HabsWorld.net --
The scoring well has dried up for the Habs as a
lack of offence proved costly en route to losing three of four games this past
week. The offensive woes were even worse in Hamilton as they only managed
a single goal in a pair of defeats. The defence pairing of Markov and
Subban have played quite well this season but my Final Thought looks at why it
may be time to split them up.
|
Cheers |
Cheers to…
1) Alex Galchenyuk. He was arguably the
only Hab to be a consistent scoring threat all week and he was rewarded with his
highest and third highest career ice times. After a swoon following his
strong start, he has really picked up his play over the past few weeks.
2) The penalty kill, which still continued to
be strong despite the overall struggles, warranting a mention here for second
straight week. The unit has allowed just one powerplay goal in the past
eleven games which has helped balance out the recent disaster that has been
Montreal’s powerplay over the past couple of weeks.
3) Montreal’s shot blocking brigade. When
you think of top shot blockers around the league, Josh Gorges is a name that
rightfully comes to mind. Two names that probably don’t are Raphael Diaz
and Andrei Markov. All three blueliners find themselves in the top-10
league wide in blocks, ranking 3rd, 7th, and 8th respectively.
Jeers to…
1) Douglas Murray, but not for his
defensive/physical play. Through 18 games and nearly four hours of ice
time, he has yet to be on the ice for a goal scored by the Canadiens. That
sounds bad enough but it’s even worse when you consider he has the highest
5-on-5 offensive zone start percentage on the team (just over 37%). To
start that often in the offensive zone and play as long as he has without being
on for a single goal scored is a rather hard and unfortunate thing to
accomplish. I know he’s not an offensive minded player but that’s still
mind boggling.
2) Brendan Gallagher, who has hit the first
true slump of his professional career. He is now goalless in ten straight
(and has been tried with a few different lines while still receiving powerplay
time) after a strong start to the year. To put the ten games into
perspective, his longest goalless drought at the junior level was eleven games
back in his rookie season (2008-09).
3) The lack of comebacks in the early going.
Montreal is winless when trailing after two, collecting just a single point in
eleven games when they’re down after 40. This comes after they were one of
the better teams in the league in third period comebacks last season. If
they want to have a level of regular season success comparable to that of last
year, this needs to improve considerably.
|
StatPack: |
|
SKATERS |
|
# |
Player |
GP |
G | A | +/- | PIM | SH | TOI |
| 6 | Douglas Murray | 3 | 0 | 0 | -2 | 0 | 1 | 40:55 |
| 8 | Brandon Prust | 4 | 0 | 0 | -3 | 0 | 0 | 45:00 |
| 11 | Brendan Gallagher | 4 | 0 | 0 | -2 | 4 | 8 | 65:49 |
| 14 | Tomas Plekanec | 4 | 0 | 0 | -2 | 0 | 11 | 80:44 |
| 15 | George Parros | 2 | 0 | 0 | E | 5 | 0 | 5:36 |
| 21 | Brian Gionta | 4 | 0 | 1 | -2 | 2 | 5 | 70:41 |
| 26 | Josh Gorges | 4 | 0 | 0 | -2 | 2 | 3 | 84:22 |
| 27 | Alex Galchenyuk | 4 | 2 | 0 | -1 | 2 | 14 | 70:04 |
| 32 | Travis Moen | 4 | 0 | 0 | E | 2 | 5 | 44:03 |
| 48 | Daniel Briere | 4 | 0 | 0 | -3 | 0 | 8 | 55:09 |
| 49 | Michael Bournival | 3 | 0 | 0 | -1 | 4 | 2 | 25:21 |
| 51 | David Desharnais | 4 | 0 | 1 | -3 | 2 | 3 | 69:07 |
| 53 | Ryan White | 3 | 0 | 0 | -1 | 2 | 1 | 27:27 |
| 55 | Francis Bouillon | 1 | 0 | 0 | -1 | 0 | 0 | 17:57 |
| 61 | Raphael Diaz | 4 | 0 | 0 | -1 | 0 | 1 | 69:19 |
| 67 | Max Pacioretty | 4 | 1 | 0 | -1 | 0 | 9 | 76:02 |
| 74 | Alexei Emelin | 4 | 0 | 0 | -5 | 17 | 3 | 66:36 |
| 76 | P.K. Subban | 4 | 0 | 1 | -1 | 4 | 7 | 101:00 |
| 79 | Andrei Markov | 4 | 0 | 0 | -2 | 0 | 7 | 104:35 |
| 81 | Lars Eller | 4 | 0 | 0 | -2 | 2 | 8 | 65:00 |
|
GOALIES |
|
# |
Player |
Record |
SV% |
GAA |
| 30 | Peter Budaj | 0-1-0 | .897 | 2.57 |
| 31 | Carey Price | 1-2-0 | .906 | 2.47 |
|
Scoring |
Goals: Max Pacioretty (12)
Assists: P.K. Subban (21)
Points: P.K. Subban (25)
+/-: Andrei Markov (+11)
PIMS: George Parros (42)
Shots: P.K. Subban (101)
|
Schedule: |
December
17: Phoenix vs Montreal
December 19: Montreal vs St. Louis
December 21: Montreal vs Nashville
|
The Dog |
The scoring woes aren’t just in Montreal as the
Bulldogs actually managed to score at a worse rate than the big club. They
tallied just a single goal in a pair of tough losses.
|
News and |
– There was no help from the infirmary this
past week. Sven Andrighetto, Christian Thomas (both lower body), Steve
Quailer, and Justin Courtnall (both upper body) are all listed as day-to-day.
At the end of the week, Ben Duffy was re-assigned to Wheeling while Scott
Zurevinski was released so that could mean that some of these forwards are close
to returning.
– Maxime Macenauer signed a contract for the
remainder of the season with Hamilton while Nathan McIver inked another 25-game
tryout. Once those 25 games are up, he will either have to sign for the
rest of the year or be released.
– Louis Leblanc is just two goals shy of
reaching his goal total from last season and is three shy of setting a new
single season career high.
– Robert Mayer was loaned to Geneve-Servette of
the NLA, a team that will be participating in the upcoming Spengler Cup.
Mike Condon has been recalled to take his place on the roster until early
January.
– Lines from the most recent game:
Forwards:
Owens – St. Pierre – Leblanc
Tarnasky – Dumont – Blunden
Holland – Macenauer – Nattinen
MacAulay – Duffy – Fournier
Defence:
Tinordi – Pateryn
Beaulieu – Ellis
Schiestel – Dietz
|
Results: |
December 13:
Toronto 4, Hamilton 1
December 14:
St. John’s 3, Hamilton 0
|
StatPack: |
|
SKATERS |
|
# |
Player |
GP |
G |
A |
+/- |
SH |
PIMS |
| 2 | Greg Pateryn | 2 | 0 | 0 | -2 | 3 | 2 |
| 5 | Jarred Tinordi | 2 | 0 | 0 | -3 | 3 | 14 |
| 7 | Darren Dietz | 2 | 0 | 0 | -2 | 3 | 0 |
| 8 | Nathan Beaulieu | 2 | 0 | 0 | -1 | 6 | 0 |
| 11 | Nathan McIver | 1 | 0 | 0 | E | 0 | 0 |
| 12 | Maxime Macenauer | 2 | 0 | 0 | -1 | 3 | 2 |
| 14 | Michael Blunden | 2 | 0 | 1 | E | 7 | 4 |
| 19 | Scott Zurevinski | 1 | 0 | 0 | -1 | 0 | 0 |
| 20 | Louis Leblanc | 2 | 1 | 0 | -1 | 8 | 0 |
| 22 | Drew Schiestel | 1 | 0 | 0 | E | 2 | 0 |
| 23 | Joonas Nattinen | 2 | 0 | 0 | -1 | 3 | 2 |
| 26 | Jordan Owens | 2 | 0 | 0 | -2 | 3 | 17 |
| 37 | Patrick Holland | 2 | 0 | 0 | -2 | 5 | 0 |
| 40 | Gabriel Dumont | 2 | 0 | 0 | E | 5 | 9 |
| 42 | Ben Duffy | 1 | 0 | 0 | -1 | 0 | 0 |
| 44 | Morgan Ellis | 2 | 0 | 0 | -1 | 3 | 0 |
| 47 | Stefan Fournier | 2 | 0 | 0 | -2 | 0 | 0 |
| 55 | Stephen MacAulay | 1 | 0 | 0 | -1 | 0 | 0 |
| 59 | Joel Chouinard | 1 | 0 | 0 | -1 | 0 | 0 |
| 74 | Nick Tarnasky | 2 | 0 | 0 | -1 | 1 | 2 |
| 93 | Martin St. Pierre | 2 | 0 | 1 | -2 | 4 | 0 |
|
GOALIES |
|
# |
Player |
Record |
SV% |
GAA |
| 29 | Robert Mayer | 0-1-0 | .833 | 4.00 |
| 34 | Dustin Tokarski | 0-1-0 | .923 | 3.00 |
|
Scoring |
Goals: Leblanc/Tarnasky (8)
Assists: Martin St. Pierre (18)
Points: Martin St. Pierre (24)
+/-: Greg Pateryn (+11)
PIMS: Justin Courtnall (40)
Shots: Louis Leblanc (60)
|
Schedule: |
December
18: Hamilton vs Chicago
December 20: Hamilton vs Iowa
December 22: Abbotsford vs Hamilton
|
Final |
There are two schools of thought when it comes
to getting out of scoring slumps. Some believe in loading the top players
together to get out of it while others prefer to balance the attack. In
the case of the Habs, they can’t load up one forward line as they’re a
score-by-committee team but on the blueline, they’ve been doing that for quite
some time with P.K. Subban and Andrei Markov. It was working before but it
isn’t now; it’s time to change it up (for 5-on-5 play, not the powerplay).
Both Markov and Subban are go-to guys and what
seems to be happening lately is they’re deferring to each other far too often.
When they’re on their own pairing, they can take charge and that’s more of what
the team needs. Also, moving Markov away from Subban should lower his ice
time a bit. Through Sunday’s contests, Markov ranks 9th in the league in
TOI/game. For a player whose age is beginning to show and who hasn’t
played a full season in several years, that’s not good. Lowering his ice
time should help keep him fresh for the stretch run. Lastly, splitting the
Markov-Subban duo should provide each pairing with one offensive-minded
blueliner which can’t be any worse for the offence than it has been recently.
Michel Therrien hasn’t hesitated to change the forward lines in recent games but
now it’s time for him to try doing so with the defensive pairings.
