HABS JUST BAD — AND BORING
Season is basically over: Cowan
The Canadiens are simply a bad hockey team.
That’s the best way to describe this season that is basically over for the Canadiens two games before the midway point of the season with a 16-19-4 record following Saturday night’s 2-0 loss to the Florida Panthers at the BB&T Center.
Not only are they bad — they’re boring.
Former Canadiens coach Michel Therrien used to like saying you need three goals to win a game in the NHL — and that applies no matter who is behind the bench. With Claude Julien at the helm, the Canadiens have now lost four-straight games while scoring a total of three goals in 240 minutes of hockey. That works out to an average of 0.75 goals per game.
Heading into Tuesday’s game against the San Jose Sharks at the Bell Centre (7:30 p.m., TSN2, RDS, TSN Radio 690),
the Canadiens rank 29th in the NHL in offence (2.54 goals per game) and there are only 31 teams. The expansion Vegas Golden Knights — built with a bunch of castoffs from the other teams — rank second in the NHL in offence with an average of 3.51 goals per game with former Canadiens assistant coach Gerard Gallant behind their bench. The Knights (26-9-2) are also 18 points ahead of the Canadiens in the overall NHL standings, where the Canadiens rank 28th.
Again, there are 31 teams in the league.
With the Knights in mind, the Canadiens are a team in need of a major rebuild at this point. They rank 29th in offence, 21st in defence, 18th on the power play and 26th in penalty-killing. Carey Price has started to play like Carey Price again, stopping 32 of 34 shots against the Panthers, but even that’s not enough to fix what’s wrong with the Canadiens since Price can’t score.
Maybe Julien can try Price at centre?
Year 6 of GM Marc Bergevin’s five-year plan has turned into a disaster. The Canadiens miss Andrei Markov’s experience and tape-to-tape passes breaking out of their own end. They miss Alexander Radulov’s offensive skills and toothless enthusiasm that sparked the Canadiens when they used to be down.
Nobody misses Markov and Radulov more than Max Pacioretty, who went the entire month of December without scoring a single goal. Pacioretty has gone 12 games now without a goal and has one in the last 21 games. Jonathan Drouin, who was supposed to replace Radulov, hasn’t scored in nine games and has one assist during that span. Karl Alzner, who was supposed to replace Markov, has looked slow and provides almost no offence with five assists this season.
A fan sitting in the first row behind the Canadiens bench Saturday night got some TV time while wearing a red T-shirt that read: “GEOFF FIRE BERGEVIN!”
It’s something that has to be crossing owner Geoff Molson’s mind at this point. If it isn’t — it should. Another fan in the stands was Patrick Roy, which should light social media on fire back in Montreal.
Whether Molson decides Bergevin or someone else is the man to turn his team around, it’s probably going to take a long time. As the legendary Red Fisher — who was properly named to the Order of Canada on Friday — might have written when he was still at the Montreal Gazette: the Canadiens are now in Year 25 of their rebuild since the last Stanley Cup.
While Julien was holding his media scrum after Saturday’s game, Bergevin could be seen pacing the hallways alone in the background in a nice blue suit. I would have paid much more than a penny for his thoughts.
When Julien was asked to assess his team’s performance, the coach said: “I think first of all I would say we looked like a team we played three in four (nights). I honestly know that those guys in there that the will and the desire was there. Having said that, I think again you don’t score goals, you don’t win hockey games.”
Very true.
“We had net-front presence tonight that was there,” the coach added. “Again, we didn’t get enough shots probably from the slot area, from those danger areas. We got some shots from the point, there were some good deflections from the slot. We’re really working hard on trying to find ways to bring pucks on the inside and at times it was there, but the execution wasn’t. There’s a lot of guys that are squeezing their sticks right now and are feeling the pressure and because of that you’re seeing a lot of things that are frustrating to watch for everybody.”
When asked what he had to say to frustrated fans back home in Montreal, Julien said: “I can’t say much. I understand their frustration. I would be, too, as a fan if your team isn’t winning. We’re going to try and do our best here to fix things and that’s all you can do.”
Unfortunately, it’s very difficult to fix a team that’s simply bad.
You’re seeing a lot of things that are frustrating to watch for everybody.