HabsWorld.net --
It was a nightmarish week for the Habs who were
outclassed and outscored badly in a trio of losses, bumping them into a wildcard
spot in the East. Things were only a bit better on the farm as the
Bulldogs were able to muster up a single victory. With the team
freefalling, the talk has turned to Michel Therrien’s future. My Final
Thought looks at why keeping Therrien may beat the alternative.
|
Cheers |
Cheers to…
1) Nathan Beaulieu. Although it’s still
early and teams have a tendency to exploit young players’ weaknesses after
they’re up for a bit, the young blueliner has held his own in #6 minutes so far.
His passing in transition is nice and the second powerplay unit has looked a bit
better since he joined the lineup.
2) The decision to start Carey Price in
back-to-back games. I know that praising a coaching decision isn’t the
popular thing right now (I will have a criticism shortly though) but electing to
go back with Price sent the right message to the team that these two points vs
Washington were really important to get out of the slump. Unfortunately
for the team, the message wasn’t well received.
3) The non-fight with Peter Budaj. As a
fan, the last thing I wanted to see was anything that might prolong the agony of
a 5-1 blowout defeat any longer and for a bit, it was looking like an attempt at
a fight would actually do that. But watching him and Marc-Andre Fleury
half-heartedly attempt to get away from the intervening officials was good for a
laugh. In a week with a lot of frustration, this somehow wound up being
one of the highlights.
Jeers to…
1) Brandon Prust’s antics vs Washington.
It’s one thing to disagree with a penalty call (and it was a justifiable one –
for a high stick, not a dive – though offsetting minors probably was the correct
call) but to dog it through the backcheck (largely causing the goal) and then
going and getting thrown out of the game is simply unacceptable, regardless of
the score at the time. That’s quitting on the team and for a player who
largely leads by example, that simply cannot happen.
2) The surprising benching of the youngsters
late in blowouts. When you’re down by three and four goals, it would make
sense to play the likes of Bournival and Leblanc more. Leblanc failed to
crack eight minutes of ice time in any of the games while Bournival was under
nine minutes twice. This is the time for the coaches to play them more,
not less; it’s a wasted opportunity.
3) The Habs’ performance at 5-on-5. Over
the past three games, the Canadiens are allowing a 5-on-5 goal once every 12:02.
For comparison purposes, the penalty kill averaged a goal allowed per 10:39 of
PK time. If you back out the 3-on-5 goal allowed vs Detroit though,
Montreal’s 4-on-5 performance (1 GA per 15:27) actually was better than their
5-on-5 efforts. They’re not going to win many (or any) games when that’s
the case.
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StatPack: |
|
SKATERS |
|
# |
Player |
GP |
G | A | +/- | PIM | SH | TOI |
| 6 | Douglas Murray | 3 | 0 | 0 | -3 | 0 | 2 | 56:51 |
| 8 | Brandon Prust | 3 | 0 | 1 | -3 | 41 | 0 | 35:55 |
| 11 | Brendan Gallagher | 3 | 1 | 0 | -5 | 2 | 3 | 42:32 |
| 14 | Tomas Plekanec | 3 | 0 | 0 | -2 | 0 | 9 | 66:43 |
| 17 | Rene Bourque | 3 | 1 | 0 | -2 | 2 | 8 | 38:30 |
| 21 | Brian Gionta | 3 | 0 | 0 | -1 | 4 | 6 | 53:33 |
| 26 | Josh Gorges | 3 | 0 | 0 | -3 | 0 | 4 | 64:54 |
| 32 | Travis Moen | 3 | 0 | 0 | -1 | 2 | 3 | 34:41 |
| 40 | Nathan Beaulieu | 3 | 0 | 0 | -1 | 2 | 3 | 46:37 |
| 48 | Daniel Briere | 3 | 0 | 1 | -3 | 2 | 3 | 43:40 |
| 49 | Michael Bournival | 3 | 0 | 0 | E | 0 | 2 | 26:48 |
| 51 | David Desharnais | 3 | 0 | 1 | -4 | 2 | 2 | 46:59 |
| 55 | Francis Bouillon | 1 | 0 | 0 | E | 2 | 1 | 20:55 |
| 67 | Max Pacioretty | 3 | 0 | 0 | -4 | 2 | 8 | 51:43 |
| 71 | Louis Leblanc | 3 | 0 | 0 | E | 2 | 2 | 20:10 |
| 74 | Alexei Emelin | 2 | 0 | 0 | -2 | 2 | 0 | 35:07 |
| 76 | P.K. Subban | 3 | 0 | 1 | -7 | 8 | 9 | 66:27 |
| 79 | Andrei Markov | 3 | 0 | 0 | -4 | 0 | 3 | 69:47 |
| 81 | Lars Eller | 3 | 0 | 0 | -4 | 4 | 8 | 42:01 |
|
GOALIES |
|
# |
Player |
Record |
SV% |
GAA |
| 30 | Peter Budaj | 0-0-0 | .944 | 1.11 |
| 31 | Carey Price | 0-3-0 | .822 | 6.22 |
|
Scoring |
Goals: Max Pacioretty (21)
Assists: P.K. Subban (28)
Points: P.K. Subban (36)
+/-: Tomas Plekanec (+6)
PIMS: Brandon Prust (94)
Shots: Max Pacioretty (159)
|
Schedule: |
January 28: Carolina vs Montreal
January 30: Montreal vs Boston
February 1: Tampa Bay vs Montreal
February 2: Winnipeg vs Montreal
|
The Dog |
Things were a bit better for Hamilton as they
at least managed to win a game while several players look like they could be
getting out of their funks. Unfortunately they also dropped a pair,
scoring a combined one goal in those two contests and getting drastically
outshot in the latter…that last part is almost a mirror image of the big club.
|
News and |
– Steve Quailer has fully recovered from his
upper body injury. The team is now making him a healthy scratch and don’t
appear to be planning on giving him a conditioning stint in Wheeling.
– Plus/Minus isn’t the greatest of stats but
it’s worth mentioning that Morgan Ellis has improved his rating in that
department by 27 points already compared to last year (-16 in 2012-13, +11 in
2013-14).
– The Bulldogs now embark on a six game road
trip. As a result, their next home game isn’t until February 15th.
– Lines from the most recent game:
Forwards:
Holland – St. Pierre – Andrighetto
Tarnasky – Dumont – Blunden
Owens – Macenauer – Thomas
Courtnall – Nattinen – Fournier
Defence:
Tinordi – Pateryn
Chouinard – Dietz
McIver – Ellis
|
Results: |
January 24:
Toronto 2, Hamilton 0
January 25:
Hamilton 6, Lake Erie 2
January 26:
Chicago 4, Hamilton 1
|
StatPack: |
|
SKATERS |
|
# |
Player |
GP |
G |
A |
+/- |
SH |
PIMS |
| 2 | Greg Pateryn | 3 | 0 | 0 | +1 | 8 | 4 |
| 5 | Jarred Tinordi | 3 | 0 | 0 | -1 | 6 | 9 |
| 7 | Darren Dietz | 3 | 0 | 0 | -1 | 5 | 14 |
| 9 | Justin Courtnall | 3 | 0 | 1 | E | 2 | 15 |
| 11 | Nathan McIver | 3 | 0 | 1 | E | 3 | 4 |
| 12 | Maxime Macenauer | 3 | 0 | 1 | +2 | 6 | 2 |
| 14 | Michael Blunden | 3 | 0 | 0 | -1 | 6 | 2 |
| 23 | Joonas Nattinen | 3 | 1 | 0 | +1 | 4 | 4 |
| 26 | Jordan Owens | 3 | 0 | 1 | +2 | 2 | 4 |
| 27 | Sven Andrighetto | 3 | 1 | 1 | +1 | 9 | 2 |
| 37 | Patrick Holland | 3 | 0 | 1 | E | 4 | 0 |
| 40 | Gabriel Dumont | 3 | 1 | 0 | -1 | 4 | 12 |
| 44 | Morgan Ellis | 3 | 0 | 0 | +2 | 8 | 0 |
| 47 | Stefan Fournier | 3 | 0 | 2 | +1 | 4 | 2 |
| 59 | Joel Chouinard | 3 | 1 | 0 | +2 | 2 | 5 |
| 74 | Nick Tarnasky | 3 | 0 | 0 | -1 | 3 | 14 |
| 92 | Christian Thomas | 3 | 2 | 1 | +3 | 7 | 0 |
| 93 | Martin St. Pierre | 3 | 1 | 0 | E | 7 | 4 |
|
GOALIES |
|
# |
Player |
Record |
SV% |
GAA |
| 29 | Robert Mayer | 1-1-0 | .919 | 3.00 |
| 34 | Dustin Tokarski | 0-1-0 | .909 | 2.05 |
|
Scoring |
Goals: Andrighetto/Leblanc/Tarnasky (9)
Assists: Martin St. Pierre (20)
Points: Martin St. Pierre (28)
+/-: Morgan Ellis (+11)
PIMS: Nick Tarnasky (83)
Shots: Gabriel Dumont (99)
|
Schedule: |
January 31: Hamilton
vs Abbotsford
February 1: Hamilton vs Abbotsford
|
Final |
With the team appearing to have hit rock
bottom, naturally discussion has turned to Michel Therrien’s future. Many
are speculating about the likes of Guy Boucher and Marc Crawford as replacements
but if recent history repeats itself, they won’t get a sniff if Marc Bergevin
makes a change (and I don’t think he will any time soon unless this keeps up for
a few more weeks). Although Winnipeg and Buffalo have recently bucked the
trend with Paul Maurice and Ted Nolan, most in-season coaching changes are
internal promotions. And even in the case of Maurice and Nolan, both of
them are interim hires. There’s no guarantee that the ideal candidate,
whether it’s one of the two aforementioned options or someone else, will want to
come or will even be available midseason. That means the likely
replacement is already in the system.
Realistically, there are only two options
internally and I don’t think either of them are ideal. Many teams like to
try their AHL coach and while Sylvain Lefebvre fills the linguistic requirement
and even has NHL experience as an assistant, the Bulldogs aren’t exactly
thriving under him. The fact that he has a tendency to favour veterans
over youngsters would likely mean more of the same when it comes to managing
Montreal’s younger players which would drive many fans nuts. The other is
Clement Jodoin. Like Lefebvre, he has AHL head coaching and NHL assistant
experience and at his age, he’d only want an interim role. Given that he
already has a hand in the current system though, we’d likely see no more than
the odd tweak here and there, much like we saw with Randy Cunneyworth, and that
isn’t the solution either.
If those are the best options available right
now, is it really worth making a change? By no means am I a card-carrying
member of the Michel Therrien fan club but I don’t think this team would be any
better with Lefebvre or Jodoin at the helm. If that’s the case, the Habs
may be better off sticking with Therrien and seeing if he can turn it around.
If not, then the move gets made at the end of the year when the pool of
replacement candidates is at its strongest. Unless Bergevin wants to make
a change and his ideal candidate is available and ready to jump in partway
through the year, that’s the smart route to take, even if it’s the unpopular
one. Patience isn’t something many fans have a lot of at the moment but
it’s going to be needed here.
