Lack of offence a major reason for Canadiens’ road woes

Pacioretty, Drouin really struggle away from home, writes Marc Dumont.

While attempting to figure out what went wrong for the Montreal Canadiens in 2017-18, there are several conclusions one can come to.

The vast majority of the players underperformed, as evidenced by Brendan Gallagher’s team-leading 41 points through 66 games. That’s not a knock on Gallagher, considering that, relative to his teammates, he’s having a great season. But if your leading scorer has roughly the same number of points as Alex Ovechkin has goals, it’s safe to say your team is struggling to create offence.

But there’s more to it than that. Max Pacioretty will likely fail to hit 30 goals for the first time in half a decade. Carey Price’s numbers are not just underwhelming by his standards, they’re bad by any standards. On the defensive side, most players have failed to live up to expectations, a situation made worse by the prolonged absence of Shea Weber.

And of course, you can point to the general manager finishing the season with unused cap space, yet another season in which the lack of a No. 1 centre hasn’t been addressed, and a lack of vision when it came to assembling the defensive unit.

These are all valid arguments, especially when you have the ability to use hindsight to analyze the situation.

But one of the most striking failures to launch for the Canadiens this season has been their abysmal performance on the road.

The Canadiens have a relatively decent record when playing at the Bell Centre, to the tune of 16-10-8, but the road has not been kind to them.

They have only nine wins away from home this season, giving them a 9-20-3 record. Their 20 regulation losses on the road lead the league.

Once we delve into the numbers, it’s clear why the Canadiens have such a putrid road record.

Their shot share percentage drops from an above average 51.9 per cent at home to a subpar 49.2 per cent on the road. That’s not exactly earth-shattering, seeing as teams generally play better at home.

Their expected goals-for percentage also takes a huge dip on the road, and their control of scoring chances takes a hit as well. But once we take a look at the split in goals-for percentage, the issue starts to become clear: they can’t score goals on the road.

At the Bell Centre, the Canadiens score on average 2.2 goals per 60 minutes of even-strength ice time, while allowing 2.1 goals against per 60.

On the road, things get ugly. The Canadiens have only scored an average of 1.7 goals per 60, and have allowed 2.3 goals against. Allowing slightly more goals on the road is normal, but losing almost 25 per cent of your offence is a great way to ensure you finish as one of the worst road teams in the league.

When we take a look at the top six scorers on the team, you can see who struggles the most while the Canadiens are on road trips:

Both Gallagher and Alex Galchenyuk increase how many points they produce per 60 minutes of ice time while on the road, a testament to their relative consistency versus their teammates.

But for Pacioretty, Jonathan Drouin, Jeff Petry and Paul Byron, a noticeable downtick in production occurs on the road. In Pacioretty’s case, his production is halved, whereas Drouin goes from 1.6 points per 60 at home, all the way down to 0.9 points per 60 on the road.

When two of your most important players struggle to produce away from the home rink, it’s no surprise the team struggles overall. That doesn’t mean Pacioretty and Drouin are solely responsible for the abysmal road record, but they certainly didn’t help the cause.

You can also point to the coach, since his job becomes significantly more difficult on the road, where he lacks the ability to make the last change and match his lines.

As usual in sports, it’s a combination of issues that have culminated in the result we’re seeing — Montreal is one of the worst NHL teams on the road.

It’s yet another sticking point on an increasingly long list of problems that plagued the Canadiens this season.

Marc Dumont is an analyst and editor for The Athletic Montreal. Note: Statistics via corsica.hockey