It’s incredible how low the Montreal Canadiens were just a mere week ago. They had won a tight first game, but then lost three in a row, Game 4 being particularly bad. All hope was lost.
Funny how much good coaching can change, eh?
Dominique Ducharme is just a few short months into his tenure as head coach of the Montreal Canadiens, and the jury is still out on how good of a coach he is. Montreal’s record under Ducharme in the regular season was just 15-16-9 in 40 games, which is not that much different than Claude Julien’s record, 9-5-4.
There are some things that I do not agree with how Ducharme runs the team. He shuffles the lines a bit too often and doesn’t allow players to mesh and grow chemistry. The powerplay saw a sharp uptick when he and assistant coach Alex Burrows were hired, but it has since returned to the depths where it was before. But, at the most important time, he came through.
Montreal Canadiens: Preparation and Tactics
So often, coaching is boiled down to making the lines and determining when and how to use them. But, there is also preparing the team before the game, in the intermissions, and coming up with schemes to beat the other team. And the scheme was what Ducharme came up with.
The Toronto Maple Leafs love to bring the puck up the ice in a controlled manner. They have a lot of skilled, fast forwards with the ability to cut through opposing defence to create chances. Especially when it comes to Montreal’s big physical defence, Toronto does not want to dump and chase and be punished physically.
It is a self-fulfilling plan, as Toronto has a vaunted offence that tends to back off defences that scare their forwards.
The thing is, bringing the puck in under control in the neutral zone only works if the other team lets you, somewhat. After Game 4, Montreal changed their game plan because Toronto was not going to dump and chase the puck. It was the fruits of Montreal’s physical labour. They hit hard and often, and Toronto was scared to be hit.
Toronto is not going to dump it in, so Montreal was able to step up in the neutral zone, and step up they did. Toronto had no answer. Think of the first goal in Game 7, where a turnover by Mitch Marner at Montreal’s blue-line turned into a goal for Brendan Gallagher. Eric Staal poked the puck off of Marner’s stick. Staal was acting as a defenceman, as Ben Chiarot was pinching forward. Montreal gummed up the blue line and there was nothing Marner could do.
It was an adjustment that won Montreal the series, but it did help that there were very little adjustments made by Sheldon Keefe.
Toronto Maple Leafs’ Lack of Adjusting
There was a good amount of adjusting on both sides, mostly due to the necessity of injuries. Montreal missed Eric Staal and Jake Evans for a few games respectively, and Toronto lost John Tavares early, and later missed Nick Foligno and Jake Muzzin.
But, the top line of Mitch Marner – Auston Matthews – Zach Hyman remained completely intact, outside of a few scant times when Keefe tried putting William Nylander with everyone.
Simply put, that line was not working, at least not the way that Keefe was using it. Montreal front-loaded their defence by putting their two best defensive centres, Evans and Danault, and playing them against the Matthews line every time they could. The only time that Matthews got any respite from those two was on icing calls.
The problem is that everyone and their grandmother could tell you what the plan was. Get an icing, put the Matthews line out, hopefully, they can work their magic and get a goal. That is pretty easy to plan against, and even if the Danault line was not out, every Montreal player knew what the plan was and how to stop it.
Matthews is a shooter, plain and simple. Best shooter in the league this year, sure, but a shooter nonetheless. He gets the puck, he is going to shoot it. Take away the shooting lanes. Marner is a passer. He has a weak shot, is afraid to use it, and will always look for the pass. Take away the passing lanes.
Hyman has less skill at shooting and passing than Matthews and Marner, but will go to the dirty areas. Use the big, burly defencemen that Montreal has to box him out of the front of the net and the corners. The defensive pairing that was usually on was Morgan Reilly and T.J. Brodie. Brodie is more of a defensive defenceman, so you can afford to cheat a bit on covering him to focus on the offensive Reilly.
And it never ever changed. It would have become like muscle memory. It would work in the regular season, where teams are all playing different teams every night, and that level of familiarity isn’t there. But this is a seven-game series, and the opponent is going to pick up on what you do, and stop it, and that is what Montreal did.
Putting anyone else would have, at least, disrupted the rhythm of Montreal’s defence. Throw the Nylander – Kerfoot line out and it would have at least disrupted the rhythm. Carey Price was dialled in, so it probably would not have mattered, but Keefe could have, at least, tried.
Ducharme was not afraid to make changes. He put in Cole Caufield and Jesperi Kotkaniemi, which put Tomas Tatar in the press box. Caufield and Kotkaniemi should’ve never been scratched in the first place, but he, at least, brought them in. Ducharme also changed the defensive scheme to be more aggressive.
Ducharme adjusted, Keefe didn’t, and now one team is moving on to the second round, and one is going home early.