Habs Weekly: A Rough Week on Multiple Fronts

Home ice was not kind to the Habs this past week.  They lost all three games including two in blowout fashion and to make matters worse, they got bad injury news on three key players.

The Week That Was

Nov. 11: Kings 5, Canadiens 1 – When Josh Anderson scored late in the first period, things were looking up for the Habs.  They played a competitive first period against a team they struggle against so this was a good opening.  It didn’t last, as the Kings scored three times in the first 5:22 of the second period and took complete control of the game from there.  Joel Armia potted an insurance marker midway through the third and the hope of any late comeback was over.

Nov. 13: Stars 7, Canadiens 0 – Dallas looked like they were doing Montreal a favour by not starting Jake Oettinger.  It didn’t matter as Casey DeSmith had his best effort of the season.  The Habs, meanwhile, didn’t.  It was close in the first period and things went off the rails after that with Jakub Dobes allowed four in the second period, ending his night early with five goals allowed.  Samuel Montembeault didn’t fare much better in the third and this was an absolute clunker.

Nov. 15: Bruins 3, Canadiens 2 – Montreal came out with some intent in this one to at least play physically and with some energy.  They held their own in that regard against a very physical Boston team.  But they will rue the struggles they had on the power play.  Two long two-man advantages and three other power plays yielded nothing but a lot of passing as the top unit played way too cute and seemed fixated on the highlight-reel play even if it came at the expense of shots on goal.  Meanwhile, the Bruins scored on one of their advantages with that goal from Viktor Arvidsson standing as the eventual winner.

StatPack

Skaters:

Goalies:

Team Leaders:

Goals: Cole Caufield (13)
Assists: Nick Suzuki (17)
Points: Nick Suzuki (21)
+/-: Nick Suzuki (+10)
PIMS: Arber Xhekaj (30)
Shots: Cole Caufield (44)

News And Notes

– The 7-0 loss to Dallas was the largest shutout against the Canadiens in Bell Centre history.

– Before Jake Evans scored shorthanded against Boston, the Habs had allowed 13 straight goals – the final five against the Kings, seven against the Stars, and the first goal from the Bruins.  That tied a franchise record for the most consecutive goals allowed.  The other time that happened?  1940.

– Now to the injuries.  Alex Newhook underwent surgery to repair a fractured ankle and will miss four months.  Kaiden Guhle’s recovery from a partially torn adductor muscle wasn’t going well so he has undergone surgery, keeping him out eight to ten more weeks.  Lastly, Kirby Dach fractured a foot blocking a shot against Boston and will miss four to six weeks.  Montreal will now be icing a lineup with a cap hit just above the league minimum for the foreseeable future.  That cap number includes the recalls of Jared Davidson and Joshua Roy from Laval.

Last Game’s Lines:

Caufield – Suzuki – Slafkovsky
Dach – Kapanen – Demidov
Bolduc – Evans – Anderson
Davidson – Veleno – Gallagher

Matheson – Dobson
Struble – Hutson
Xhekaj – Carrier

The Week Ahead

Monday at Columbus – The Blue Jackets have largely picked up where they left off from last season as a team in the middle of the pack that’s squarely in the early playoff mix.  How they’re doing it is a little differently as they’re not scoring as much but their goaltending has also been sharper; both elements land them around the middle of the league.  Kirill Marchenko and Dmitri Voronkov lead the way offensively while Sean Monahan, a top performer when healthy last season, has been quieter this year with nine points in 18 games.

Thursday vs Washington – Last year, the Capitals were one of the top offensive teams in the league.  This season, they’re one of the worst.  Alex Ovechkin isn’t anywhere close to last year’s pace, nor are Aliaksei Protas and Connor McMichael, youngsters who helped deepen the lineup.  Pierre-Luc Dubois is also out long-term.  However, they’re staying near .500 thanks to top-notch goaltending from Logan Thompson that should have him not only making Canada’s Olympic roster but also being their starter.

Saturday vs Toronto – This season hasn’t been pretty for the Maple Leafs who have dealt with a lot of injuries and some defensive lapses have proven costly as they sit 7th in the Atlantic.  Even after losing Mitch Marner, they’re still one of the top-scoring teams in the league.  However, Anthony Stolarz struggled as the undisputed starter with Joseph Woll out and now that Woll is back, Stolarz is on IR, joining Scott Laughton, Chris Tanev, and Auston Matthews.  Sammy Blais has only played in six games since being claimed off waivers at the end of training camp and with the injuries Montreal now has, if he’s waived when some of their injured players return, it wouldn’t be surprising to see Montreal put in a claim.

Final Thought

One of the narratives out there is that the Habs should have kept running the hot hand in goal and kept riding Jakub Dobes when he got off to a hot start.  But that overlooks the fact that the hand wasn’t all that hot by the time they started trying to work Samuel Montembeault in there.  There were some chinks in the armour against Vancouver, a game the Habs won.  He had a brutal third period in Seattle, resulting in Montreal blowing a three-goal lead although they won that in overtime.  A win’s a win, sure, but he was already starting to fade.  And if there’s one thing we’ve learned in his young career, he’s streakier than a lot of goalies so when a cold stretch starts, it takes a while for him to get out of it.

I’d submit that part of that was from fatigue.  While this is his third season, Dobes is still more accustomed to the lighter workload.  College hockey usually sees a goalie play twice a week.  Meanwhile, in Laval, Dobes was never the starter for an extended stretch, rarely starting more than two or three in a row.  Asking him to take a bigger workload in the NHL for the first time carries some risk.  Add that to the so-so play in his last couple of wins and there was a compelling case to make a change and get Montembeault back in there.

Has it worked out for Montembeault?  Not really.  But with how Dobes was going downhill, I don’t think things would have gone much differently these last couple of weeks as whether they were starting him more or less, it looked to me like he was still heading into that cold spell.

Now, with the injuries starting to pile up, the Habs are going to need their goalies to bail them out and steal some games.  At this point, Montembeault is probably the likelier of the two to do so so they’re probably going to keep trying to get him going.  But the chances will be there for Dobes (he’s getting the nod in Columbus) and as Montreal’s point cushion continues to shrink, the chance is there for him to still get that bigger workload.  But if it doesn’t happen, it’s not because they stopped starting him as often after the West Coast road trip.  There are some quibbles I have with the coaching in the last few games but goalie deployment isn’t one of them.