The Importance of Leadership
The problem with assessing what this season would look like from the offseason, is that many of the departures that left the team were players with intangible aspects. You can measure goals and points numerically. You can even do it with defensive play, but that is a bit more subjective. But how do you measure leadership? How do you measure experience?
Shea Weber would be out for the season, but would assumedly still be around the team. Corey Perry, who was brought in the year before, and became a team favourite went off to play with the team that sent him home Cupless two years in a row in the Lightning. Eric Staal left as a free agent, and has still unsigned. Carey Price would miss the start of the season, and his return date has been pushed back and back.
How can you measure the impact of those losses? The entire team are essentially Stanley Cup Finalists, and have the experience of a long and arduous playoff run. The kids, like Nick Suzuki, Cole Caufield and Jake Evans, should still be getting better and better, and evolving as players and pick up some of the slack left by Danault and Tatar leaving.
But, it seems like everyone underestimated the impact of these losses. There were the naysayers saying that the run was a fluke, and that Montreal would not make it back to those heights. But I cannot recall anyone saying that they would be this bad. It seemed unthinkable. The biggest fall from grace possible.
But that is where the experience and leadership comes in. Ducharme has lost the room, and the Canadiens have lost all grip on the season as a whole. Leaders and experienced players have experienced bad losses and losing streaks, and know what it takes to pull out of them. Without knowing how to stop this slide, the team and players are just flailing in desperation, but are unable to stem the flow of mud beneath them as it carries them over the precipice to a losing season and a lottery draft pick.
No one could have forseen this. If it was Montreal losing offensive firepower, it would be easy to see the impact. If it was just the goaltending that was bad, it could be traced back to Price’s injury. But how can you measure the impact of leadership and experience? Well, its the difference between a Stanley Cup Finalist, and the worst team in the league.