Montreal Canadiens Anemic Offence Without Tomas Tatar Could Have Been Norm If He Were Traded

The Montreal Canadiens have not been able to accomplish much offensively with Tomas Tatar out of the lineup. This could have been the norm if he were traded at the deadline.

The Montreal Canadiens were definitive sellers as the trade deadline approached. They took on that role and moved out Marco Scandella, Ilya Kovalchuk, Nick Cousins, Nate Thompson and Matthew Peca while bringing in several draft picks for these outgoing veterans.

All five of the players they traded away were going to be free agents at the end of the season. Most of them were unlikely to return next season even if they stayed around for the rest of this year so moving them to the highest bidder was an easy decision for general manager Marc Bergevin.

The tougher decision, and one that picked up a lot of steam among the fan base, was to trade away a more important player with term left on his contract.

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The two players who saw their names in the rumour mill most often were Tomas Tatar and Jeff Petry. They both have one year left on their current deals and, based on similar players who were traded leading up to the deadline, could have received a nice haul of picks and prospects in return.

This certainly would have led the Habs to taking one step back this season and even next year as well. However, it would have resulted in them adding to already deep prospect pool and give them an even greater chance of building into a contender in the future.

While it was difficult to see who would replace Petry if he were to be traded, filling in Tatar’s role seemed like an easier fix. Not that he is a replacement level player, but a right-shot top-four defender who plays in all situations and is among the top 20 in ice time is nearly impossible to replace.

In the Habs last three games, we have gotten a taste of what life would have been like had Tatar been traded at the deadline. In those three games, the Canadiens lost 4-0 to the Tampa Bay Lightning, 4-1 to the Florida Panthers and then 4-2 to the Nashville Predators. I guess that means they will lose 4-3 to the Buffalo Sabres tonight?

Tatar has played most of the season on a dangerous line with Phillip Danault and Brendan Gallagher. Without Tatar in the lineup, they haven’t looked so dangerous. In the past three games, the Habs goals have been scored by Jake Evans on a nice individual effort against the Panthers, and then Artturi Lehkonen and Lukas Vejdemo scored in the third period against the Predators.

That is one third line goal, two fourth line goals and nothing from the top six. It is only three games, but in the three games before being injured, Tatar scored six points. The 29 year old left winger leads the team with 61 points in 68 games. He has been the catalyst offensively all season, but that point has become even more clear with him out of the lineup for three games.

Without him, the Habs top six has not been able to muster any offence at all and the team has lost three straight games in regulation. The team certainly was not immune to losing streaks with Tatar in the lineup, but they didn’t often look this out of synch offensively.

With the announcement that Tatar is out indefinitely, it looks like the Habs offence is going to have to try to find a way out of this rut without him. Scoring has proven to be more difficult with Tatar out of the lineup than I anticipated.

As one of the many fans who thought the team should trade Tatar at the deadline if they received an offer of a first round pick and a top prospect, I now shudder to think what the Montreal Canadiens offence would look like next season without Tatar.