Montreal Canadiens: 7 Habs Headlines From Past 7 Days

1. Jack Gorniak

With the regular season now in full swing (let’s just ignore the upcoming bye week for the time being), the storylines concerning the Canadiens are multiplying, especially considering the huge pool of prospects this organization possesses. In this weekly column, I plan on covering storylines and tidbits that should be of interest to Habs fans but may not be significant enough for an article on their own.

Jack Gorniak, a 2018 4th-round draft pick, gets overshadowed by another Habs prospect on his team, whose name rhymes with Goal Goalfield. Gorniak is having himself a very impressive bounceback season in the bottom-6 of the Wisconsin Badgers’ forward corps. The 21-year-old has played a simple yet effective brand of hockey and has 5 goals and 11 points to show for his efforts through 20 games.

I’ve watched 5 of Wisconsin’s games this season and not once saw Gorniak make a blunder, again he plays a simple and effective game rather than Caufield’s (and Holloway’s to a lesser extent) highlight-reel goals and assists. At least, that’s what I thought prior to Wisconsin’s game against Minnesota on Saturday night. In that game, Gorniak scored on this solo-rush:

https://twitter.com/BadgerMHockey/status/1358239762004529153?s=20

Now, Wisconsin DOMINATED that game, so Minnesota wasn’t the most formidable of opponents, but that goal from the team’s fourth-line centre is quite something. That’s not all, though; Gorniak formed a connection with fellow-Hab Cole Caufield in the third period on a goal, and while Caufield’s finish was perfect, the hustle and diving pass from Gorniak is the true highlight of the play:

https://twitter.com/BadgerMHockey/status/1358248194484830211?s=20

While these plays by Jack Gorniak may not be synonymous with elegance and deftness of touch, they perfectly encapsulate Gorniak’s play with the puck in the neutral and offensive zones: he hustles and he gets the job done. The road to the NHL remains a long one for Gorniak, but the progression he has shown this season makes me believe he could become an extremely efficient and responsible fourth-line centre someday.

2. Laval Rocket

The Laval Rocket will play once again; it has been 337 days since the team last played, but they play tonight against the Belleville Senators. I don’t normally watch more than 10 Rocket games a year but I have a feeling that won’t be the case this year. I don’t know how good the team will be, but they should be a whole lot of fun to watch.

Habs fans will be able to watch Jan Mysak, Kaiden Guhle, Raphael Harvey-Pinard, Joel Teasdale, Arsen Khisamutdinov, Jesse Ylonen, Gianni Fairbrother, Jacob Leguerrier, Cam Hillis and Vasily Demchenko play their first North-American professional games this season, along with returning players who could really breakout such as Cayden Primeau, Josh Brook, Cale Fleury and Ryan Poehling. Excited yet? Wait until you learn that Jordan Weal could even play some games this season, the Joel Bouchard powerplay will be invincible!

This roster infused with young, drafted talent will undoubtedly hit some, if not many, bumps – not that it matters too much this season as there will not be any AHL playoffs – but they will be fun to watch and Habs fans really should catch at least a few of their games to see just what it is they have in these young prospects, I sure will. If you are interested in tuning into some games, RDS and TSN 690 Radio will broadcast every Rocket home game and all eight games scheduled this month will be home games!

3. Luke Tuch

For transparency’s sake, I was not a big fan of the Luke Tuch selection on draft day, unlike the following selection of Jan Mysak. I knew fairly little of the younger Tuch brother; I had him pigeonholed as a gritty, physical power forward who struggled to produce with the USNTDP; he did not feature on my top-100 prospects list. I would have much preferred for the Canadiens to select one of Sean Farrell (who they nabbed with the final pick of the 4th round), Anton Johannesson, Daniil Gushchin and Tristen Robins.

What Luke Tuch has demonstrated through his first 8 NCAA games has melted away many of the reservations I had of the selection; he has scored 4 goals and 7 points as a freshman. Tuch is tied for the team-lead in goals scored and is second in points, first place belongs to David Farrance who has only played 6 games and has 14 points… as a 21-year-old defenseman; what(!?), the Predators got a gem in the 3rd round in 2017, wow.

Back to Tuch, he doubled his season output in goals last weekend against Boston College, the top team in the NCAA; oh, and those two goals came against a certain Spencer Knight.

The goals were the result of Tuch’s smart positioning and willingness to drive the net, two characteristics that the Canadiens certainly appreciate and value. While Alex Tuch plays a more skillful game, Luke is grittier and has a physical edge that even his brother doesn’t possess. If Luke can become half the player his brother has been for the Vegas Golden Knights, the Habs should not regret making his selection in the 2nd round of the 2020 Draft; on the contrary, they’ll have gotten themselves a steal.

4. DSA

I’m just going to say it, the Canadiens have a new first line. Sure, this is a fairly meaningless statement given that the team’s top-three lines can be interchanged based on which trio is on a hot-streak; but the line of Jonathan Drouin, Nick Suzuki and Josh Anderson (DSA) has been phenomenal.

Offensively, they have just about everything a great line needs: skill, finesse, power, playmaking, smarts and a willingness to shoot. The three players complement one another beautifully and the chemistry that Suzuki and Drouin established in the bubble has simply been expanded upon to start the season.

The trio has dominated, scoring 10 goals at even strength through just 14 games (the three have scored exactly 13 in all situations); they have also controlled 67.63% of the expected goals! The line’s only glaring weakness has been with faceoffs; Suzuki has struggled mightily in this area, winning only 40.47% of his draws. This should improve with time, but is an area of concern in the present.

The DSA line has also seen very similar defensive results as the Tatar-Danault-Gallagher (TDA) line, and this despite having nearly identical defensive assignments as the former first-line. TDA has taken 40 defensive-zone faceoffs this season while DSA has taken 43 in 5:38 more minutes played. TDA has allowed 14 high-danger chances for the opposition while DSA has allowed 15; comparable.

TDA has allowed 3 goals, DSA has allowed 4. TDA has conceded 2.76 expected goals against, and DSA 3.22. The Danault line has been the better defensive line, but not by much; which is telling of how good the Suzuki line has been in its own zone since the Danault line has long-been an analytical darling at both ends of the ice.

The biggest reason for my calling DSA the first line isn’t seen in any one statistic or advanced stat; but rather through the eye-test. If hockey were entirely decipherable through advanced analytics, teams constructed with the aid of large analytics departments with the aim of targeting analytical darlings on the cheap (ie. the Toronto Maple Leafs) would consistently be at the top of the league. But this is not the case; there are intangibles and things you see but aren’t tracked.

Whenever the Drouin-Suzuki-Anderson line is on the ice, there is a feeling that something special can happen; that if the defence misses its coverage by just a foot or two, the Canadiens’ forwards will pounce and make their opponents pay for their oversight. In other words, they give off the sense of a first line.

5. A Losing Habit

Following a phenomenal start to the shortened season, the Canadiens have hit a brick wall. The team that was the most entertaining iteration of the Canadiens in a decade during the month of January has reverted to dump and chase, trap hockey; which has not only been painful to watch but utterly ineffective as well. The dominant speed in transition and the relentless rolling of the four forward lines that suffocated opponents throughout the opening 10 games have been reeled in.

Whether this is a result of bad habits, fatigue or an adjustment in tactics is unclear. What is clear is that since the Canadiens have lost their team identity, they have lost 3 games (all in regulation) in 4 contests… including one against the Ottawa Senators; a defeat that arguably saw the Canadiens’ best team performance of these past 4 games. That is not a good sign.

Ineffective and frustrating are the two adjectives that perhaps best describe this run of losses. The team has failed to create the chances that seemed to occur every few minutes of the first ten games; and the chances that are created are wasted, missing the net entirely more often than not. The team that led the league in goals per game has potted just 6 goals in the last 4 games (1.5 goals/game).

Oh, and 3 of those 6 goals were scored by Josh Anderson, who has been the Canadiens’ most consistent forward this season, not only scoring goals – 9 of them to be precise – but constantly playing physically, speeding down the wings and competing nearly as hard as Brendan Gallagher. This does, however, signify that the rest of the team has scored only 3 goals in the 4 previous games.

Changes need to be made going into Saturday’s contest with the Leafs. I would personally like to see the Toffoli-Kotkaniemi-Armia line reunited, bumping Tomas Tatar back up to the second line. The big change I would make would be to swap Philip Danault, who has been terribly ineffective and flat-footed all season, with Jake Evans. This would give the Habs a phenomenal shutdown line in Byron-Danault-Lehkonen and a second line of Tatar-Evans-Gallagher.

7. Sean Farrell

I began this colum with a Habs prospect and I will conclude it with another. Sean Farrell, a player whose drafting I quite literally cheered for, has been lighting up the USHL in his second season with the Chicago Steel. He was meant to play for Harvard this season, but that got pushed back to next year when they cancelled their season. He is thus playing competition significantly below his skill-level and younger than him.

Farrell is in his draft+1 year, but was also among the older players in his draft class, so much of his competition consists of players a year or two his junior. With this in mind, he should be dominating the league… and he is. He is first in league scoring, tied for 3rd in goals and has set a USHL record with a 24-game (and counting) point streak. He also has 11 more assists than any other player in his league. The 5’9″ left winger has scored 18 goals and 37 assists for 55 points in 27 games (2.04 points per game).

While it is impossible to judge just how good Farrell would have been for Harvard this season, it is of comfort to Habs’ fans that he has significantly improved upon his results last season, when he scored 15 goals and 41 assists for 56 points in 44 games (1.27 points/game). His playmaking has always been his strength. I’d go as far as to say he was one of the top 7 pure playmakers in the 2020 draft class. His skating, size and unwillingness to shoot the puck hurt his perceived value and caused him to drop to the final selection of the 4th round.

Farrell notched this primary assist on the powerplay yesterday, one of his three assists in the game. Farrell thinks the game at a far higher level than his opposition, it should be interesting to see how his hockey IQ will look at the NCAA level next season.

While Farrell’s skating still isn’t a strength of his, though it isn’t particularly bad, his shot and his willingness to shoot have massively improved since last season. Farrell has already scored 3 more goals than he potted last year in 17 fewer games. His one-timer on the powerplay is a legitimate weapon.

While watching Farrell play, I’ve also fallen in love with his teammate Matthew Coronato’s playing style. The draft-eligible player leads the USHL in goals and is incredibly hard-working; he really has a great shot. He’s currently projected as a late first-rounder/early second-rounder. I’d really like for the Habs to snatch Coronato at the draft, he and Farrell have great chemistry, and the 5’10” right shot left winger could learn his trade from Brendan Gallagher.

I very much hope you enjoyed this first iteration of my 7 talking points column, though you should expect the following ones to (hopefully) be quicker reads; I don’t exactly have the time to write 3000-word pieces every week! If there are any storylines you would like to hear a bit more about within the next week, please do leave a comment and suggest it!

All NHL statistics sourced from Natural Stat Trick; all other statistics sourced from EliteProspects.