Canadiens’ woes began on blue-line
Lack of puck-moving defencemen hampered team’s offence, writes Marc Dumont.
It would be an understatement to say a lot went wrong for the Canadiens this year.
Not only did they finish with the second-lowest point total in modern franchise history, only one point ahead of the infamously terrible 2001 edition of the team, but they finished with a minus-55 goal differential. Last season, they posted a plus-26 differential. The Canadiens scored only 209 goals, which ranks them 29th in the NHL, while surrendering 264 goals, the fifthhighest total in the league. Last season, they allowed 200 goals, which was tied for third-best in the NHL.
Many fans and media members point to a lack of a true No. 1 centre as the Canadiens’ biggest weak spot, and that’s a legitimate critique. But it was also an issue last season, the season before that, and ... well, you get the idea. To get a true sense of why the team failed so miserably, we need to go beyond the forwards and examine the role the defence played in terms of generating offence.
The old saw that “the best offence is a good defence” is especially true in the NHL, but not only from a purely defensive aspect. Most scoring plays during even-strength play start from the defensive zone and that’s why we’ve seen an increasingly high level of importance given to puck-moving defencemen. Meanwhile defensive defencemen — the term is basically code for blue-liners who struggle and are often hemmed in their own zone — are quickly losing roster spots to more mobile teammates.
When evaluating the amount of offence created from the back end, we can take a look at the assists generated from all defencemen on the team over a period of five years (see graph). This season, Canadiens rearguards only had 59 assists, a stark contrast to last season’s results and even more so compared with 2015-16 and 2014-15.
We have to keep in mind that Shea Weber’s injury was a massive factor in the blue-line corps’ failure to create offence. But even if we add Weber’s career average assists to the total, which brings it to 66, it still falls short of the Canadiens’ five-year average.
Simply put, the Canadiens were often unable to exit their zone with control of the puck and they made very few outlet passes compared with previous seasons. The result was the team’s best forwards saw a significant drop in production. With the exception of Brendan Gallagher, who dealt with a hand injury throughout last season, the remainder of the top-five forwards all saw their production decrease.
Though he lost 18 games to injury, Max Pacioretty — who relies on outlet passes that allow him to score on the rush — saw his previous season’s mark more than halved to 17 goals and 37 points. Jonathan Drouin, who played with better linemates than he had with the Lightning in Tampa Bay, also saw a decrease. The same phenomenon occurred with Alex Galchenyuk and Paul Byron.
And the issues weren’t just apparent in the offensive zone as the Canadiens also struggled defensively. Last season during even-strength play, they allowed 53 shot attempts per 60 minutes, one of the better results in the NHL. At even strength this season, they allowed 60 shot attempts per 60 minutes, ranking them in the bottom half of the league. They also saw an increase in scoring chances and high-danger shots allowed compared with 2016-17.
However, during the team’s post-mortem news conference on Monday, Canadiens general manager Marc Bergevin repeatedly said his team lacked the right attitude. Unless attitude is a synonym for talent, he’s ignoring the biggest issue plaguing this team, which is roster construction.
Several years of the Canadiens weeding out “risky” defencemen — P.K. Subban for example — has led to a blue-line that makes more mistakes and doesn’t generate any offence, and the whole team has suffered as a result.
That’s not to say that a legitimate No. 1 centre wouldn’t have helped. There’s no doubt it would have been a boon for head coach Claude Julien, but until the Canadiens fix their blue-line, not even Oilers star Connor McDavid could save this team. That’s solely Bergevin’s responsibility.
Some players underperformed but, as the GM said, they were never in it from the start of the season. And defencemen such as Victor Mete and Noah Juulsen will help, but they’re not ready for top-pairing duties.
The real story is that the Canadiens’ season played out as it should have given that the roster construction was incredibly flawed from the beginning. By going out of his way to remove the “risky” players from his roster, Bergevin made the riskiest decision of them all.