Being an undisciplined team is a problem. Having trouble shorthanded is another. Lacking discipline AND giving away goals galore short of a man, sounds like a big deal. Or two reasons to avoid the penalty box.
The Canadian finds himself in this very uncomfortable position. His 172 minor penalties put him in ninth place in the NHL this season (before Friday night games), very close to the leading teams in this regard. And he arrives at the 27e rung of shorthanded circuit (73.7%).
Since the two problems are not linked by a causal relationship, they must be addressed individually. The most obvious, shall we say, would be to get fewer punishments. Difficult, in fact, to do worse than last Thursday night against the Florida Panthers, who took advantage of eight chances on the power play to score four goals. The CH spent no less than 13 min 36 s defending with one or two skaters less.
It is therefore not for nothing that coach Martin St-Louis, on Friday, called on his men to show “more control”.
You have to play with emotion, but you must not get lost. We lost in that match. I think it’s normal for a young team, but we have to fix it. We will try to find ways to help the group stay calmer.
Martin St-Louis, head coach of the Canadiens
We must also be wary of overbidding, argued Samuel Montembeault. “When we start getting penalties, or the decisions aren’t going our way, we get carried away and we get even more penalties or make mistakes that lead to penalties. “Against the Toronto Maple Leafs and the Boston Bruins, next opponents of CH, we will have to stay away from the dungeon, he added.
All those minutes spent defending can also have a wearing effect, pointed out St-Louis. Thursday, defenders Joel Edmundson and David Savard each spent almost 10 minutes at four (or three) against five.
Hearings
If the call for composure is not heard, there will always be the option of tightening the game on the penalty kill. Here, it is not won.
After his nightmarish trip to the West during the Holidays, the Canadian had had a rather happy streak in this regard. In six games, from January 5 to 15, he maintained a very respectable efficiency rate of 82.4%.
Last weekend’s trip to New York, however, was expensive. Jake Evans and Joel Armia came back injured, and they will miss several games — especially Evans, whose absence is estimated at 8 to 10 weeks. Since falling in battle, their team has failed five out of 10 times (50%).
Their loss is qualitatively heavy and complicates the management of the workforce. Evans (1er) and Armia (3e) are among the most in demand regular forwards short of a man since the start of the season (in average usage per game). Next on the list is Sean Monahan, also injured.
In their absence, it will be difficult to further tax Christian Dvorak, who was toiling for almost six and a half minutes shorthanded against the Panthers. Nick Suzuki and Josh Anderson, who were support staff in this department, have already seen their workload increase. But they can’t do everything.
So Kirby Dach, Jesse Ylönen, Michael Pezzetta and Rem Pitlick have already been given chances, with varying levels of success. Dach, for example, hasn’t been on the ice for a goal under these circumstances in almost three minutes. A great discovery.
Even though he has just been recalled from the Laval Rocket, Rafaël Harvey-Pinard was put to work on Thursday. With 4 min 16 s, he was only beaten by Dvorak and Suzuki. It’s a lot for a player repatriated only the day before and whose experience in the NHL was limited to five games until then.
The adaptation is done “gradually”, explained the Sagueneen, Friday. In the junior ranks and in the American League, he played a lot in this type of situation. However, the gaming systems are not the same in Laval and Montreal. Above all, “the level of execution is much faster in the NHL”. “On the cross passes, you have to be on the lookout. »
Harvey-Pinard therefore makes sure to “ask a lot of questions to the coaches who deal with the numerical disadvantage”. “That way, you know what you’re doing well or not so well. It goes a lot through communication,” he said.
The young man, by the way, is already benefiting from the blessing of David Savard. The veteran, an expert in the field, sees his compatriot as an “intelligent player, capable of doing good reading”. Standing out on the penalty kill “can give him a little more ice time and help him stay in the NHL,” he said.
The same Savard, moreover, calls for caution in the analysis of recent statistics. Yes, CH gave the Panthers four goals. But three of those came in the final 20 seconds of the penalty. “One more clearance and we were correct”, he imaged with great accuracy.
“It hurt us,” he concluded. Very accurately too.
In short
Controversial goal, the sequel
The day after the loss to the Panthers, the controversial first goal of the game continued to be talked about in the Habs locker room. Sam Reinhart opened the scoring in an abandoned cage, as Matthew Tkachuk blocked the way for Samuel Montembeault. The NHL argued that Thachuk’s presence “had no impact on the goal,” a way of saying the goaltender wouldn’t have made the save anyway. Montembeault admitted to having escaped “a few coronations” on the spot, but spoke of a “grey zone”, difficult to interpret. He was especially sorry for what happened next – another Panthers goal followed in the following seconds. Martin St-Louis, he said he would “learn from that”, that he would try to better calibrate his challenges in the future. The rules would still have to be applied consistently, we might add. What is not acquired.
Mike Matheson fined
Defenseman Mike Matheson will be relieved of $5,000 following a bodycheck he served to Eric Staal of the Panthers. In the first period, the forward tried to join Matheson in Canadian territory to grab the puck. The Montreal defender clearly had the advantage, but slowed down to shoulder his pursuer. The shock, which Staal did not expect, was brutal, and the veteran left the match. No punishment was awarded on the sequence, while the gesture of obstruction was flagrant. It is for this reason that the NHL’s player safety department justifies the fine.
Puzzled Savard
Given his natural calm, it was quite surprising to see David Savard so furious, in the third period, to have received a minor penalty for roughing, to which was added a 10 minute misconduct. We saw him slam the door to the penalty box after arguing with the referee. To his complaints, the referee did not really offer “a good answer”, he said on Friday, visibly cautious in his statements. “I still have trouble understanding why I had a 10-minute, I couldn’t find the answer [de l’arbitre] very valid. But it is as such. There was a lot of frustration in this game, after what happened in the second period. It’s up to me to lead by example. »