Habs Weekly: Good Performances, Not-So-Good Results

While the schedule gets lighter for the Habs in terms of no back-to-backs for a while, they’re in the middle of facing some tough opponents.  And while they deserved a better fate than they got, it wasn’t a particularly successful week with just one win in three games.

The Week That Was

Jan. 20: Canadiens 4, Wild 3 – This was the ideal time to get Minnesota with them banged up and on the back half of a back-to-back. The Habs dominated for long stretches of the game but it didn’t seem to matter much as some shaky penalty killing and goaltending (things that turned out to be themes of the week) had the game tied late.  However, instead of heading for overtime, Cole Caufield was able to one-time a shot past Jesper Wallstedt with just 15 seconds to go to give Montreal a rare victory against the Wild.

Jan. 22: Sabres 4, Canadiens 2 – After getting dominated by Buffalo the week before on their home ice, the Habs flipped the script in this one, especially in the second half.  The problem was that Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen was at his best and Samuel Montembeault, well, wasn’t.  As a result, they were down 3-0 fairly early and couldn’t come all the way back.  In the final minute with the Canadiens pressuring, Lane Hutson’s stick broke on a one-timer, paving the way for the game-sealing empty-netter.

Jan. 24: Bruins 4, Canadiens 3 – The Habs led for the majority of the game thanks to a hat trick from Cole Caufield, the second of his career.  Montreal was the better team for most of the game but a couple of things killed them.  Those were goaltending and the penalty kill and the two combined for Boston’s winner.  Just after the Bruins tied it, Alexandre Carrier took a bad penalty.  The Habs lost the draw and Montembeault was beat clean from the point seconds later.  Two goals in 12 seconds and that was all she wrote.

StatPack

Skaters:

#	Player	GP	G	A	+/-	PIMS	SOG	ATOI
8	Mike Matheson	3	0	3	+3	2	9	23:43
11	Brendan Gallagher	3	0	0	E	0	6	12:15
13	Cole Caufield	3	5	0	+2	0	12	18:36
14	Nick Suzuki	3	1	4	+2	0	5	20:36
17	Josh Anderson	3	0	1	E	0	3	12:52
20	Juraj Slafkovsky	3	0	1	E	0	7	18:37
21	Kaiden Guhle	3	0	1	-1	2	2	16:45
24	Phillip Danault	3	1	0	+1	2	3	14:48
45	Alexandre Carrier	3	1	0	E	2	8	17:54
47	Jayden Struble	2	0	1	-1	0	0	10:07
48	Lane Hutson	3	1	2	-1	6	6	23:25
53	Noah Dobson	3	0	0	+3	2	6	22:48
71	Jake Evans	3	0	1	E	0	4	12:56
72	Arber Xhekaj	1	0	0	E	0	0	9:19
76	Zachary Bolduc	3	0	1	-2	8	5	12:11
77	Kirby Dach	3	0	0	-2	5	2	13:23
85	Alexandre Texier	1	0	0	+1	0	2	16:51
90	Joe Veleno	2	0	0	E	0	3	11:58
91	Oliver Kapanen	3	0	0	-1	0	4	14:40
93	Ivan Demidov	3	0	2	E	0	5	17:21

Goalies:

#	Player	Record	GAA	SV%	SO
35	Samuel Montembeault	0-2-0	3.62	.811	0
75	Jakub Dobes	1-0-0	3.00	.850	0

Team Leaders:

Goals: Cole Caufield (29)
Assists: Lane Hutson (44)
Points: Nick Suzuki (59)
+/-: Nick Suzuki (+20)
PIMS: Arber Xhekaj (102)
Shots: Cole Caufield (155)

News And Notes

– While it was true for most of the season that the Habs had the youngest roster in the league, that is no longer the case.  Thanks to some recent IR activations and Buffalo recalling some prospects, the Sabres are now the youngest with an average age of 26.25.  The Canadiens are now second at 26.53.

– Alexandre Carrier’s recent hot streak in the goals department has given him a new career high at five.  For more context, he had all of 13 in 296 games coming into the season.

– Kirby Dach was activated off injured reserve and returned to the lineup.  Since the Habs never filled Jacob Fowler’s spot on the roster when they sent him down, they didn’t need to make any moves to add Dach back to the active group.

Last Game’s Lines:

Caufield – Suzuki – Texier
Slafkovsky – Kapanen – Demidov
Gallagher – Danault – Anderson
Bolduc – Evans – Dach

Matheson – Dobson
Hutson – Guhle
Xhekaj – Carrier

The Week Ahead

Tuesday vs Vegas – After a tough week, it doesn’t get any easier.  While it’s true that the Golden Knights are missing several regulars, most are of the supporting cast variety.  They just got Adin Hill back.  They just added Rasmus Andersson to basically fill Alex Pietrangelo’s role.  Jack Eichel and Mark Stone both missed time but are now healthy.  The end result is a forward group that has some similarities to Montreal’s but defensively, Vegas has been a whole lot better.

Thursday vs Colorado – The Avs are the number one team in the league.  They’ve scored the most goals and have allowed the fewest.  Given Montreal’s struggles in goal, there’s cause for concern here.  Colorado is missing a couple of key players in Devon Toews and Gabriel Landeskog (who made it through the first half of the season healthy) but Nathan MacKinnon and Martin Necas comprise one of the top duos in the NHL while Cale Makar is one of only three blueliners with more points than Cale Makar.

Saturday at Buffalo – Yes, them again for the third straight week (but final time this season).  There’s really not much to add from the last two matchups but Alex Lyon is back, meaning the Habs could see a third different netminder out of this stretch against them.  It sounds like Josh Norris’ injury is now a longer-term concern so he probably won’t be back for this one.  Mattias Samuelsson already has 28 points from the back end this season.  He had a career-high 14 last season; talk about an improvement.

Final Thought

One concern I had going into this season was a lack of experienced options on the penalty kill.  The Habs lost both Christian Dvorak and Joel Armia in free agency and didn’t bring anyone in to replace them.  Things got so bad early on that they had to give up an early second-round pick to get Phillip Danault back on a pricey contract for that role.  Yes, he has helped but all in all, it’s still a big problem that needs to be addressed.

From here, it felt like the hope this season was that someone would eventually figure out how to be a key contributor and things would stabilize at some point.  We’re now 52 games into the season and that isn’t happening.  The same deficiencies are getting exposed.  Part of it could be system-related, sure, but I think a lack of proven players in this situation is really coming back to bite them.

Let’s look at the forwards first.  Yes, Danault and Jake Evans are a legitimately good start, anchoring both units.  But what about the wingers?  Josh Anderson hadn’t been a regular killer until last season.  Oliver Kapanen is a rookie.  Alex Newhook hadn’t killed penalties before this season.  Alexandre Texier started all of a few weeks ago.  And Joe Veleno is a warm body who has done it a bit in previous years but whose performance isn’t exactly screaming must-use.  Basically, two proven options and plenty of wild cards and question marks.

It’s not much better on the back end.  Mike Matheson isn’t known as a shutdown player by any stretch but he’s among the league leaders in playing time shorthanded.  Alexandre Carrier was more of a second-wave killer in the past in Nashville, now he’s on the top group.  Kaiden Guhle’s injuries haven’t helped while Noah Dobson went from basically not killing penalties with the Islanders to being a regular with the Habs.  They don’t want Lane Hutson doing it much which is fine while Jayden Struble and Arber Xhekaj have shown they can’t be trusted.  They’re definitely lacking there as well.

When it comes to the trade deadline, perhaps this is the area GM Kent Hughes should be targeting.  The offence is doing just fine but it’s clear there aren’t enough reliable options to help defensively or shorthanded.  Getting help there would be a big boost for the stretch run.