Year 3 of The Rebuild for the Canadiens isn’t going the way management and head coach Martin St. Louis hoped it would.
The Canadiens lost 5-3 to the Devils Thursday night in New Jersey, dropping their record to 4-8-2. It was their fifth straight loss (0-4-1), matching their longest losing streak last season when then went 0-5-0 from Feb. 15-24.
The Canadiens have only two wins in their last 11 games (2-7-2), have been outscored 46-26 during that span and sit in last place in the Atlantic Division. They are six points behind their pace last season when they were 7-5-2 after 14 games and five points behind their pace from Year 1 of The Rebuild when they were 7-6-1. They finished 28th in the overall NHL standings in each of the last two seasons.
Management’s goal of being “in the mix” for a playoff spot this season is already fading away. Instead it looks like the Canadiens will be in the mix for the No. 1 pick in the draft lottery for the fourth straight year.
The Canadiens haven’t only been bad this season, they have also been boring to watch on many nights — apart from the play of rookie defenceman Lane Hutson. They have the worst goal differential in the NHL at minus-20.
Jesper Bratt scored twice for the Devils, while Ondrej Palat, Jonas Siegenthaler and Jack Hughes added singles. Alex Newhook scored twice for the Canadiens and Brendan Gallagher also scored. The shots on goal were 27-24 for the Devils as Canadiens goalie Samuel Montembeault saw his record fall to 3-6-1 with a 3.46 goals-against average and a .892 save percentage.
The Canadiens got off to yet another slow start, falling behind 1-0 only 1:33 into the game and they were trailing 2-0 after a boring first period that might have had fans watching on TV in Montreal changing the channel. The Canadiens have now given up 20 first-period goals, the most in the NHL.
Gallagher continues to be one of the few bright spots for the Canadiens, scoring in a second straight game to give him six goals this season, four behind team leader Cole Caufield. Newhook now has four goals and is tied for third on the Canadiens with captain Nick Suzuki. Nobody else on the team has more than two goals.
The Canadiens seem to be stuck between a puck and a hard place while trying to be in the mix for a playoff spot and “learning to win” — the words of St. Louis — while also focusing on development with 10 players age 23 and under on the roster, including five defencemen. They are really missing veterans Sean Monahan, Johnathan Kovacevic and Jake Allen, who were traded away to make room for younger players.
The truth is this young team just isn’t very good with a lack of offence, too many breakdowns in the defensive zone and some shaky goaltending. As former NFL head coach Bill Parcells once said: “You are what your record says you are.”
St. Louis doesn’t believe that and told reporters in New Jersey after the game that he’s not nervous or concerned about his team.
“Go rewatch the game if you want,” St. Louis said. “I felt good about the way we played tonight. I know we’re down two … we got a broken stick (on Juraj Slafkovsky before the first goal). We turn the puck over, kind of a bouncer, that creates their second goal. I felt we didn’t get much help … I’ll leave it at that. We didn’t get maybe a bounce here and there, but the engagement and the work and the intentions are right where I want them to be. We’re just not getting rewarded right now and that’s OK. We’re going to keep going and we’re going to try to find maybe some answers for some players that are maybe fighting it and we’re going to keep working on the collective game, but I think that’s in a good place.”
Slafkovsky is one of the players fighting it with only one goal this season and none in the last seven games. He had only one shot against the Devils while playing on the second line with Jake Evans and Newhook. Fellow forwards Kirby Dach and Christian Dvorak also have only one goal this season and Dach is a team-worst minus-13.
“We’re playing good enough hockey,” Gallagher told reporters in New Jersey after the game. “It wasn’t perfect, but it was good enough hockey where more times than (not) if you play like that you’re going to be on the other side of it. Tonight we weren’t. Obviously, with the way things are going right now it’s frustrating, but nobody’s going to feel sorry for you. You got to continue to do the work.”
Evans also said there’s a sense of frustration as the losses keep piling up.
“But we have to look at the positives in this one, I think,” Evans told reporters in New Jersey. “We were just talking about it. There’s 68 games left, so if we play like that most nights I think we’re going to have a really good chance.”
Things won’t get any easier for the Canadiens with their next three games also on the road against the Toronto Maple Leafs on Saturday, the Buffalo Sabres on Monday and the Minnesota Wild next Thursday.