Montreal Canadiens wrap up California trip in Los Angeles

Like Owen Beck last night, Logan Mailloux, a fellow AHL all-star will play his first game with the Montreal Canadiens after the festivities.

Mailloux played five games at the beginning of the season, in what now appears to be a stint to clean some things up. He has proven offensively, and with strong skating that he is a strong, and mobile two-way defenseman, leading more to the offensive side. But his defensive game - gap control, defensive stick and ability to disrupt chances against must have impressed Habs management.

Samuel Montembeault put in a strong effort to seal a win for the Canadiens on Tuesday night, and Martin St. Louis called on Jakub Dobes for the battle with the Kings on Wednesday night. Dobes has played seven games, boasting a 5-1-1 record. Unfortunately for Dobes, his last star against the Minnesota Wild was a regulation loss, and the one before that came in overtime.

Dobes is keen to get back in the win column, and the Habs are hoping to stay in it and right a hot streak back into a wildcard spot. The Canadiens need their goaltending to be close to rock solid, and the defence will have to fill the void left by Kaiden Guhle's injury. Dobes' calm, cool and poised demeanour is much needed, and if he and Montembeault can get hot, the Habs could be a team to watch if they squeak in.

Unfortunately their start against the Kings wasn't a good one, the Habs are trailing 1-0 start the opening period. Montreal also trails LA in shots 10-1, obviously they need some smelling salts and Tim Horton's between periods. To save you the heartache, I will keep this one short.

The Canadiens were flat-out dominated, and while they had three goals on the board, the Kings played much better. Los Angeles ran the Habs up with five goals on Jakub Dobes, and one into an empty net. I would say there are some glaring needs on this team, and whether they are a wildcard contender or not will be largely based on Martin St. Louis getting the second-line situation figured out.

Mike Matheson scored to tie the game at 1-1 before the middle frame was five minutes old. Lane Hutson and Cole Caufield factored in on the tally. However, the Kings scored two unanswered goals, putting the Habs in a stranglehold deficit.

Alexandre Carrier scored the Canadiens' second goal, marking two goals from the Habs blueline. Carrier's tally was his third of the season. He isn't a threatening shooter, but he is effective.

Just have a look at this display of his pure sharpshooting skills.

The Kings answered back to restore a two-goal lead, before Logan Mailloux scored to put the Habs down by just one goal. Mailloux showed why he is such an intriguing player for the Canadiens blueline. The club needs a couple of legitimate top four right shot defenders for the future, and Mailloux appears next in line for a spot.

That was as close as the Canadiens would get, because less than 40 seconds later, LA scored goal number five. St. Louis, then pulled Dobes for an extra attacker, but much like the rest of the game, the hockey gods favoured the Kings. To seal the win, Trevor Moore scored his eighth goal of the season into a yawning cage.

It wasn't a very successful road trip through California for the Canadiens, finishing with a 1-2-0 record.

It's not happening for Patrik Laine right now

Patrik Laine has had a stretch of games, that in my opinion, he would like to erase from his coach's game tape. For a while, everything that Laine touched turned to gold, it was a sure bet that he would pot a goal on the power play. But that hasn't stayed consistent, and unfortunately, there appear to be some issues coming to the forefront.

Laine isn't producing on the man advantage his shot choices have been very uncharacteristic. But where it's most noticeable that he is battling something, is in foot races; he looks gassed, and unable to generate much speed from his strides. For a 6'5" guy, it is rather noticeable when he isn't moving his feet enough, and he hasn't been faring so well.

I find there are increasingly more sequences where he falls over or gets easily outmuscled and I think it might boil down to his conditioning. I think this version of Laine, isn't the one that the Canadiens expected they would be seeing. But, alas, that is where we stand, and I am of the thought that a strong summer to work on his conditioning will be essential.

Otherwise, his footspeed and inability to make an impact defensively, and get to areas off-puck will limit Laine's success. To be effective, he needs to have some sort of footspeed to support the breakout. St. Louis also isn't going to play him very much, if he can't keep up and make an honest defensive effort.

With the team struggling, and the forwards needing to provide a spark for the team, Laine refinding his groove would be a huge boost for the Canadiens, and their playoff hopes.