Habs Weekly: Stuck in Another Rut
Last week was not kind to the Habs as they dropped all three games and managed all of three goals in the process as their losing streak is up to five games. Plus, we wrap up our second-quarter report cards with a look at the forwards.
The Week That Was
Jan. 28: Jets 4, Canadiens 1 – Montreal has generally played Winnipeg relatively competitively and that would be a reasonable way to describe this one despite the loss. Juraj Slafkovsky opened the scoring early but the Jets saw their top line take over from there, potting three unanswered goals. Rasmus Kupari added the empty-netter, making the score look more lopsided than it actually was.
Jan. 30: Wild 4, Canadiens 0 – By contrast to Winnipeg, the Canadiens don’t remotely come close to playing Minnesota competitively. In Marc-Andre Fleury’s final start against his hometown team, Montreal made it really easy on him. The Habs kept it scoreless in the first but a pair of goals in the second and third resulted in Jakub Dobes’ first regulation loss in the NHL.
Feb. 1: Ducks 3, Canadiens 2 – In the first period, Montreal looked to be in full control, scoring twice (including a shorthanded tally from Joel Armia) and Anaheim couldn’t get anything going. But the Habs weren’t able to sustain that early performance and the Ducks eventually responded with two goals in 40 seconds. Martin St. Louis opted for a short bench in the third but even that didn’t wake them up while Alex Killorn potted the winner a little past the midway mark of the third.
StatPack
Skaters:
| # | Player | GP | G | A | +/- | PIMS | SOG | ATOI |
| 8 | Mike Matheson | 3 | 0 | 1 | -4 | 0 | 2 | 25:32 |
| 11 | Brendan Gallagher | 3 | 0 | 0 | -5 | 2 | 9 | 14:21 |
| 13 | Cole Caufield | 3 | 0 | 1 | -2 | 0 | 9 | 19:02 |
| 14 | Nick Suzuki | 3 | 0 | 1 | -3 | 0 | 5 | 20:41 |
| 15 | Alex Newhook | 3 | 0 | 1 | -3 | 0 | 2 | 15:19 |
| 17 | Josh Anderson | 3 | 0 | 0 | E | 0 | 6 | 13:50 |
| 20 | Juraj Slafkovsky | 3 | 1 | 0 | -2 | 0 | 4 | 18:57 |
| 21 | Kaiden Guhle | 1 | 0 | 0 | E | 0 | 0 | 18:29 |
| 28 | Christian Dvorak | 3 | 1 | 0 | -6 | 0 | 3 | 16:24 |
| 40 | Joel Armia | 3 | 1 | 0 | E | 0 | 4 | 13:56 |
| 45 | Alexandre Carrier | 3 | 0 | 0 | -4 | 2 | 5 | 19:12 |
| 47 | Jayden Struble | 2 | 0 | 0 | -2 | 0 | 0 | 13:49 |
| 48 | Lane Hutson | 3 | 0 | 0 | -4 | 2 | 6 | 22:44 |
| 49 | Rafael Harvey-Pinard | 1 | 0 | 0 | E | 0 | 0 | 8:54 |
| 55 | Michael Pezzetta | 2 | 0 | 0 | -2 | 0 | 0 | 5:38 |
| 58 | David Savard | 3 | 0 | 0 | -1 | 2 | 2 | 16:20 |
| 71 | Jake Evans | 3 | 0 | 1 | -1 | 2 | 1 | 14:05 |
| 72 | Arber Xhekaj | 3 | 0 | 0 | -3 | 7 | 3 | 17:57 |
| 77 | Kirby Dach | 3 | 0 | 0 | -3 | 4 | 3 | 13:34 |
| 92 | Patrik Laine | 3 | 0 | 0 | -3 | 0 | 3 | 13:25 |
Goalies:
| # | Player | Record | GAA | SV% | SO |
| 35 | Samuel Montembeault | 0-2-0 | 3.06 | .867 | 0 |
| 75 | Jakub Dobes | 0-1-0 | 3.20 | .885 | 0 |
Team Leaders:
Goals: Cole Caufield (25)
Assists: Lane Hutson (36)
Points: Nick Suzuki (51)
+/-: Nick Suzuki (+6)
PIMS: Arber Xhekaj (79)
Shots: Cole Caufield (160)
News And Notes
– Kaiden Guhle suffered a lacerated quadriceps muscle and underwent surgery to repair it. He’s now out indefinitely but early indications is that this is a long-term injury for the blueliner. As a result, Jayden Struble was recalled earlier than expected from his conditioning stint in Laval.
– Rafael Harvey-Pinard was sent down following the loss to Minnesota. Meanwhile, Owen Beck and Logan Mailloux were recalled from Laval but didn’t play versus Anaheim.
– Mike Matheson snapped a nine-game point drought against Anaheim.
Last Game’s Lines
Caufield – Suzuki – Slafkovsky
Laine – Dach – Newhook
Anderson – Evans – Armia
Pezzetta – Dvorak – Gallagher
Matheson – Carrier
Xhekaj – Hutson
Struble – Savard
Montembeault
Dobes
The Week Ahead
Tuesday at San Jose – The Sharks enter the week in last place in the league and just traded away their leading scorer (Mikael Granlund) and one of their better blueliners (Cody Ceci). They’re also missing seven forwards due to injuries including former Hab Tyler Toffoli and Logan Couture, who has yet to play this season. Alexandar Georgiev has had a rough go of it since being acquired, posting a GAA of 3.99 along with a .879 SV% in 13 games after coming over from Colorado.
Wednesday at Los Angeles – The Kings have lost four of their last five games and are scuffling a bit offensively. However, they’re the stingiest team in the league defensively and just welcomed Drew Doughty back to the lineup, strengthening their back end considerably. It has been a bit of a quiet year offensively for former Hab Phillip Danault as he has just five goals in 50 games, only one ahead of another former Canadien, Joel Edmundson.
Saturday vs New Jersey – Not a lot has changed for the Devils since the two teams last met a couple of weeks ago. Jake Allen continues to carry the workload in goal with Jacob Markstrom on the shelf (although he won’t play enough for Montreal to get the upgraded draft pick). Captain Nico Hischier was injured against the Habs and won’t be available for this one but beyond that, they’re still the team that’s in the top ten both offensively and defensively.
Sunday vs Tampa Bay – The Lightning are also scuffling a bit having lost six of eight including one to Montreal in that stretch late last month (before the Habs started to struggle). Aside from J-J Moser, Tampa Bay is pretty much fully healthy at the moment. Nikita Kucherov remains among the NHL’s scoring leaders while they still have three other players over a point per game. However, their attack largely falls off outside of their top six group.
Forward Grades
We recently posted our grades for the second quarter for the defencemen and goalies. We’re going to try something a little different for the forwards this time and do it in summary fashion.
Below are our writer-voted grades (out of ten) for the second quarter of the season for the forwards with their first quarter grades in brackets. Players must have played in five games to receive a grade. The stats for each player can be found here.
Nick Suzuki: 9.17 (7.50)
Cole Caufield: 9.00 (8.30)
Jake Evans: 8.50 (7.60)
Patrik Laine: 8.33 (N/A)
Emil Heineman: 7.33 (6.20)
Joel Armia: 7.17 (5.70)
Josh Anderson: 7.00 (6.20)
Brendan Gallagher: 6.50 (8.60)
Kirby Dach: 6.00 (4.00)
Alex Newhook: 5.83 (4.40)
Christian Dvorak: 5.50 (4.40)
Juraj Slafkovsky: 5.33 (5.50)
The biggest riser was unsurprisingly Nick Suzuki following the top line starting to dominate as he is now hovering around the point per game mark. On the flip side, Brendan Gallagher dropped the most as his early-season output was unsustainable as expected. That said, for a role player seeing limited minutes, his grade for the quarter was still pretty solid.