The Habs have taken two of the first three games of their first-round series against Tampa Bay which is impressive. What’s particularly impressive is that they’ve done it without any meaningful five-on-five contributions from their top line.
Heading into this series, secondary scoring had been a concern for Montreal. Accordingly, the expectation was that their top line would need to keep up its regular season pace and then hope for some timely goals from the supporting cast. Josh Anderson has come up big a couple of times already while the new-look third line was on for all three goals in Friday’s victory, an outcome few would have seen coming.
As for the top line? They’re all averaging a point per game which, on the surface, seems great. But all of those points have come on the power play (which looked good in Game 1, less so the last two). At five-on-five, Juraj Slafkovsky, Nick Suzuki, and Cole Caufield are still looking for their first point between them. That’s the half-empty thought.
If you’re looking for a silver lining (or a half-full) counter to that, Suzuki hasn’t had a stretch like this (three games without a five-on-five point) all season long. Three of his four points versus Tampa Bay during the regular season weren’t on special teams. The same ratio applies for Caufield. And six of Slafkovsky’s seven points against the Lightning during the season weren’t on the power play. This is not a tangible stat by any means but…they’re due.
Caufield hasn’t scored in five games. He only had one of those stretches during the regular season, lasting six games in total before he scored in three of the next four. If you’re hanging your hat on thinking he’s due, you’re probably right, even though he hasn’t had a ton of success scoring on Andrei Vasilevskiy historically. You can pick glass half-full or half-empty from there.
Meanwhile, it’s not as if that line has had a bunch of chances either and are just getting stymied by Vasilevskiy. Per MoneyPuck, they’ve attempted 20 shots in 36 minutes of playing time, or 33.26 per 60 minutes. During the regular season, that same trio had 594 shot attempts in 532 minutes, or 66.94 per 60. In other words, they’re being held to less than half of their normal shot attempts. That’s the half-empty stat.
On the flip side, they’ve also been stingier than usual in terms of allowing shot attempts. During the regular season, they were at 53.5 attempts allowed per 60 minutes. In this series? 46.7. So, while they’re not lighting it up offensively, they’re holding Tampa Bay back at a better rate than during the regular season. That’s a half-full stat.
If we look at expected goals, it’s pretty much a wash. 0.5 xGF is lousy but 0.8 xGA from the same line is pretty good. Again, it’s a pick-your-poison approach for how you want to take that.
Lightning head coach Jon Cooper has been very matchup-heavy against the Suzuki line, matching Anthony Cirelli against them as much as possible. Cirelli, a legitimate Selke Trophy contender in his own right, has certainly done quite well at limiting the top line’s opportunities although Tampa’s trio isn’t as threatening offensively as they could be either with the extra defensive emphasis. So far, Martin St. Louis has been the more patient coach on that front, preferring not to get herky-jerky with quick changes. Being up in the series, that should continue to be the case for now.
Has the top line underwhelmed this series? They certainly have. For one of the top-scoring lines in the league, it’s fair to expect that they could overcome high-end checking and at least chip in at five-on-five. But they won the first game on special teams and have a series lead in spite of their struggles. Their luck is going to change soon if they want to have a chance to get these next two victories and move onto the next round.
It’s great that the Habs are where they are but it’s time for Suzuki’s line to get back to being the scoring threat we all know it can be. I’m in the glass half-full camp that they’ll be able to do so soon.