With only two wins in their first seven games, the Montreal Canadiens approached Saturday night as crunch time. It wasn’t supposed to be this way, but inexperience and injuries have been the major plot points on the season.
At the Bell Centre, the Canadiens needed a win against the St. Louis Blues, and they played with edge to get it, 5-2.
Wilde Horses
This one will cause a huge sigh of relief among upper management and ownership. They need Kirby Dach to find his game. There is no immediate solution in the line-up if Dach can’t recover after major knee surgery.
If Dach isn’t viable on either of the first two lines, the rebuild will take a huge step back. No one knows how quickly a player can recover from ACL and MCL surgery. In fact, no one even knows if a player can recover 100 per cent at all.
There are no guarantees that the knee will feel the same. That the player will be able to skate as well. That the strength will come back completely. Modern medicine is on the player’s side more now, but there are no guarantees.
When Dach started the season unable to break free with speed, unable to carry the puck up ice, the worrying must have been intense on the seventh floor. That’s why this one felt good all the way to Geoff Molson’s office.
Dach resembled his old self for the first time. He scored his first goal in 583 days as he banged home a rebound in front of the net. His second point was even better. On the power play, he took a hard pass from Mike Matheson, and one-timed it over to Alex Newhook who counted.
Dach sat at the end of his bench with a satisfied look after his second point. Martin St. Louis walked the length of the bench and gave him a hearty pat on the back. The gesture magnified the significance of the moment.
This was a big game. Dach took his first strides back to his old self. Breathe a sigh of relief.
One other huge positive is the goals continue to come for Cole Caufield. He ripped a shot in the third period for his seventh goal in eight games. The last 40-goal scorer for the Canadiens was Vincent Damphousse in 1994. You have to like the pace that Caufield is on to break that 30-year drought.
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The coverage, at times, by the Canadiens defensively is abysmal. There are so many occasions that no one has a man.
On the second Blues goal, after Logan Mailloux failed to dump in the puck, and Matheson fell down losing an edge, the Canadiens still had not given up a goal. However, the play continued in Montreal’s zone and the mistakes compounded. Four players were in front of the net, but no one was taking a man when the Blues finally scored.
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The Canadiens, on defence, don’t seem to know their assignments, or they can not complete their assignments.
The only certainty is a Blues player can’t be standing alone in front of the net while Caufield, Nick Suzuki, Matheson and Mailloux are just staring at him while he takes a feed for an easy goal. Defenders shouldn’t follow the puck. They have to check someone.
When the Canadiens pulled off that improbable run to the Stanley Cup final, you could count the odd-man rushes they gave up for an entire series on one hand. With this group, you run out of digits on all your extremities by the second intermission.
They want to create offence, but it can not be done at the expense of basic defence. When a Montreal defender has gone deep, a forward has to assume the defensive space, if there is a bad outcome. This simple error is made over and over again.
They worked a lot harder in this one. They had a lot more edge. They were hungry. However, they are not always cohesive. Let’s chalk it up to experience. This is not an indictment on the head coach when they are struggling to defend well.
This is the youngest hockey team in the NHL. A blue liner peaks at 29 years of age. These babies have a lot to learn. Even the forwards missing their assignments have the same issues. It’s part ‘don’t know’ and part ‘forgot to’. It comes with experience and in time.
They will get it. They have the pedigree. They have all excelled in college or junior. Most are first round draft picks or second round. It’s going to get better. It’s just going to take some time. These guys have the goods. They’ve always had the goods.
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It is becoming clear that reports of a quick rebuild were greatly exaggerated. When defenders peak at the age of 29, and most of the Montreal blue line doesn’t even have 100 games of experience, there is a long road ahead still.
It is likely that the Canadiens will have quite a lot more time for forwards to join the mix while the great young talent on defence learns their craft. One or even two top-15 picks could be in the offing this June with Montreal owning Calgary’s first rounder.
Also, the first rounders of the past summer are looking like sure things early in this 2024-25 campaign. Ivan Demidov was just selected by ESPN as the best player not in the NHL. He has ripped it up in Russia’s KHL this year already.
Demidov leads in points-per-60 minutes in the KHL with 4.61. That is nearly double the next best. That doesn’t mean he leads the league in scoring – far from it- it means he hardly gets a shift and when he does, he collects a point.
Demidov is being given only five minutes of ice per game at times by his head coach who seems to have an alternate agenda besides winning. Despite getting only five minutes, Demidov has 16 points in 20 games. That is four points off the league lead.
His head coach indicated he would get more ice time, if he were better defensively. Demidov is a plus-16. That is first among forwards in the league. Not sure how much better Roman Rotenberg needs him to be defensively. Rotenberg is actually a Russian oligarch firstly. Perhaps he should go back to that and leave the hockey coaching to hockey people.
The best total of points-per-game in KHL history in the season after being drafted is held by Matvei Michkov with 41 points in 49 games. Demidov is challenging that number. If his head coach, ever finds his marbles, Demidov could become the first point-per-game player in league history in the season after being drafted.
Montreal’s other first rounder, Michael Hage, is also excelling. Hage plays at Michigan University for the Wolverines. They are a club who doesn’t have a lot of talent this year. Hage is their leading point getter which is quite a feat for a player in his draft plus one season.
Hage has seven points in six games. All of his goals are absolute beauties as he has the ability to weave through traffic to create glorious moments. In fact, both of the Canadiens picks in June have superior puck skills to anyone on the roster currently, if they continue to develop at this pace.
Demidov is the first Canadiens prospect that looks like they will have point-per-game statistics and even hit the century mark in a good season. Hage is looking far better than a 21st overall pick which is a 50-50 proposition in the draft that a player even makes the league; never mind excels in it.
So while it has been frustrating to watch the start of the season for Canadiens fans, the management team continues to stockpile outstanding talent.
Brian Wilde, a Montreal-based sports writer, brings you Call of the Wilde on globalnews.ca after each Canadiens game.