The Montreal Canadiens have been in a slump as of late after losing three of their last four heading into the game Saturday night against the Islanders. They were able to emphatically get back on track with a 7-3 win over the Islanders and remain in third place in the Atlantic Division.
One of the reasons for the recent struggles has been in the defensive zone and opposing teams were just getting too many chances. Even for a team like the Canadiens with the talent they have among forwards, it was hard for them to keep up.
The Canadiens, ahead of the game against the Boston Bruins, would shuffle the pairs and break up Noah Dobson and Lane Hutson at the top. It wasn't necessarily that they were struggling, but it helped add some balance to the defensive pairs.
Over the past three games, the Canadiens have had Dobson paired with Mike Matheson, Hutson with Jayden Struble, and then Alexandre Carrier with Kaiden Guhle.
Kaiden Guhle credits a meeting after the Ducks' loss for the improvement
It wasn't just the lineup change that has helped turn this group around, as the players also seemed to take some ownership of their struggles. Recently, Eric Engels with Sportsnet reported Guhle said the team had a meeting after the back-to-back weekend losses to the Sharks and Ducks. He quoted the Canadiens defenseman saying, Commitment to defend, to play hard, to not take any ****. It’s all that that I think we were missing there for a bit, and we found it.”
While not perfect, there have been notable improvements from this group since making the switch, as the average number of scoring chances against has dropped from 27.6 over the three games prior to the change to 17.6 after the swap, according to Natural Stat Trick.
The same is for high-danger chances against as that also has dropped from 12.6 to 8.3 and the Canadiens have won two of their last three and outscored their opponents 13-6.
There is still room for improvement, and the blueline will have occasional lapses, like the turnover against the Red Wings by Matheson late in the game, but at this point of the season, the Canadiens should feel confident in this group after their recent stretch of games.