Montreal Canadiens: Three Reasons To Be Optimistic About The Habs Playoff Chances

Analytics, eye-test agree this team is better than current record.

When a team is mired in a lengthy losing streak, it is pretty easy to just look at their record and say they just aren’t good enough. Losing eight times in a row is supposed to be only for the Detroit Red Wings who are headed for the basement and the Buffalo Sabres in the new year because that’s what they do no matter how good they were in October.

It’s not supposed to happen to good teams, except some times it does. We all know the St. Louis Blues were the worst team in the league shortly after January 1st last year and then won the Stanley Cup. The Dallas Stars started the year 1-7-1, then went 14-1-1 in their next 16. The Minnesota Wild were challenging the Red Wings for last in October and just went ten straight games without a loss. If anyone said to you in the middle of October that the Stars and Wild would be in a playoff spot on the morning of December 7th you would have called them crazy.

You would have been right. But they would have been correct as well.

So, good teams can go through tough stretches, and when you really break down the Habs tough stretch, you can see they dealt with some unfortunate luck.

It all started with a 4-3 overtime loss to the New Jersey Devils. This was the infamous no-goal after Phillip Danault hip-thrusted the puck over the line in the final minute of regulation. If that puck bounces about an inch further before Danault nudges it over the line, it’s a good goal and the Habs win.

Then the Habs lost 5-2 to the Columbus Blue Jackets but they were all over them in the first 40 minutes before the game got away in the third. An overtime loss to the Ottawa Senators could have been a win if not for an amazing glove save by Craig Anderson who is always amazing against the Habs. Montreal outshot Ottawa 36-24 and were clearly the better team.

Then there was the incredible collapse against the New York Rangers. They were up 4-0 and went into cruise control only to see the lead slip away and end up with a 6-5 loss. No matter how bad a team plays after taking a 4-0 lead they almost never actually lose.

There is no way to make an 8-1 loss look anything other than terrible, but the Habs rebounded by firing 48 shots on goal in a 6-4 loss to the Devils. They had 42 shots on goal in a 4-3 overtime loss to the Flyers a few days later. Then played a great road game in Boston but couldn’t hang on to their slim lead in the third period.

With a little luck, those three overtime losses could have easily been wins and regulation losses to the Devils, Rangers and Blue Jackets could have seen them grab a point or two. If you watched the games without keeping score, you’d never have guessed they were the loser in all eight.

I guess that’s what we call the eye-test these days. That doesn’t always match up with what is actually happening, but in the Habs case, the analytics make a stronger case for them being a great team than the eye-test.

Corsi-For Percentage is the thing analytics people looked at for years to try and explain that the Carolina Hurricanes were a great team. It took a while, but the Hurricanes have been pretty good for the past couple seasons. The Habs rank second in the entire NHL with a 54.23 CF%. They trail only the aforementioned Hurricanes and they basically invented this stat so that’s impressive.

The Habs also rank fourth in shots percentage which tells us they are regularly outshooting their opposition. Their expected goals-for is third highest in the league as is their scoring chance percentage. However, their actual goals-for percentage is 11th in the NHL, meaning they are exceptional at having more control during a game, more chances, more shots but are only slightly above average at actually putting more pucks in the net.

Chances are they will have a bit more luck with that in the future. A little better play from Carey Price would go a long way toward achieving that goal.

What it all points to is many reasons to be optimistic that the Canadiens record of 13-11-6 is not an accurate reflection of how good this team really is. They should be better – much better – in the near future and have a realistic chance of maintaining their position at second in the Atlantic Division.