Montreal Canadiens: In other news… Gallagher’s Regression, Roy’s Hot Start

Canadiens: Kirby Dach’s Season Ending Injury Leaves Questions about Durability

Kirby Dach’s season is over after just two games and two points. What was a promising showing to start from the former third overall pick is now dead in the water, after a crushing check into the boards from former Habs prospect Jarred Tinordi tore both his ACL and MCL in his right knee.

It’s yet another unfortunate development for a Habs team that hasn’t been healthy in what feels like a decade. Going back all the way to the 2019-20 season Montreal has had repeated injury troubles year after year. While 2021-22 was a write-off just on account of Dominique Ducharme forgetting how to coach if he even knew how to in the first place, last season became infuriating for many Canadiens fans with just the sheer number of injuries the team piled up, from top players like Dach to AHL call-ups like Alex Belzile, some have begun to wonder if the team is cursed, and it’s hard not to see why.

For Dach in particular, this latest development raises obvious questions about his durability at the NHL level, and whether Montreal can rely on him to be a consistent contributor and future franchise piece, with seemingly any slight bit of physicality he receives leading to a major injury. It happened with the Chicago Blackhawks (who originally took Dach third overall in 2019) with a wrist injury suffered at the World Juniors essentially ending his 2020-21 season before it could get off the ground.

While there was hope a trade to Montreal would reignite his career, and it has to a certain degree, Dach hasn’t been healthy for long enough to make Canadiens fans and management alike confident he can be that top-line player for years to come.

Yes, injuries like this happen and it’s apart of the game, but again, if Dach can’t keep up physically in the NHL or fill out his frame to better absorb contact, what’s there to say this doesn’t happen again? It ended his season in 20-21 and also cut his time with the Habs short last season after just 59 games.

From what I’ve seen on the ice, Dach has the potential to be the kind of player who could slot right in alongside the star duo of Cole Caufield and Nick Suzuki, but in order to get there, GM Kent Hughes and crew need to be certain that each time he receives contact like this, his season won’t immediately come to an end, and that’s still a question mark at this current moment, for as promising as Dach’s offensive performance has been.

Brendan Gallagher’s Regression Visible as he Struggles to Keep Up

There will always be a part of me that hopes Brendan Gallagher can regain his forms and return to being the consistent 20 to 30-goal threat he was with the Canadiens for the better part of nine seasons.

On a Habs team that had little either offensively or defensively, Gallagher was one of the few, if not the only consistent and reliable offensive producers, with other top contributors like Max Domi and Tomas Tatar being moved within a few seasons of each other. In spite of all the shifts Montreal has made to their lineup since axing former GM Marc Bergevin, Gallagher is still here, though thus far in 2023-24, it’s seemed to be more in spirit than anything else.

After a solid 2019-20 season, Gallagher was similarly playing at a 30-goal pace in 2020-21, with 14 goals and 9 assists before a concussion cut his regular season and iron-man streak short after just 35 games.

Since that 35-game stretch came to an end, Gallagher hasn’t been the same player, and its something most fans and analysts alike have tried doing anything they can to deny, understandably. With a goal against the Capitals on HNIC, Gallagher got the monkey off his back to start this season but I don’t think it signifies much more than that.

In Montreal’s 2021 Stanley Cup Finals run, Gallagher scored just two goals serving almost entirely as a defensive option, though he did kick off the Canadiens Game 7 win over the Leafs in round one with a shot that honestly shouldn’t have gone in, and that’s the thing with Gallagher’s performance the past few seasons.

While the occasional bright spots have been nice to see, they feel more like false hope than anything else, as even when he makes a nice play offensively it feels more like a fluke than anything, and this is coming from someone who’s been a diehard supporter of Gallagher since he rebounded offensively in the 2018-19 season.

Such was the case with his first goal of the season on Saturday against Washington. In three games to start this season, Gallagher has 1 goal, 6 shots, 1 hit, and 1 takeaway, and Saturday was the first glimpse we had of any real offensive chances, as he’s often left trailing the play or struggling to keep up on the back check.

At the end of the day, no matter how old Gallagher gets, the effort will always be there, and there are few guys who give as much as Gallagher does night in night out, but the fact of the matter is, his body just can’t keep up anymore, and its clear how much it’s frustrated Gallagher to not be able to keep up physically with your effort level.

While I’m still going to hold out the faintest hope something will change, its looks like Gallaghers $6 million AAV deal (which he earned don’t get me wrong) is going to be an eyesore on the Canadiens salary cap if this performance continues, something I’m sure fans will have something to say about.

Joshua Roy Leading AHL, Rocket in Scoring to Start Season

On a more positive note, Joshua Roy’s steady progression from being an underperforming former No. 1 overall pick in the QMJHL, who had questions about both his drive and work ethic, to one of the more high-profile prospects in the Habs organization has been a sight to see, and something I don’t think anyone, even Roy himself, could have predicted.

Most of the attention for the Canadiens in the 2021 Draft came from their controversial selection of defenseman Logan Mailloux, who had pulled himself out of the draft after receiving a hefty fine and charges related to his sharing of explicit images from a relationship with a young woman whilst playing in Sweden. As a result of this, it was largely brushed under the rug initially when Montreal snagged Roy and center Xavier Simoneau in the fifth and sixth round respectively, both of whom have quickly become key parts of the Rocket’s lineup.

However, while Simoneau has been more of a two-way defensive threat, possessing less-than-ideal footspeed considering his tiny 5’07, 175-pound frame, Roy has instead come in and simply taken control of Laval’s offense, doing seemingly whatever he wants to do with the puck, leading the entire AHL in scoring just 5 games into the season with 5-6-11 totals.

In Laval’s first win of the season, an 8-4 decision against the Abbotsford Canucks, Roy posted a natural hat trick, showcasing his immensely promising and quite frankly dangerous offensive abilities, for a player most had written off after a less than ideal first few two seasons in junior. Being traded from the team that selected him first, the Saint John Sea Dogs to the Sherbrooke Phoenix after a mediocre rookie season, most pundits were unsure of what Roy needed to get his game and indeed, his development, back on track.

Well, that ended up being the Habs taking him in the fifth round, which seemingly convinced Roy this was an opportunity he couldn’t waste and reinvigorated him both on and off the ice. His next two seasons in the Q were nothing short of dominant, posting 51-68-119 totals over 51 games in 2021-22, and 46-53-99 totals over 55 games last season.

Along with an impressive performance at the 2023 World Juniors playing on a line with Conor Bedard, every element of Roy’s offensive game has thus far translated beautifully from junior to the professional level. With, as stated, injury troubles already beginning to affect the Habs, there’s a chance Roy sees a brief opportunity with the team sooner than later, though if I’m playing the role of Hughes, I’d give him as many opportunities as possible to explore his offensive capabilities in the AHL.

This isn’t Charles Hudon, this isn’t Jacob De La Rose, and this isn’t any of the other underwhelming former Habs AHL call-ups. Roy has the potential to be a lethal threat in the AHL, and in my mind, a player who can challenge for the scoring title in a few years time. Overall, it should be a fun season in Laval.

Former Habs Barber, Fucale, Impressing Early in KHL

Now for something a little different, the earlier start to the KHL’s regular-season compared to the NHL, means there’s always storylines to follow regarding how former NHLers have fared overseas.

For as strange as it may sound, a quote unquote “lower quality of play” doesn’t always mean a former NHLer will succeed in the KHL (Dwight King lasted just one season there before being bought out). Typically, it’s players who struggled on the smaller North American rinks that thrive on the larger ice overseas.

Case in point with two former members of the Canadiens organization, who had varying degrees of success when it came to their transition from the AHL, to the NHL, in Riley Barber and Zach Fucale, both of whom have found an early place in the KHL to start this season.

It’s not exactly secretive information when I say the Laval Rocket have gradually shifted from being a veteran AHL team to a development one, putting more focus on prospects whilst having two or three AHLers on two-way NHL contracts, while other veterans like Brandon Gignac and captain Gabriel Bourque are signed to AHL-only deals.

In both cases, it keeps players committed to the team dynamic, something Barber well… did not do, and this ultimately led to the Canadiens being extremely hesitant going forward when it came to signing proven AHL contributors. The son of former Philadelphia Flyers star Don Barber, Riley managed just 16 games in the NHL before heading overseas this past off-season, recording 0 points and 4 PIMS, playing 9 games for the Habs in 2019-20.

Montreal brought Barber in alongside former AHL MVP Phil Varone to lead Laval’s offense, but it became clear from the onset that both these players cared about little but their own individual performance, something that is unfortunately common with career AHLers who know they will likely never make the NHL full-time.

In situations like that, rather than buying into the team dynamic and being a presence in the locker room, they will instead score their 20 goals, ignore their teammates, and go home, something head coach Joel Bouchard and company eventually grew tired of, dealing both to the Pittsburgh Penguins in exchange for Joseph Blandisi and Jake Lucchini.

With that being said though, Barber was still a reliable and consistent 30-goal threat in the AHL, yet simply never did anything when he got his chance in the show. With 22 points in 22 games thus far this season with Nur-Sultan Barys, Barber is fourth in the KHL in scoring sitting just a point back of second place. It’s safe to say the larger ice surface worked out in this case, and I think we’ll be seeing Barber bounce around a few different leagues over the next few seasons, and it will be interesting to see how he fares offensively.

Similarly, you could say I was a little surprised when I found former Canadiens prospect Zach Fucale as the starting goaltender for Chelyabinsk Traktor going into this season. Once considered the heir to Montreal’s crease after Carey Price, Fucale won pretty much everything you could win at the junior level and was the first goalie taken in the 2013 NHL draft going 36th overall.

However, things simply never panned out that way, as a solid but unremarkable rookie season in 2016-17 would be Fucale’s last full-time AHL role until 2020-21 (yes you heard that right). Going from a top prospect with the Habs to a run-of-the-mill ECHL goaltender surviving off one-year AHL deals, Fucale’s last shot at the NHL with the Washington Capitals ended up being the one that stuck, serving as the starter for the Hershey Bears for three seasons whilst miraculously making the NHL against all odds, recording a 21-save shutout in his debut.

With prospect Hunter Shepard having claimed the crease in Hershey, Fucale now finds himself with Traktor, posting a remarkably solid 2.40 GAA and .915 SVP over 16 games, as he should continue to factor in as the team’s starting goalie.

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