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Morning Habit: Canadiens Need For Speed Against Rangers

By Kosta Papoulias

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MONTREAL, QC – After last year’s Eastern Conference Finals and their first meeting this season, it’s become eerily apparent that despite being dubbed a “speedy” team, the New York Rangers give the Montreal Canadiens all that they can handle. There’s no arguing the Habs’ forwards have good straight away speed, but put a puck on their blades, and suddenly their speed tails off.

While both the Rangers and Canadiens apply a decent forecheck on their respective opposition, one thing is crystal clear. Montreal simply doesn’t have the size up front to be considered dangerous in that facet of the game. The Blue Shirts not only pressure the puck carrier hard, but they finish the majority of the time with body contact, something the Habs just don’t do. If you want to slow down your opposition and/or force them to think the game faster than they are accustomed to, finishing hits is paramount, regardless of the size of the player engaging on the forecheck.

Speed From The Rear

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    • The Rangers have had considerable success against the Canadiens in recent years because of their youth and speed in their defensive core. With the likes of Rangers’ captain Ryan McDonagh, Marc Staal, Dan Girardi and Kevin Klein, the Blue Shirts have an about average combination of puck distribution skill, size and speed in their top four defenseman. That allows them to quickly transition the puck from defense to offense, all while having the ability to also engage the offensive zone.

    The Canadiens are a different story. The only defenseman among their starting six that can be placed in the same category as the Rangers’ D-core is P.K. Subban. If you continue down the Habs list of rear guards, not a single name can be added to this unique category. Andrei Markov and Sergei Gonchar, while once among the elite defensemen in the league, no longer have the foot speed to contend with speedy forwards like Rick Nash, Martin St-Louis and Carl Hagelin. Alexei Emelin has struggled mightily to find his game since returning from his knee injury a few years ago, while rookie d-man Nathan Beaulieu is still developing his game.

    Gilbert = Habs’ Killer

    Finally, we get to Tom Gilbert, who was acquired by Canadiens’ Marc Bergevin in the off-season as a free agent, to specifically help bolster the offense from the back-end. Sure, Gilbert numbers last season with the Florida Panthers were respectable from an offensive perspective, but his 3 season previous to that were nothing to write home about. In 43 games with the Minnesota Wild, the Habs’ blueliner put up only 13 points in 43 games, while been a whopping -11. This season, Gilbert has only contributed 8 points to the Canadiens in the same number of games.

    In October of this season, Gilbert played alongside Markov for the better part of the month. When asked about playing with Gilbert, the Canadiens’ veteran defenseman hesitated for almost a minute, and was helped by local reporters, to find anything positive to say about Gilbert’s game.

    Gilbert was supposed to possess a good first pass, yet constantly rim the puck along the boards to try to clear the defensive zone instead of looking for an outlet pass. Oftentimes, he is caught standing still, flailing around looking for who he should be covering and making mistakes in said coverage the majority of the time.

    Needless to say, the Canadiens’ professional scouting department have grossly misjudged the contribution that Gilbert could make to this hockey team. Just another one of those “oops” contracts that the Habs’ front office seem to give a player every season.

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