Meat and The Man Mountain: The Montreal Canadiens Top Defence Pair Needs to Be Better

No one doubts Shea’s power, his howitzer of a shot (routinely hitting over 100 mph), his presence on and off the ice, and his unmatched leadership abilities. He has captained the Nashville Predators, Team Canada on several international stages, and now leads the Montreal Canadiens. However, no player in the NHL can rest on past laurels, and Weber is no exception.

So far this season, his defensive play has been simply not up to par. He has been on the ice for numerous goals against the Montreal Canadiens. Certainly, some of them are due to his continual presence on the currently abysmal Montreal penalty kill, wherein everyone seems to be missing key assignments, forwards and defencemen alike. However, as the number one defenceman, Weber plays huge minutes against the other team’s best forwards and needs to show more of his infamous shutdown ability.

Opposing forwards seem to be beating him to the outside when gaining the defensive zone, then swooping in to the net for scoring chances. He has also been getting beaten to loose pucks in the crease while searching for the puck. Finally, he—and most of the P.K. unit—are getting destroyed by the cross-ice pass on the penalty kill: they over commit to the shot, freeing up passing lanes for opposition’s one-timers.

As much as Weber has struggled defensively, he has had just as much difficulty offensively, especially in goal scoring, as evidenced by his measly one goal in the first nine Habs games. The lone goal he has mustered was also an empty net one. He does have five assists, for a total of six points, but his ability to put the puck in the net has been diminished thus far.

As usual, he has been getting ample power play time on the first unit but has not capitalized on his opportunities. While the Montreal Canadiens’ powerplay is much more powerful this season, the second unit is doing much more of the damage than the first one. Some critics have pointed out that the first unit is too predictable, with players preferring to defer to Weber’s shot over all else while on the power play. They are not wrong.

A plethora of Shea Weber’s shots have been blocked by opposing players (for instance, Joel Erikson-Ek blocking three of Weber’s slap/snapshots in the same sequence last week against the Minnesota Wild), or those players have rushed him into taking a shot that is easily stopped by the goaltender, or they force Weber into missing the net altogether.

Weber’s shot is his most important power play asset. Still, if he cannot get it on net, he obviously cannot score, nor can he force goalies to bobble the puck, due to the velocity with which he hammers it, thereby giving up rebounds on which the Habs forwards can pounce.

These aforementioned difficulties have raised some serious questions about Shea Weber and his play. Has he lost a step, at 34 years of age, at a juncture when Father Time starts catching up to professional athletes? Have his past injuries, especially his last few with the Montreal Canadiens in the previous two seasons (fractured foot bone, knee injury), hampered his abilities? Finally, is his decline directly linked to his lack of a reliable defence partner?

Do not forget, during his successful career in Nashville, Weber was flanked on the left side first by Ryan Suter, and then by Roman Josi, two of the best two-way, puck-moving defenders in the NHL, who are incredibly consistent offensively and defensively.

Victor Mete will never be confused with either of Shea Weber’s former partners, but he is evidently the best that management can presently find. Mete, or “Meat,” as his teammates affectionately call him (because no one knew how to pronounce his name at first), was born on June 7, 1998 (21 years ago), in Woodbridge, Ontario. He stands 5’9 and weighs 187 lbs.

He slipped to the fourth round of the 2016 draft—where the Habs selected him—because of the concerns over his size, or lack thereof: he is an undersized offensive defenceman who has a superb skating ability, makes an excellent first pass, and generates offence by joining the rush.

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Mete’s offensive capabilities have not yet fully manifested themselves at the NHL level. He has a grand total of 22 points in 129 games, including his first-ever NHL goal, coming after 127 games last week. In fact, that was the longest active goalless streak in the league up until that point.

When on his game, Mete is also a capable defender in the defensive zone. He uses his tremendous skating ability, his active stick, and his propensity to angle defenders toward the boards as his primary tools, thereby compensating for his lack of size and physicality.

When he is not playing well, however, he gets pushed around by bigger, more physical players, loses puck battles, misreads plays, and gets caught out of position while trying to pinch in the offensive play. Most of these miscues can be attributed to his youth and lack of NHL experience; but, is he the player to co-anchor the top defensive unit right now in Montreal?

I doubt it. Not yet.

If Mete is not the player to play on the left side of Shea Weber, then exactly who is the best option? My colleague, Ken MacMillan, recently wrote a convincing article detailing—through a statistical and analytic analysis— how Brett Kulak should be the number one left d-man on the team.

If not Kulak, then the other options on the left side are rather thin in the present. Mike Reilly has proven to be too inconsistent, and help from Laval is sparse on the left side. Xavier Ouellette, perhaps Laval’s best-left defenceman, is certainly not top pairing material; and future prospects like Alexander “The Czar” Romanov, are, at the earliest, a year away from making the big club.

Thus, we are once again brought back to beating that old dead horse: The Montreal Canadiens are in dire need of a top pairing, left shooting defenceman to compliment, and bring out the best in, Shea Weber. I do not believe the answer lies internally—not at the present moment.

While GM Marc Bergevin made overtures in the off-season to acquire that type of player (i.e., Jake Gardiner), and rumours persist about management’s interest in the likes of Nick Leddy and Shayne Gostisbhere, nothing has come to fruition.

The clock is ticking, games are passing, and the Habs are missing out on crucial points (remember they only missed the playoffs by two points last year). If they get those points early in the season, they can breathe more readily, heading down the final stretch. Shea Weber and Victor Mete will need to stop the bleeding for the time being, but much more is expected from the top defence pairing of the Montreal Canadiens. It is time to deliver.