Three things the Montreal Canadiens must change moving forward

The Montreal Canadiens have only one win to their name, and if they want to improve, there are three things that must change.

The Montreal Canadiens have had all three of their games exceed regulation time. Two of them went all the way to the shootout while their most recent match against the Buffalo Sabres was resolved in overtime. They’re currently outside of a playoff spot with four points on the season.

Now seeing where they are in the standings is the definition of overreacting, considering the NHL is only a week old. However, there have been three things the Habs continue to do that are costing them leads and wins.

1. Not Good Enough in Front

The Montreal Canadiens lost their season opener 4-1. The majority of those goals scored are directly due to poor play in front of Carey Price.

Either Price was screened and unable to make the stop, or he would make the initial save without enough support available to clear out the rebound. The same issues occurred in their next game against the Toronto Maple Leafs. Let’s not take too much away from the Habs here, they won that game battling back from a 4-1 deficit. However, Price did allow five goals with the same issues coming to play.

What’s concerning is that some of these mess-ups have been from Shea Weber, especially in game one. At the same time, Ben Chiarot hasn’t looked his best defensively while Claude Julien chose to scrap the bottom pair of Brett Kulak and Cale Fleury in favour of Mike Reilly and Christian Folin.

The blame isn’t and shouldn’t only be on the blueline. The Habs forwards have missed assignments in the defensive zone, and a clear example of that is the Erik Haula goal.

Everyone needs to be better, and the Montreal Canadiens can’t rely on these heroic comebacks to earn points this season.

2. Too Many Penalties

The Canadiens have been shorthanded 13 times so far this season and have allowed four powerplay goals. This isn’t too much of a dig at the penalty kill considering they were able to score shorthanded thanks to Joel Armia. However, Montreal is continuously putting themselves in a defensive position.

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Let’s take Wednesday’s game, for example. The Buffalo Sabres have the second pest powerplay firing at 53.3%, and that was definitely a key point in their pre-scout ahead of the match. But that didn’t stop the teams from taking penalties. We can talk about the inconsistencies of the refs all we want, but at the end of the day, they took those penalities and allowed those goals.

Two of the Sabres’ five goals were on the man advantage, and it was nearly three, but Marcus Johansson scored seconds after the penalty expired. The Habs also gave up two powerplay goals in each of their two previous games. And not to mention Tomas Tatar, who leads to the team with eight penalty minutes.

The Montreal Canadiens need to get more disciplined. Even if they wind up having a top ten penalty kill in the league, taking all these penalties are deflating, especially when taking on a team with a lot of skill in their powerplay units.

3. Stop Relying on Goaltending So Much

Alright, I understand that this is going to be a tough one to breakdown, considering how good of a goaltender Cary Price is. The Montreal Canadiens have four points, and you can argue three of them are all because of Price.

The Habs have strong starts and many instances throughout the game where they rollercoaster. They lose that game last Saturday without Price, they lose their season opener against the Hurricanes without Price, and Keith Kinkaid had to make some big stops as well (despite giving up a cheeser).

Goaltending is always the difference sure, but the Montreal Canadiens can’t afford to rely on their goaltending to keep them in games. That mentality can only take them so far, and if you think back to last season, it didn’t help.

It’s still too early to overreact, but the Habs have a lot to think about. These three things have forced each of their games to require overtime or the shootout, and if they don’t change this, it’ll be hard to put wins together. And considering how strong the Eastern Conference looks this season, that’ll be the most important thing.