A Winning Habit
Fansided

Positives and negatives for the Montreal Canadiens to grow and correct

By Omar L

TORONTO, ONTARIO - JULY 28: Cody Ceci #83 and Frederik Andersen #31 of the Toronto Maple Leafs react after Tomas Tatar #90 of the Montreal Canadiens scored a goal in the second period during an exhibition game prior to the 2020 NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs at Scotiabank Arena on July 28, 2020 in Toronto, Ontario. Tatar celebrates his goal with Nick Suzuki #14 and Brendan Gallagher #11 of the Montreal Canadiens. (Photo by Andre Ringuette/Freestyle Photo/Getty Images)
TORONTO, ONTARIO - JULY 28: Cody Ceci #83 and Frederik Andersen #31 of the Toronto Maple Leafs react after Tomas Tatar #90 of the Montreal Canadiens scored a goal in the second period during an exhibition game prior to the 2020 NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs at Scotiabank Arena on July 28, 2020 in Toronto, Ontario. Tatar celebrates his goal with Nick Suzuki #14 and Brendan Gallagher #11 of the Montreal Canadiens. (Photo by Andre Ringuette/Freestyle Photo/Getty Images) /
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Montreal Canadiens
TORONTO, ONTARIO – JULY 28: Montreal Canadiens (Photo by Andre Ringuette/Freestyle Photo/Getty Images) /

The Montreal Canadiens broke the ice for the first time in months against the Toronto Maple Leafs, but they have a number of things to fix.

In preseason/exhibition games, the score isn’t that important. But this isn’t a normal preseason/exhibition era of the NHL season. With only one game, everything that happens on the ice is worth making a note of and using as analysis for the future. And for the Montreal Canadiens, the future is on Saturday against the Pittsburgh Penguins.

The Habs dropped the game to the Toronto Maple Leafs 4-2. They gave up the first goal 33 seconds into the game via a cross-ice play. Montreal managed to get on the board, but never managed to grab the lead from the Leafs.

It was the team’s one game to see how well their work paid off during training camp, and they walked away with more criticisms than compliments. However, there were good things to take away from the 60 minutes of gameplay, and we’ll look at both sides as fixing the bad and building off of the good can work well in the long-run.

1) Bad – Claude Julien needs to be more creative

Claude Julien has shown time and time again that he’s more comfortable with sticking to what he’s comfortable with. He identifies who he trusts and leans on them the most, while others who fall out of favour with him must work to regain what was lost. At the same time, Julien likes to reward those who are buzzing.

The “fourth line” of Max Domi, Jordan Weal and Dale Weise played the most minutes of any line at 5v5 towering at 9:40. They weren’t the generating the most, that belonged to the Phillip Danault line (per usual). Danault, along with Brendan Gallagher and Tomas Tatar was the only line to out chance their opposition, and that was with going up against the John Tavares line.

Julien kept things even though. He didn’t change things up when the team needed a goal. Domi got the occasional boost, but for the most part, the Habs stayed the same. That’s an issue.

Running all four line works to an extent; however, it can be useful to mix and match or load up a trio once in a while when you need offence.

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