Montreal Canadiens: 7 Talking Points

1. Carey Price

Unlike last week, I had an abundance of options for this week’s talking points, let’s kick them off with a biggie: Carey Price. It is clear to any impartial observer that the Canadiens have not been getting their money’s worth out of the $10.5 million a year deal they gave to Carey Price in the summer of 2017. Price was meant to be the superstar he was in the mid-2010s for at least the first five years of the deal, and he hasn’t even been that in the first 3.

That being said, I don’t think alarm bells should be ringing, because nothing has really changed in Price’s situation in the past two or three years. He was overpaid and inconsistent with spurts of dominant play then, and that’s what he is now. We saw in the bubble what a hot Carey Price can do. When on his game and completely dialled-in he can be the difference between a cup run and an early exit. When not completely dialled-in, however, he makes some phenomenal saves and lets in some atrocious goals.

The Carey Price we’ve seen thus far this season is as bad as it gets with him, and he is bound to improve his play. When? I don’t know. Hopefully sooner rather than later. I’m also quite confident in my prediction that he will end the season near league-average in save percentage rather than the .888 he has put up through these first 12 games.

He has another 5 years left beyond this season on that albatross contract and I’d be very surprised if he finishes the deal on any team other than the Habs unless $4+ million are retained. And a buyout is not an option either, with only $3 million in total savings, it would change virtually nothing from a cap-perspective. Thus, he remains a Hab, to the dismay of many “partisans” it would seem.

I understand the frustration many feel; he has a massive contract and has had a poor start to the season, but don’t forget that just six months ago, the media and fanbase were, in large part, hailing his resurgence and dominance as sustainable. This market has quite drastic mood swings. Despite the current frustration, blaming the former superstar for all of this team’s issues is rather ignorant.

Price was left to dry against Winnipeg on Thursday. The defence had a shockingly bad game. The Jets had a set play that they executed over and over again and the Canadiens either didn’t catch on or failed continuously to stop it. Whenever Winnipeg came off the rush, there would be a trailer – often a defenceman – who would wait for his winger to attack the low slot with the puck before making his way to the high slot where he would receive a pass in acres of space, with no Habs’ defender in sight, and would have the time to pick his shot.

Price faced at least 6 of these high-slot shots where the shooter had loads of time and none went in. Funnily enough, this set-piece turned into two goals, none of which were scored by the trailer. Blake Wheeler scored one and Kyle Connor scored the other. Now, I am in no way saying that Price played well in the ‘Peg; he was one of the worst players on the team. The Nate Thompson goal was inexcusable and the Dubois goal caught him way out of position.

Despite Price’s play, however, the Canadiens set their goaltender up for failure. If Jake Allen were in goal for that game, the Canadiens still would have lost. Carey Price has been a big problem for the Habs in this young season, but there are plenty more problems with this team than his play. Marc Bergevin said it well in his press conference following the firing of Claude Julien; every single player has to be better, the issues are not found in a single player or a single facet of the game.

2. Speaking of the firing of Claude Julien… 

The second Julien-era in Montreal has come to a close, as have the days of the Muller powerplay. I am glad that Bergevin made this change. While he stated that Julien did not lose the confidence of the locker room, everything else he said along with the on-ice product is indicative of the opposite. While Julien is well known for being a first-class human being, this change was necessary for the salvaging of this nosediving season.

Dominic Ducharme was brought in two years ago as the eventual successor to Julien, and that day has come sooner than many had expected. He brings with him a fundamentally different message and system to Julien’s. A far more modern approach to hockey, one that encourages the skilled players to freely make things happen in whichever way they see fit. One in which the best players will be given the opportunities to succeed, no matter their levels of experience. This is a breath of fresh air for this organization.

Ducharme’s first game at the helm did not go as planned, but I do think it is worth noting that the first period of the game was far and away the best and most entertaining period of hockey the Canadiens played since they stood atop the North division all those weeks ago. The team looked dynamic. It no longer dumped the puck in at each and every opportunity, nor did it shoot from the point every three seconds.

Of course, this dynamic system was seemingly abandoned once the Jets rallied in the second period, which seemed more indicative of the players’ returning to the system they’d been playing under Julien than of Ducharme giving different instructions. This is to be expected, a new system won’t become firmly entrenched overnight. But I do think this bodes well for Ducharme’s tenure, at the very least, the Habs will be fun to watch.

As for Muller’s departure, I think that a new coach was needed for the powerplay, which has been horribly static and ineffective for years. Alex Burrows ran a powerplay with far more movement in Laval so far this season, and it constantly looked dangerous. Against the Jets, the Habs had approximately 20 seconds of sustained offensive zone possession on the man advantage, since zone-entries remained painfully bad. It should be noted though, that these few seconds saw a very different powerplay setup and a whole lot more movement… which also bodes well.

3. Jonathan Drouin and Josh Anderson

I feel pretty confident in the assessment that the first period against the Jets featured the most dominant Jonathan Drouin since his trade to the Canadiens. He was dynamic, dangerous and decisive. He set up Josh Anderson at the goalmouth after cutting straight through the center of the Jets’ defence and sending a nice pass to the right-winger. He assisted Joel Armia’s second goal following good positioning and a perfect pass. He was a difference-maker.

I love Drouin and have really appreciated his hustle this season. He has been much-improved, but he has not been a difference-maker, just a solid top-6 winger. The Drouin we saw on Thursday was something else entirely. He seemed confident and free to use his skill set. Did anyone else notice that he was far more willing to shoot? He seems completely comfortable and at ease playing under Dominic Ducharme, the coach he excelled under with the Halifax Mooseheads, the coach under which he outscored Nathan MacKinnon.

This is not to say he will ever come near MacKinnon’s level, he won’t, but with Ducharme at the helm, there is the possibility of him becoming a far more effective and dangerous offensive weapon. I do not think that a 20-goal, 75-point season is unachievable for the Ste-Agathe-des-Monts native. More importantly, however, I think that the likelihood of Drouin remaining a facilitator on his line with Suzuki and Anderson has really diminished, I think he’s going to take initiative and be a difference-maker.

Let’s shift gears a little bit. Josh Anderson has been everything this team hoped for and more. He’s incredibly involved, physical and quick and has scored 9 goals in 19 games. One thing worries me, however, and it’s not something that worried me prior to the season: his health.

I was not one of the people stressing about Anderson being injury-prone, after all, it was just one injury that was re-aggravated. This season though, he has left three games without returning. One was a Covid concern, and two were due to weird falls along the boards behind the opposing net. The first was the result of his barreling down the wing and running into the boards, while the second, in Winnipeg, was the result of an unintentional Dylan Demelo slew-foot.

Every time Anderson takes a fall I get worried. It is far too early in his contract to label him as injury-prone, and he hasn’t even missed a game, but I hope he just takes his enthusiasm down by a percent or two because we saw exactly what happens when he is out of the lineup on Thursday, he has quickly become an integral part of this team. The Canadiens need him healthy

5. Kaiden Guhle

I liked but didn’t love the Canadiens’ selection of Kaiden Guhle a few months ago. I figured the team’s prospect pool at left defence was already more than deep enough with Norlinder, Struble, Harris, Romanov and Fairbrother. My opinion has changed since then. Guhle has been fantastic in most games he has played since his drafting.

I thought he had the best World Junior tournament of any Habs prospect and by a good margin. His mix of physicality and mobility is rare. He reminds me a little bit of Josh Anderson as a defenseman, but with less speed and more agility. Not only has Kaiden Guhle not looked out of place in the AHL as a 19-year-old, but he has been among Laval’s best defencemen. He’s not as far from the NHL as I had previously thought.

While Guhle has a good shot and decent offensive instincts, his bread and butter is his defensive play, specifically his rush defence. The opposing team simply does not get sustained offensive-zone possession when entering on Guhle’s side. He has great gap control and just smothers the puck when defending the rush.

The key area that Guhle needs to improve is his play in transition, offensively that is. His first pass can be an issue, though I noticed it far less in Laval and during the World Juniors than in his games in the WHL a year ago. He will return to his Prince-Albert Raiders this weekend and will begin his duties as team captain.

Guhle was also more involved offensively with the Rocket than I’d anticipated, taking a good few shots from interesting angles and participating off the rush, including this attempt:

Oh, and he hits too:

I’ve become quite excited about this prospect since late-December. He certainly fits the identity the Canadiens seem to be striving for: being great fun to watch.

6. Refereeing and Video Review

Alright, here’s a biggie. The NHL’s officiating has seemingly gone from bad to worse for a few years now, with each and every fanbase feeling as though there is a bias against them at some point. And, for the record, I don’t believe in some league-wide anti-Canadiens conspiracy. Despite this, it is pretty clear that the team has been disadvantaged by poor officiating, video reviews and DoPS decisions far more often than they’ve benefitted from them.

In recent memory, the unpunished hits to the head of Armia, Kotkaniemi and Jake Evans, the no-goal call against Brendan Gallagher and the uncalled high-sticking call against Corey Perry have all left Habs fans, myself included, seething. The Perry high-stick was an inexcusable non-call; the referee was approximately a foot away and looking directly at the incident. Perry stopped playing because he got a stick to the face, giving the puck to the Jets, who then tied the game at 3 10 seconds later. The referee is the only one to blame on this one. But it should be noted that these missed calls, obvious as they are, happen to every team in the league.

The other incidents are a problem of unclear rules. I find it interesting that the CBA is meticulously structured, while the NHL rule book seems to lack more clarity than an infant’s handwriting. I could write an entire article on how ridiculous the “50% of contact must be to the head for it to be a headshot” rule is. How does one even define the percentages? Either contact to the head is made or it is not, simple as that. The IIHF has it right in stating that any contact to the head is a hit to the head. Therefore, I don’t really blame George Perros and the DoPS, they are simply following the rule book, which is where the real issue lies.

Last, but certainly not least, video review… In theory, this is a good thing to implement. Of course, we want more calls to be corrected if at all possible, why wouldn’t we? The problem is that the calls made by the decision-makers in Toronto are more unpredictable than roulette, especially when it comes to goaltender interference. I will refrain from ranting about the call on Gallagher’s goal against the Sens, but the decisions made by video-review have been incredibly problematic.

While human error is certainly at fault for some of these blatant decisions, these mistakes could be minimized if only the NHL defined goalie-interference. If, for instance, the NHL made clear that when a defenceman pushes a player into his own goalie and said player makes an effort to minimize contact and interference following the collision that that is not goaltender interference, far fewer fans would be enraged at the league and at video review. Clarity and transparency would go a long way.

7. Non-5v5 play

I already touched a little bit on the powerplay in point number 2, but let’s go a little bit more in-depth on the Canadiens’ play not on 5-on-5 this season. At 5-on-5 the Habs have been dominant, leading the league in goals-for percentage and in expected-goals-for percentage at the time of writing. It is, thus, in all other situations that the Habs fall short.

The powerplay started off hot and has since turned cold, it has essentially been a song of ice and fire… but mostly ice; having scored just 3 goals in the month of February, they notched 8 in January. The penalty kill has all the ingredients for success: a very good duo of goaltenders, a big defensive corps and 7 forwards that are good on the PK. The PK has allowed a joint-fourth most goals with 16 in 19 games but has scored 7. All but one of those 7 came in the opening 10 games.

One of the problems with the PK along with its static nature is that it has seen so much ice time. The Canadiens – and their defencemen in particular – have been terribly indisciplined all season, and it’s biting them.

The issues continue beyond the most basic special teams, however. The Habs have not scored in 3-on-3 OT, despite playing in 4 separate overtimes this season; they conceded twice. In the two games in which they did not concede an OT goal, they capitulated in the shootout. The Habs have lost all four games that went to OT this season, that is not good enough, especially when two of those four came against Ottawa.

Oh, and how could I forget 4-on-4. The Habs have scored no goals and conceded two – both against Toronto in the same game. Not good enough. The Habs are one of the 8 teams in the league not to have scored with an empty net, while they have conceded 3 empty-net goals. Not good enough.

Many people in the advanced-stats community were dumbfounded and/or critical of the Canadiens’ firing of Claude Julien; after all the Canadiens were so dominant at 5-on-5. But what they may fail to realize is that the Canadiens have routinely been dominant at 5-on-5 under Claude Julien all the while producing mediocre to lacklustre results.

I honestly don’t care if the Habs dominate possession with shots from the points and overall phenomenal underlying numbers if they can’t win. And the Habs had stopped winning after a hot start, with the same problems that had plagued Julien’s Habs for 4 years returning. A change was needed, mediocrity can’t be tolerated by a professional sports organization let alone an organization in a market like Montreal, let alone the Canadiens.

Dominic Ducharme will have his hands full with revamping the team’s philosophy and instating a modern approach to this beautiful game, but his focus needs to be on special teams. This team has had success at 5-on-5; its Achilles heel, however, has been every single other facet of the game, and that has to change.

All statistics sourced from Natural Stat Trick.