Montreal Canadiens: Adaptability Key to Deep Playoff Run

Round 1 – The Toronto Maple Leafs

It was so close to ending before it even started. The first game was salvaged by a miracle shorthanded goal by Paul Byron. The second game was a chippy affair, where Montreal could not get going due to penalties in the second period, and lost 5-1. Then, Toronto proved that they could beat Montreal at their own game, and won a tight, defensive game 2-1. If two games in a row was bad enough, make it three, and an embarrassing one at that. A 4-0 shutout for Jack Campbell, and Toronto was a shoo-in for the second round.

And that should have been it. Except that Toronto is cursed. Cursed with having to play teams in the playoffs that are defensively sound, and has a coach that isn’t afraid to make big changes and roll the dice. Although it is hard to not believe there is some sort of mumbo-jumbo going on, when Montreal had 3-0 and 2-0 leads in Games 5 and 6 respectively, lost those leads, but won in overtime.

Dominique Ducharme was put into a desperate situation. Still having the interim tag on his head coach title, an early playoff exit would almost guarantee him seeing the door after a middling term as coach in the regular season. Not only that, but Marc Bergevin was staring at an unhappy and restless fanbase. This was going to be a year of change if the team did not change in a hurry.

Matthews and Marner were relatively quiet early in the series, but Ducharme put the final nail in their coffin, and it came from an unexpected place. Tomas Tatar was originally on the shutdown top line with Brendan Gallagher and Phillip Danault, but he has historically failed to produce in the playoffs. And this year was no different. In the first five games (the fifth game he only played since Eric Staal was injured), Tatar registered only 1 assist.

That line had two years of great possession numbers, but it has always struggled in the playoffs. The question was who to replace Tatar with. Is it Tyler Toffoli, the leading goal-scorer in the regular season? Is it the big and speedy power forward Josh Anderson? Neither, as Ducharme went way off the board with this one.

There would be a good chunk of fans that would not know the name Jake Evans before this year. A 7th round pick in 2014, he ground his way through the minors, played 13 games for Montreal last year, and made the team full time this year, albeit in a fourth line role. A fourth line centre at that. So what is Evans doing as a winger on the first line?

Shutting down the opponents first line of Rocket Richard trophy winner Auston Matthews and top 5 scorer Mitch Marner.

Since the biggest threats to Montreal’s defence and goaltender were all on one line, Ducharme loaded his first line with the three best defending forwards, and completely shut that line down.

It was not the only adjustment Ducharme made. The defence was getting burned by the skilled and fast Toronto forwards, and the big, physical Montreal defencemen could not play to their skills. Intimidation would play a factor, and the instinct is to turtle low in the zone, and protect the net, but that plays into Toronto’s strength.

But Montreal flipped the script simply by standing up at the blueline. It gave Toronto no room to get the offence going, and Toronto couldn’t muster anything outside of the third period and when desperation started creeping into their game.

Montreal’s offence became less about trying to make their own offence, and capitalising on Toronto’s mistakes. Montreal’s offence was always born out of the fast break, but all three of the Habs forwards collapsed to the defensive blueline, and forced giveaways, where the forwards capitalised.