Montreal Canadiens: 3 Keys To Victory vs Winnipeg Jets
Play Ben Chiarot Less
The Canadiens changed their head coach just over a week ago and though some small adjustments have been made at 5 on 5, we are seeing mostly the same deployment of players as we did when Claude Julien was behind the bench.
That means, an awful lot of Ben Chiarot and Shea Weber.
When Chiarot signed his three year contract with a $3.5 million cap hit, I thought it was a huge overpayment. Then he played really well last season and looked worth every penny. Then he played terrific in the bubble against the Pittsburgh Penguins and Philadelphia Flyers and his contract appeared to be a bargain.
This season, the contract isn’t looking terrible, but he looks more like a second, or even maybe third pairing defender most nights. That’s not necessarily a problem for a player making an average salary of a player on a cap team. It is a problem when that player is playing the minutes of a Norris Trophy candidate.
In Montreal’s latest contest, Chiarot led the team in ice time with 23:38. He wasn’t terrible in that game, but he isn’t a fast player and he isn’t a great puck moving defence man so it is a little alarming that he is playing more than anyone else on the team.
Chiarot should be moved down to the second pairing, or he and Weber should just play less the current second pairing of Joel Edmundson and Jeff Petry.
The Habs will have a much better chance to win when Petry is leading their team in ice time and not Ben Chiarot.
Use last change to get the right matchups
The Canadiens typically roll four lines and have every forward playing between 18 and 12 minutes. The difference between first line centre Nick Suzuki’s ice time and fourth line centre Jake Evans minutes can be as little as five or six minutes some night.
This was great early in the season when everyone was scoring and the penalty kill was putting more pucks in the net than it was allowing. Every single player was delivering and playing well and it made it difficult for the opponents to match up with the Canadiens on their first lengthy road trip.
Well, pucks aren’t going in the net at the same rate as they did early in the season. After scoring 44 goals in their first ten games, the Habs have scored 27 goals in their past 12 games. So, they went from averaging 4.4 goals per game for ten games to 2.25 goals per contest in the past dozen.
It is easy say they need more goals but they can be hard to come by. What the Habs really need to do is shut down the opposition and try to win an ugly one if they are only going to score two or three.
The best way to do that is to shut down the Jets top line of Mark Scheifele, Paul Stastny and Blake Wheeler. The trio played over 22 minutes each on Thursday night and Stastny’s two goals in regulation were key in leading the Jets to victory.
The Canadiens should put together a shutdown line with Phillip Danault in the middle and make sure it is on the ice every time the Scheifele trio jumps over the boards. Even more importantly, Dominique Ducharme needs to get Jeff Petry and Joel Edmundson out against the Jets top line as much as possible.
Get a few power plays
The Canadiens special teams have been much improved under the new coaching staff. It is a small sample size of just four games, but the Habs penalty kill has been much more efficient and their power play has been far more dangerous in that time.
The only problem is, they don’t seem to get many chances.
In their past four games, the Habs have had just eight power play opportunities. They have scored on four of those chances, giving them a 50% efficiency under Alex Burrows tutelage. Burrows was named an assistant coach when Kirk Muller was fired and he immediately took over the duties as the power play coach.
Though the early returns are encouraging, the Canadiens need to draw a few more chances per night.
This is not the easiest thing to do, especially when getting whacked in the mouth with a high stick doesn’t guarantee a power play.
Of course not every call will be caught, but the Habs have a lot of quick, skilled forwards that need to start driving to the net more often with the puck. A potential scoring chance always sets off the ref’s radar and has them zeroing in on whether a penalty will be taken. Canadiens forwards need to start getting into the traffic more with the puck and try to draw a penalty to give their team a chance to capitalize on the man advantage.
They are starting to click with the man advantage, and scored a big power play goal against the Jets on Thursday night. The only problem is, they didn’t draw another penalty the rest of the night. A good looking power play is only useful if they actually get three or four chances to work in a given game.
Next. Habs 3 Stars vs Jets. dark
If the Canadiens get four power plays tonight, they’ll have plenty of time to create offence and give them a terrific chance of winning the game.