After one of the worst performances in Martin St. Louis’ tenure on Thursday night against the Los Angeles Kings, the Montreal Canadiens looked to recover from that embarrassment on Saturday against the New York Islanders.
Montreal has the worst analytics in all of the NHL by a considerable margin. They needed to tighten up, and they did forcing overtime. The Islanders won it in a shootout that took nine rounds to decide a winner. Oliver Kapanen and an absolute snipe by Emil Heineman were the goal scorers in the shootout for Montreal.
Despite the loss, a respectable game for the Canadiens overall. It’s a start after the brutal contests that preceded it.
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It was uplifting who hit the scoresheet for Montreal in this one. Logan Mailloux scored his first goal in the NHL. It was a beauty. Jake Evans saw Mailloux coming in from the point. From the corner, Evans put a perfect pass on to Mailloux’s stick.
Mailloux ripped a snap shot into the far corner to tie the contest at two. It was Mailloux’s first game of the season. He was partnered with Lane Hutson most of the night. It was a look at the future as Mailloux looked comfortable during the contest.
There was a most unusual shift where the Christian Dvorak line was caught on the ice with the Mailloux-Hutson partnership for four minutes inside Montreal’s zone. Oliver Kapanen lost his stick, and things can go bad when that happens.
Through it all, the stamina that the defenders showed was remarkable. Though the Isles did resemble a short track speed skating team doing circles around the perimeter and actually created nothing, four minutes is still a heck of a challenge to be on the ice.
It was only seconds after the shift was over that the pair could be seen having a chuckle. Desperately searching for oxygen would have made more sense. They weren’t struggling for air at all. Mailloux will have an NHL career. He has the goods. He is already sound enough defensively, and will get more comfortable in time.
The opening goal was classic Cole Caufield. He took one shot that was saved, then had a nearly impossible angle at the side of the net for the rebound. He actually found the twine on the far side from just in front of the goal line. Not many shooters can thread that angle.
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The tying goal for the Canadiens with only two minutes left was also a Caufield special. He took the pass from Slafkovsky, then turned and fired from about 30 feet. There was nothing special about it, except to say goal scorers know how to score goals. They sense when a shot at an unusual time might just surprise a goalie. That’s what happened to force overtime.
Caufield has six goals on the season in six games. Caufield is trying to become the first 40-goal scorer on Montreal since Vincent Damphousse in 1994. He is off to an excellent start. Imagine if the line plays better than they have what Caufield could do.
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The league leader in goals this season is Nikita Kucherov who has seven.
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One of the most concerning aspects of the club this season, if not the most concerning, is the play of the first line. If there was one given this season, it was thought it was the first line. Nick Suzuki, Cole Caufield, and Juraj Slafkovsky could be relied on to play good hockey. It felt as if it was known that they would score goals, defend well, and be the foundation for the rebuild.
Last year, when they were brought together close to the halfway mark of the season, for many weeks, they were a top-10 line in the league in shot share. They played a lot of hockey in the offensive zone and had a 60 share. It was looking like the Canadiens had a true number one line.
In the final 41 games of the season, the line had 53 goals. Pro-rated that is 106 goals and would have put the line in the top-six in the entire league. Their shot share fell a bit last season, but they weren’t getting caved at all. Everyone believed that number one line was in the back, so time to work on the number two.
This season, 5-on-5, the Suzuki line is getting demolished. Certainly, they do face the other club’s best players, but that didn’t seem to matter last year. This season, the line has a Goals Expected share of only 38 per cent. They’re one of the worst lines in the league in this vital stat.
Too much hockey is being played in their own zone, and they simply must figure out what has gone wrong since the opening two months that they were together last year.
It’s all adding up to losses because of too many goals against. It’s a young hockey team. There is much to teach, and it needs to start. They do not look like a structured club. Montreal is the worst Goals Expected club in the league by a wide margin. They are much too talented for this.
The Canadiens Goals Expected share is 38 per cent. At 31st in the league is the Philadelphia Flyers at 42 per cent. The Carolina Hurricanes lead the league with a 67 per cent Goals Expected share.
The Canadiens can rely on Samuel Montembeault to steal only so many games. Eventually, they have to be the better team spending more of the game in the attacking zone.
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Something feels right in Laval. It’s been years since the Rocket played up to their expectations. It’s felt for a long time like the prospects were talented enough to be one of the upper echelon teams, but they’ve languished every season fighting to earn a playoff spot.
Enter Pascal Vincent as the new head coach, and it is paying dividends immediately. It is not just that the Rocket have three wins in their first four games, it is how they are going about it. Game four on Saturday afternoon at Place Bell, the Syracuse Crunch managed only 23 shots as the Rocket won 1-0 with Connor Hughes getting the shutout. Owen Beck scored the only goal.
The Crunch were looking for a goal for the final two periods to equalize. Often that leads to lopsided ice because of human nature, but Laval was so solid, they allowed little in their own zone. Watching the Rocket Saturday, the best word to describe them was organized. They played with structure.
Vincent has been coaching since 1995. He has had stints as an assistant in Winnipeg and as a head coach for the Columbus Blue Jackets. He has also coached Team Canada at the World under-18s. The man knows coaching and you can see how cleanly he has the Rocket playing.
He also a considerable amount of talent in his line-up, but so did other Laval clubs who underachieved. At the top of the scoring list is Filip Mesar. He has not excelled in North America yet after looking so comfortable earlier in a pro league in Europe.
Mesar asissted on the game winner on Saturday for his fifth point in four games. Logan Mailloux is second in points with four in only two games played. Alex Barré-Boulet also has four points in two games. Joshua Roy has three points in three games. Adam Engstrom also looks strong so far.
What a masterful signing by GM Kent Hughes to get Barré-Boulet. He was signed to a one-way deal meaning he gets NHL money in the AHL. That’s masterful because Hughes knew he had to send the veteran through the waiver wire. No one was going to pick him up knowing that they had to pay NHL money to play in the minors.
Hughes knew that this Quebec born player would ignite the fan base in Laval. Hughes also knew the winger has been a massively successful player at the AHL level. Barré-Boulet has been essentially a point-per-game player in the American Hockey League since 2019, including in 2023 where he had 69 points in 58 games. Extremely savvy move from Hughes.
It’s early, but this feels like it’s going to be a better season for Laval. They’re tied for first so far. The only difficulty could be if the roster gets raided because of injuries in Montreal. Nothing can be done about that. Let’s hope it doesn’t happen yet again.
Brian Wilde, a Montreal-based sports writer, brings you Call of the Wilde on globalnews.ca after each Canadiens game.