The Canadiens reached their lowest level so far this season with a 6-3 loss in Nashville, ending a disastrous seven-game road trip that began on December 19 with just one win. A victory which, let us remember, had been snatched in extremis in Arizona thanks to a robbery by goalkeeper Samuel Montembeault.
He gets roughed up night after night, and even those who wanted him to lose more often than not must not appreciate the fact that he bows out that way. We are only one win in ten games.
However, while the CH are definitely bad right now, they’re not supposed to be bad enough to receive such chin hooks for 82 games. But should we be surprised that he goes through this kind of slack period? Absolutely not.
On November 25, at the time of American Thanksgiving – which is often seen as the first milestone, or the first barometer, in the NHL standings – the Canadian was only two points away from a place in the playoffs. . He didn’t do anything phenomenal (11-9-1), but his performance was amazing enough to make you wonder when the hell we would start to see a regression. But a Canadian with an 11-9-1 record was just as aberrant as the one who just got washed up over the holidays. Those are the two extremes this team has proven capable of, and they should eventually find their middle ground, somewhere between those two poles, over the next few weeks.
Across the National League, the amount of goals scored month over month has remained surprisingly constant since the start of the year. Teams averaged 3.15 goals per game in October, 3.14 in November and 3.11 in December. We are slowly tightening the game (and we can assume that the trend will continue in this direction), but we remain in a season that is much more offensive than in the past.
However, the performance of the Canadian by month illustrates very well the inevitable tumble that was to occur, because its ratios of goals for and goals against did not follow the rest of the league at all.
The Canadian from month to month
| month | Goals for /match | Goals against / game |
|---|---|---|
|
October |
3,00 |
3,00 |
|
November |
2,69 |
3,85 |
|
December |
2,27 |
4,07 |
The 34 goals conceded during the most recent trip equals an average of 4.86 against per game, two highs in the NHL since December 19. The Canadian also conceded nearly 38 shots on average during his seven-game journey, in addition to posting a disastrous performance of 50% in shorthandedness. It’s no wonder then that Martin St-Louis, a few hours before facing the Predators, said that his team’s salvation begins with a better commitment in the defensive zone.
The CH is not as bad as the face it shows now, but it will be the challenge of St-Louis to prevent the current lethargy from becoming its new identity. From the beginning, this edition of the Canadiens has been a strange alloy of young players destined to be the future of the organization and veterans whose involvement is variable. Some of those will become unrestricted free agents at the end of the year, and others are playing as if they would. And the danger for the Canadian is that this losing spiral lasts long enough for these veterans who already do not produce much to feel less and less invested and that they place the fate of the team entirely in the hands of the youth. In short, St-Louis must prevent this alloy from becoming dysfunctional, and this will be his biggest test since he arrived at the helm of the team.
On December 29, the Canadiens deployed five rookie defensemen against the Florida Panthers. Five. Prior to the start of the season, GM Kent Hughes felt it was unwise to have more than two in his roster at the same time. However, until now, during the vast majority of the campaign, he has had four on his blue line night after night. As the season progresses, as the good teams emerge and those in the second third seek to accelerate the pace in order to stay in the race, it is normal that the very young team of the Canadian has difficulty maintaining the level almost idyllic start to the season and to stem this rise in the level of play. to limit the time spent in the defensive zone.
“Defending is not as fun as playing on offense, as a former player I know that,” said St-Louis on the morning of the game in Nashville. It’s a matter of discipline. For me, discipline is doing things that aren’t fun and doing them like you love them, and that’s defending. And we don’t do it enough. »
Against the Predators, his men continued to do what has been killing them for several games: they allowed the first goal, they gave up shorthanded, and they made errors in the defensive zone that led to too many dangerous chances for the opponent.
Everyone is able to see the prowess of Connor Bedard at the World Juniors and gives themselves the right to dream of him. The painful rebalancing that the Canadian is currently experiencing certainly puts him back in the race for favorable chances in the draw, but it is easier outside the walls of the locker room to rejoice in this fall. For Nick Suzuki, who is in his first season as team captain, it can’t be fun. For Brendan Gallagher, who was hoping to be healthy and bounce back this year but is struggling on the ice, it can’t be fun. It’s not funny to anyone; neither for the players nor for the coaching staff.
As for management, which can take a step back from what is currently happening on the ice, it must begin to consider its next steps.
Evgenii Dadonov and Jonathan Drouin have failed to increase their value, and the famous third-round pick Hughes hopes to acquire seems a long way off at the moment. Sean Monahan hasn’t played in a month, he laced his skates for the first time on December 28 and, even if he returns to play soon, he will have to at least display the same performance as at the start of the calendar for that another formation dares to pay this price for its services.
The other possible candidate would be Joel Edmundson, but it is not with a performance like the one against the Predators that he will help increase interest in him. Edmundson was on the ice for five Nashville goals — his poor coverage off Thomas Novak led to the Preds’ fourth — and he took an unnecessary penalty early in the game that put his team behind. All in all, it’s been a very difficult night for him, and it’s not the first. Edmundson has been on the ice for 10 even-strength goals in the last three games, has one of the team’s worst shorthanded stats and, all season, his performance doesn’t compare to what he had demonstrated in his first two campaigns in Montreal.
There would certainly be interest in him if the Canadiens wanted to trade him to a Stanley Cup contender given his playing profile and track record. But compared to defensemen like Vladislav Gavrikov (Columbus) or Jake McCabe (Chicago), to name a few, is Edmundson the one those teams would pay top dollar for?
There is that also in the current sequence of the Canadian. Yes, he’s shopping for a few small percentage points more in his chances of getting Bedard in the draft, but he also needs the bargaining chips he has left to look good and demonstrate that they can have an impact. positive.
If Edmundson, for example, could be one of those who contribute to closing the valves and stopping the waltz of dangerous chances given to the opponent, the CH would kill two birds with one stone.
(Photo: David Berding/Getty Images)
