Is getting back to boring hockey the answer for the Montreal Canadiens?

The Montreal Canadiens had an offensive-heavy weekend, but it led to two losses against Atlantic Division teams, triggering a push for defence-first hockey.

If there were two games the Montreal Canadiens absolutely couldn’t lose, it was the two against Tampa Bay and Florida this past weekend. The Atlantic Division is jammed packed and dropping those two games were horrible for their own reasons.

The Lightning have games in hand over the Habs, and many believe they are yet to hit their stride. However, despite having played fewer games, they’re now up on the Canadiens in the standings. The Panthers, on the other hand, had knocked the Habs out of their playoff spot, and a win against them could’ve shortened the gap.

This isn’t to say the Montreal Canadiens are totally out of it. Their 42 points are two and three back of Florida and Tampa Bay, respectively. Time is running out, though, and the Habs are creeping on the midway point of the 2019-20 season out of a playoff spot.

So what’s the issue?

According to head coach Claude Julien, the Habs need to go back to boring hockey to turn things around instead of this pond hockey style of offence and leaky defence.

Montreal scored nine goals across the two losses and allowed 11 to the opposition. It seems a little silly at first to be up in arms over two one-goal hockey games, but the matter of which the goals were scored is what’s driving the coaching staff nuts. The Habs were down 4-2 to the Lightning after starting 2-0 on their way to a 5-4 decision. The Panthers were up 6-3 at one point before Jesperi Kotkaniemi and Shea Weber helped bring it within one.

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The Canadiens playing this loose was at the forefront of some of their losses during the eight-game slide. The losses to the Columbus Blue Jackets, New York Rangers, Boston Bruins, and New Jersey Devils are clear examples. That said, there were games where the team locked things down but couldn’t get enough going offensively.

That’s a problem the Montreal Canadiens know all too well, and it ties to an underlying see-saw within the organization. The team had stretches this season where either side of the ice was being taken care of. They were scoring goals while not being too open to allow a high number of dangerous chances.

The team wasn’t perfect on the defensive end, and that’s where the play of Carey Price stood out the most. By no means is this solely on Price, as we’ve looked at in previous discussions, the goaltender deserves blame but for the wrong reasons. He built a reputation of having to stand on his hand every game for the Montreal Canadiens to succeed.

Now that he’s dwindling the average line, the team doesn’t have a stable wall to fall back on when things go awry. On the other hand, you can argue that comes with the staple of being the league’s highest-paid goaltender.

When they focus on offence and turn it into a shootout barn burner, it’s a flip of the coin as to who gets the final result. If they completely lock things down, their offence takes a hit, and they lose the game 2-1 or 3-1 via an empty net.

Claude Julien is the coach, and he’s in control of how the Montreal Canadiens play, but striving to one extreme isn’t going to be the answer. Let’s take Shea Weber’s season, for example.

Weber is on pace to finish the season with 25 goals and 65 points, which would set career-highs in both categories. His shot generation metrics this season so far are light and day compared to what they were last season (11.35 vs. -0.18). At the same time, his shot suppression has improved despite being on the positive side (3.94 vs. 4.43). The opposition is still getting more shots directed towards the net when he’s on the ice, but at least it’s decreased.

It fits that Weber is the captain here, the Montreal Canadiens need a balance of each scope of the game. They need that pond-ish hockey to overwhelm the opposition with their speed and scoring but then be aware of the clock and lock things down when necessary.

The Carolina Hurricanes do an excellent job of it, and it’s a characteristic the Habs could use. Will they?