived in Montreal a much more confident player.
Barron scored the opening goal for the Canadiens with a point shot that made its way through a maze of bodies. Barron has only one hole in his game which is playing slightly more physical hockey which will lead to winning more puck battles.
His offensive skillset is excellent. Barron finds outlet passes up ice beautifully. He skates through the zone nicely. He has a strong shot. He reads the play well. He is a puck-moving defender who is only getting started.
And to think: for Barron, only two months ago, the evaluation was this was a terrible trade for GM Kent Hughes to give up Lehkonen and not get an NHL player in return.
The final evaluation was already in for a 21-year-old defender. Historically, blue liners take the longest to develop their games.
It is not uncommon for a defender to not find his best self at the NHL level until he is 24 or 25, yet the urge to write Barron off was already there. It must be difficult to be in the spotlight these days when expected to find a high level at such a young age. It’s difficult to worry that any mistake could mean a demotion.
The most important stat where Justin Barron is concerned is that he has played only 24 NHL games. He seems to be getting better after every single match. Let’s have a chat about Barron’s development after 224 games. An idea of his ceiling will be more in focus at that moment.
He may be a top-four defender. Certainly, the learning curve is accelerating.
One of the most impressive aspects of the Canadiens season as they wind it down to the bottom third of the standings and a missed playoffs is their commitment. Usually, what is seen in lost seasons like the Canadiens are playing is half-hearted efforts and very little intensity.
The Canadiens are not participating at all in this well-known tedious script. Instead, they’re playing their hearts out. In the first period, Nick Suzuki gets rocked by a big and legal hit, so Josh Anderson immediately protects his teammate and wins a lopsided fight.
Second period, with the score 1-0 in this game that means absolutely nothing to the Canadiens at all in the big picture, Mike Matheson is blocking four shots in the same period. He made more saves than Jake Allen it felt like.
The forwards buy-in is also impressive as small Rafael Harvey-Pinard is blocking shots as well to make life just a bit easier for his goalie.
All over the ice, players are taking hard hits to make plays as the first forechecker in the Chicago zone. This wasn’t a pretty game by any stretch, but it was a determined game. Head coach Martin St. Louis has this club playing like they care — like the crest matters.
A head coach can have a hard time motivating his troops in February, because it’s easy, with nothing at the end of the rainbow, for a player to lose his focus. That simply has not happened.
Credit to all the men for their commitment: It would be very easy for Evgenii Dadonov to not care knowing he won’t be back. It would be easy for Jonathan Drouin to throw in the towel. It would be easy for Mike Hoffman to say, “Better luck next year.”
None of that is happening. On the second goal, it was a terrific pass from Drouin to Joel Armia that gave the Canadiens a cushion in the third period. Drouin has 12 assists in his last 12 games after a three-point night. That’s a significant total on a low scoring team.
Even the players you might think would find motivation difficult, veterans who know moments get more important than these ones, are giving it their all. In fact, with zero on the line, many veterans are playing their best hockey of the season.
Credit to all of them. It shows they respect their coach and they respect themselves.
Wilde Goats
Jake Allen got the easiest shutout of his career stopping only 20 shots. With a third straight win, the Canadiens are only four games under NHL .500.
Wilde Cards
The Canadiens were forced into a rotation of defencemen for the contest because of injury. Chris Wideman was back in the line-up replacing Arber Xhekaj.
Wideman has been a good soldier this season, accepting a situation that he likely was not expecting. Wideman has sat much of the season because the rookie blue liners have been surprisingly ready to shoulder a bigger burden for the Canadiens.
Xhekaj suffered an upper-body injury in a fight on Sunday against Vincent Desharnais. Xhekaj levelled a solid right hand to Desharnais’ jaw. The Canadiens rearguard knew right away that he had an issue, as he quickly concluded the fight by dropping to the ice.
The Canadiens announced late in the afternoon that Xhekaj would be out indefinitely. It likely is a shoulder injury as Xhekaj pointed to his shoulder as he left the ice on Sunday. Hopefully, indefinitely injured doesn’t mean the rest of the season.
Brian Wilde, a Montreal-based sports writer, brings you Call of the Wilde on globalnews.ca after each Canadiens game.