Fixing the Habs on the Golf Course

As the Habs season approaches, it is also a time to get those last rounds of golf in before the cold weather sets in. Last weekend was no exception with awesome golf weather for late September. Of course, as you wait for the fairway to clear in front of you, every golfer living in Quebec will feel the obligation to discuss and fix every problem the Habs could face in the coming year to win the Cup. Last weekend was no exception.

Among the “issues” I’ve been hearing from my golf buddies over the summer, three of them seem to come up consistently. They may not be the most pressing – the need for a 2C is clearly the number one favourite – but they are all issues that can be supported by stats, if true.

For each issue, I’ve looked at the 2024-2025 season, 5-on-5, regular season stats. Data comes from Moneypuck.com.

“The Habs are soft and need to be hitting more like what successful teams are doing.”

This one is an easy check. I intuitively thought this was a true assessment that would be clearly supported by stats. Turns out, it’s completely false.

The Habs were eighth in the league with 1,878 Hits Given. On top of that list was Florida with 2,280. In addition, Montreal was tenth in the league in % Hits Given (Hits Given/Total Hits in games) with 52.93%. Unsurprisingly, Florida was on top again with 57.33%.

Of note here, and despite Florida being on top, there doesn’t seem to be a clear correlation between hitting stats and success. In addition to Florida, the top 5 of % Hits Given included Anaheim, Vancouver, the Rangers, and Boston. The last three teams on that list were Edmonton, Tampa Bay, and Dallas. The ultimate objective of checking the opponent is to recover the puck. Unfortunately, the stats don’t separate the hits that resulted in puck possession with those that didn’t.

“The Habs keep giving the puck away.”

I have a feeling people saying this are remembering the occasions when Mike Matheson puts the puck on a silver platter for the opponent to create a high-danger scoring chance with. The stats suggest otherwise, but with an interesting caveat.

The Habs had the third-fewest number of Giveaways with 1,020, just a few more than Florida with 984 and Anaheim on top of the list with 980. The caveat here is that 48.43% of the giveaways were in the defensive zone, the 11th-highest percentage in the league. I’m not convinced this percentage is meaningful, though. The total number of giveaways in the defensive zone at 494 was the sixth-lowest in the league.

Regarding Matheson, I feel the fans are tough on him. He stood 26th in the league in Giveaways among players with more than 1,000 minutes of TOI at 5-on-5 but still below players like Lane Hutson, Cale Makar, Shea Theodore, Brock Faber, Victor Hedman, and Zach Werenski. That said, we can also take pride in Kaiden Guhle being the third-lowest among defencemen on the list.

“The Habs don’t score enough because they don’t shoot enough.”

This is without a doubt true. No need to delve into stats to know this. More often than not, the Habs were outshot, occasionally even when they won. If you do go into the rabbit hole of stats though, you can find some interesting nuggets worth mentioning.

The Canadiens at 5-on-5 last year were 18th in Goals For. Basically, dead centre in the land of Mid. They were also 29th in Shots on Goal For. The Habs had a high conversion rate of shots with 9.52% Shooting % on Shots on Goal, ninth in the league. It is interesting to note that Montreal was sixth to last in high danger shots and second to last in low danger shots but sixth best in moderate danger shots. This is somewhat of an anomaly as most teams that have high shots on goal are also among the top in the three subgroups of shot quality. The Habs don’t throw the puck at the net for no reason. One can argue that they should do more of that since it can create rebounds and hence high danger chances in front of the net. Looking at the Rebound Shots For of 174 (28th in the league last season), that argument seems well-supported by statistics.

Statistics don’t always tell the whole story. This goes without saying. As it is often the case though, they don’t always support clearly how we feel about the team’s problems. As for my golf game that day, all I will say is that I didn’t score as I hoped and I kept giving away my ball to the forest, probably because I wasn’t hitting the ball well enough.