What a difference a couple of wins can make.

The Montreal Canadiens started their week with their fourth loss in a row to the New York Rangers Tuesday and suddenly, despite them still being very clearly in their rebuilding phase where bumps on the road should be expected, everything about this team was suddenly questioned.

Will Dach ever regain his form from last season? Is he a bust after all?
Why does Martin St-Louis hate Arber Xhekaj so much by daring to tell the media he expects his young defenseman to be a “better version” of himself when he enters the lineup?
Who’s getting traded for help on the right side of the defense?
Who are we picking with our next top 5 overall pick?
Why did we trade away offensive juggernaut Jonathan Kovacevic?!?

But the question most often raised was about the team’s defensive system. Martin St-Louis has been asking of his player a man-to-man/zone defense hybrid that, so far, hadn’t produced consistent results as Montreal began the season as one of the worst defensive teams in the NHL.

For the first time since becoming head coach, Marty was challenged for his methods by the media and he responded in a typical Martin St-Louis fashion, with confidence in his vision and a hint of arrogance towards the critics.

Four full days of practice seemed to have paid off as we saw the best version of the Canadiens defense in action. In both wins against the Blues on Saturday and the Flyers on Sunday, we saw Habs players be aggressive in the defensive zone, intercepting passes and killing their opponents' plays. If you remove the two minutes where they fell asleep at the end of the Flyers game, allowing the men in orange to score two goals and turn what looked like an easy win into a nailbiter, they were mostly a solid team defensively.

It wasn’t perfect and we still saw the occasional lapse in defensive awareness from Mailloux and/or Xhekaj, but it was a much needed improvement over what the team had shown us in their last four outings.

And suddenly, everyone breathes easier and the questions and overreactions will stop, at least for a few days.


Kirby Dach finds his groove

As he did in his first season with the Canadiens, Kirby Dach seemed to have found his groove on the wing next to Nick Suzuki and Cole Caufield, ending the week with four points in three games.

I do not believe it changes the team’s long term plan of making Dach the team’s second line centre, but it’ll be interesting to see what Martin St-Louis decides to do when Juraj Slafkovsky comes back. Perhaps “Slaf” will be back on the first line with the hopes Dach keeps its momentum going back to centre on the second line. There’s also the possibility of St-Louis trying something new and he sends Slafkosvky to play on the second line for a while with the hope of finally getting them going. We did see some interesting plays from both Alex Newhook (who really looks better at centre) and Oliver Kapanen in the last two games that could entice the coaching staff to consider sending Slafkosvky their way.

Actually “special” teams

Before the season began, the importance of improving the Habs special teams numbers were a key element of them staying “in the mix”. With a record of 4-4-1 after 9 games, tied with 4 other teams for third place in the Atlantic…. You couldn’t be more “in the mix” if you wanted to.

A big reason the Habs managed this record despite numerous problems in their collective game is that their special teams are actually special so far this season.They are currently 8th in the NHL on the powerplay with a success rate of 25.8% . Martin St-Louis officially took over the powerplay after Alex Burrow’s resignation and perhaps the Canadiens are benefiting from Marty’s exceptional offensive vision. The first powerplay unit is creating plenty of chances and with Lane Hutson creating magic out of nothing on the second wave, perhaps opposing teams will slowly start to take Montreal’s powerplay seriously.

As for the penalty kill, the boys are 3rd in the entire NHL with a 90.3% success rate. We’ve seen some excellent plays from Jake Evans (who’s been the Habs most consistent forward since the season began), Joel Armia, Christian Dvorak and even Josh Anderson who’s considerably less frustrating to watch as a bottom 6 forward than as someone you’d expect to score regularly.

If Montreal wants to keep building on what they accomplished last weekend, they’ll need the special teams to remain amongst the better half of the NHL. So far, they’ve exceeded every expectation we could have had in that regard, especially after losing Patrik Laine to injury in the preseason.

With three more games next week, it is likely the results will once again throw Habs land into a frenzy of emotional reactions depending on how well the team plays.

Let’s say it one more time for the people in the back of the #Optobus, this is a rebuilding team, there will be ups and downs and the journey has just begun.

Thank you all for reading and have a nice day.

Hugo Brossoit (Scabeh)

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