Poor Len Canayen reviews the Canadiens' season to date

We haven't heard from our National Sports (As Long As It's Hockey) Editor since the beginning of the NHL season, so it's high time for Poor Len Canayen to address the current state of the CH (Montréal Canadiens) nation. Over to you, Len...

Tank  youse, Hed. First the standings and stats. We are now almost half-way into the 2024-5 season -- 37 games played -- and les Glorieux are in 6th place in the Eastern Division, with 17 wins, 17 losses, and 3 overtime losses, good for 37 points and a points percentage of .500.

That's not good enough to make the playoffs, but after a poor start in October and November, last month was encouraging. Les Boys are on a 3-game win streak, and have won an amazing 5 out of their last 6. New Year's Eve's 3-2 comeback win over the Golden Knights warmed the cockles of my heart. [If they're still too warm, try rubbing them with ice. Ed.]

To what or whom should we attribute the change in the Canadiens' fortunes? Let's see... 

Goal - Cayden Primeau had his chance to provie that he was a reliable backup to Sam Montembeault. Turned out he wasn't, so Primeau is now back in the AHL, where he belongs. Knowing that his position as the starter is safe seems to have increased Monty's confidence and he has been playing well of late.

 

Montembault doesn't have the reflexes and style of Carey Price, and still needs to make sure that he has hold of the puck when he stops it, but overall he is much improved. Jakub Dobes, called up from Laval to replace Primeau, pitched a shut-out in his first game against the Florida Panthers, and looks like a good bet for the future.

Defence - Coach Martin St. Louis tried a number of players and combinations to build a solid defence, but nothing worked, and there was talk of replacing veteran D-man David Savard, which IMHO would have been a mistake. Right-handed defencemen are hard to find. Instead. Finally they traded accident-prone Justin Barron to Nashville for another veteran, Alexandre Carrier, whose play has brought stability to the blue line.

The big news of this season, though, is rookie Lane Hutson, whose ability to skate and stick-handle made him an instant favourite of fans of the bleu-blanc-rouge. He has scored only two goals but has an incredible 24 assists. The big things about this little guy, though, is that opponents just can't take the puck away from him. Yes, he still makes rookie mistakes, and he needs to put on some weight, but the -9 beside his name isn't solely his fault.

The blossoming of Hutson may have miffed Mike Matheson, one of my personal favourites, but he should be relieved not to have to shoulder the defence burden all by himself. Two younger players, Arber Xhekaj and Kaiden Guhle, can also relax a bit and concentrate on improving their positionaql play. They'll be OK, and if not, then Jayden Struble will be happy to come down from the press box and bring his brawn with him.

Forwards - In the first two months of the season, scoring was not as big a problem for le CH as was defence. However, there was a problem with the offence, in that it was unbalanced. The team had one (only) scoring line, composed of Cole Caufield, Captain Nick Suzuki, and whoever was out there with them. The other nine forwards mostly ragged the puck until it was the Suzuki line's turn again.

That has changed. Patrik Laine, acquied from Columbus, had the bad luck to have his leg broken in his first regular season game with the Habs. The limb has mended now, and he has scored 8 goals in 13 games. It would be nice to see him score 5-on-5, but Laine has definitely earned his place. Good on yer, Patrik!

With Laine in the line-up [geddit? Ed.], Juraj Slafovsky is back on the top line, where his inability to put the puck in the net isn't as noticeable. Old pros Brendan Gallagher and Josh Anderson, with a big tip of the toque to Anderson, who has finally figured out that his strength is not as a scorer but as a defensive forward, à la Bob Gainey. Well, maybe not quite, but he has certainly moved to the "asset" side of the ledger.

Another veteran who has risen to the challenge is Joel Armia, who, with Anderson, is doing a great job on the PK. Even more surprsing is Jake Evans, who has become a star on the PK, with 3 shorties, to which he's added 7 even-strength goals, for a total of 10, tied with Gallagher as the Habs' third-highest goal producer.

Then we have Emil Heineman, who didn't do much until recently, mostly because he languishes on the 4th line and doesn't get a lot of ice time. But this month he's played hard, determined to move up the roster, and has 9 goals to show for it.

Finally, Kirby Dach, Christian Dvorak, and Alex Newhook, all of whom YVT would be glad to see traded for a bag of pucks or whatever GM Kent Hughes could get. Except... this month Dach sudde4nly started scoring. Perhaps it's playing with Laine that did it? Newhook has been getting some looks on the power play, and it must be said that he does try hard. 

Dvorak has hands of stone and never seems ready when someone passes the puck to him. But he is one of the Habs' top two at the faceoff dot (Evans is the other), and is a tough guy to play against. The last mention in this review goes to resident tough guy Michael Pezzetta, who hasn't been seen on the ice since... I can't remember. The Canadiens have been lucky, so far, in not having any serious injuries, except for Laine. When the time comes, as it will, Pezzetta will be there.

Prognosis: It would be nice to predict a 4th-place finish for la Sainte Flannelle, but I just can't. If Ottawa folds (as I predict), the Habs will finish 5th in the Atlantic. Playoffs next year. Lifetime pct .987.

Are the Habs for real? Poor Len Canayen's mid-season report

Memo to WWW National Sports (as long as it's hockey) Editor. Len, you scum-sucking son of a motherless goat, you've got exectly ten hours to get your copy in before tonight's Habs-Oilers matchup. It's a new year and I'll be damned if you're going to draw any salary for sitting on your derrière. Vas-y!

Hokay, Hed! (Hey, you're not going to post dat, are you?) Here's my report on the Montréal Canadiens, to the half-way point in their NHL season. Thursday night's loss to the lowly San Jose Sharks. 

Final score 3-2, and that pretty much sums up the Habs season so far. Lots of one-goal games, and so many games won or lost in overtime or a shootout that I've lost count of them. 

That said, les Glorieux have won their share of those games. They rarely get blown out of the rink, and have 6 wins in overtime or a shootout. Could be worse. They've been playing roughly .500 hockey, currently .488, which is good for 6th place in the NHL's Atlantic division.  

That means -- and this is the "pleasant surprise" part -- that they're not likely to finish in a good position in the draft lottery. Indeed, with a bit of luck, they might get a wildcard position in the playoffs. That's nothing to sneeze at. The 2020-21 Habs finished 16th overall, just barely getting into the playoffs, but made it through to the Stanley Cup finals, which they lost to the Tampa Bay Lightning.

That les Glorieux still have a chance at this point in the season is due to good coaching from Martin St. Louis, and a much improved team effort, and that without Tanner Pearson, Alex Newhook, Christian Dvorak and Kirby Dach, who played in only 2 games before being laid low by a season-ending injury.

Let's look at who's still on the roster, whoès helping and who's not. This year's team is remarkable in that a lot of scoring is being done by defencemen. For my money, the Canadiens' MVP is D-man Mike Matheson. If Montréal didn't already have a good captain, they should give the "C" to Matheson. The guy's a horse! He's one of the NHL’s leaders in time on ice and his willingness to lead the rush -- it's a pleasure to watch him skate -- makes him the ideal for a team coached by St. Louis.

At the other end of the spectrum is Johnathan Kovacevic, one of half a dozen youngsters who've played in front of Habs goalies this year. "The K-man" is a solid stay-at-home defenceman, who may think he needs a passport to enter the opposing teams' zone. He has scored 5 goals, including the most bizarre goal of the year, into an empty net when eveeryone (except him) thought there had been a stoppage in play. However, Kovacevic is +6, which is a decent +/- stat. The coach doesn't seem to like him, but I do!

I'm not saying Coach is wrong. The Canadiens lead the league in goals by defencemen but they rank a lowly 28th in offence, which means guys up front haven’t been pulling their weight. 

Captain Nick Suzuki leads the team in scoring for a third consecutive season, with Cole Caufield, for whom fans had great hopes, in third place. The aforementioned Mike Matheson has one more point than Caufield.

Caufield's goal production is off, and I think it's because the little guy is playing like a little guy. (Wee Brendan Gallagher, on the other hand, always plays like a giant!) Perhaps Caufield is dealing with the effects of the shoulder injury that sidelined him for the second half of last season. He shys away from the "dirty" areas -- the slot and the blue paint -- and opposing teams have figured that out.

Another forward I like (and wish he could do better) is big Josh Anderson. Talk about slow starts! It wasn't until December that Anderson scored his first goal, not counting an empty-netter. Then he had 5 points in 5 games and now he's gone dry again. It's not that he doesn't try. Bulling his way into the offensive zone he's nearly unstoppable. But when he gets there... hands of stone. Keep trying, Josh!

At present, sophomore Juraj Slafkovsky plays on the right of Caufield and Suzuki. He too had a slow start, but has learned to use his size and skill and looks to me like a keeper. The absence of Kirby Dach, Alex Newhook, Rafaël Harvey-Pinard and Christian Dvorak makes it easier for defences to concentrate on the top line and the lack of depth filters through the other lines, affecting players like Sean Monahan and Jake Evans.

Monahan and Evans are both good at the dot. Props to Evans who is getting a lot more ice time this year, faut de mieux. Monahan is one of the Habs' top goal-scorers and the most consistent faceoff man despite not having much support on the wing. 

Getting back to defence, the Canadiens may have a blessing in disguise, in the form of half a dozen D-men aged under 25, in their first or second years in the NHL. One of them that Coach St. Louis likes is Justin Barron, because he likes jumping into the rush -- too much so, IMHO. He needs to learn to play defence!

A pleasant suprise this year has been the emergence of rookie Jayden Struble on defence. His solid two-way play is the reason why Arber Xhekaj is stuck in Laval, in spite of being a fan favourite for his scrappy physical game. Like Barron, Xhekaj should play defence first, fight later.

Now to another problem that is good to have... maybe. La Sainte Flannelle is the only NHL team playing three -- count `em, three -- goaltenders, more or less in rotation. None of Jake Allen, Samuel Montembeault, or Cayden Primeau has had more than two starts in a row. The save percentages are, respectively, 900, .907 and .905. Those are pretty good numbers, considering that they face an average of over 33 shots per game, the highest in the NHL, which says something about the Habs' defence.

As we approach the trade deadline, it's clear that one of the three will have to go, and there are plenty of teams sniffing around. The question for GM Kent Hughes is what he can get in return for (most likely) Jake Allen. There are gaps to fill on both offence and defence. 

If the team was still in rebuilding mode, he could settle for draft picks and "future considerations". But now that the surprising Canadiens are in danger of making the playoffs (!), fans will be hoping for someone who can make a significant impact right now. As Walt would say, stay tuned!