UGLY LOSS TO BRUINS BRINGS HABS CLOSER TO CROSSROADS
The Canadiens could soon be reaching an important crossroads, not only for this season, but for their future.
They head into tonight’s game at the Bell Centre against the New Jersey Devils (7:30 p.m., SN, RDS, TSN 690 Radio) riding a season-high five-game winless streak (0-3-2) and coming off embarrassing losses to the New York Rangers and Boston Bruins on home ice.
The five-game skid matches the Canadiens’ longest slump last season when they went 0-3-2 from Nov. 19-27. They bounced back from that slump by going 6-2 over their next eight games, but still ended up missing the playoffs by two points.
The Canadiens could bounce back again this time, but there are some troubling signs that might not be in the cards. With a new attitude in the locker-room last season, the Canadiens showed time and again they wouldn’t give up, and they started this season the same way. But they blew 4-0 and 5-3 leads in Saturday’s 6-5 loss to the Rangers and were simply blown away by the Bruins in an 8-1 rout on Tuesday night. The Bruins went 2-for-2 on the power play against their hosts, who rank last in the NHL in penalty killing with a 71.6 per cent success rate.
The Canadiens basically gave up against the Bruins after falling behind 4-1 just eight seconds into the second period.
“You come out (for the second period), you say you’ve got 40 minutes here,” head coach
Claude Julien said after the game. “Two goals is not the end of the world. First shift, you give up a goal, and I think at that point, this is where you want to talk about confidence. We just stopped believing at that point and we just got sloppy.”
At practice on Monday, Julien worked hard trying to fix his team’s defensive problems and then his players gave up a touchdown and a two-point convert against the Bruins. It was ugly and you have to wonder if Julien’s message is still getting through to his players.
“I don’t think it’s his message … I guarantee it,” veteran centre Nate Thompson said about Julien after practice Wednesday in Brossard. “I think it’s just execution by us. It’s a coach’s job to send a message to set out direction for us and it’s on the players. It’s on us right now. When it comes down to it, we have to do a better job and we have to be accountable.”
Star goaltender Carey Price also has to do a better job after giving up five goals on 11 shots against the Bruins before getting pulled early in the second period. He has surrendered 11 goals on the last 31 shots he has faced.
Price isn’t getting a lot of help from his defence, but the Canadiens are paying him US$15 million this season to cover up some of those mistakes and it’s not happening nearly enough.
Price went through a similar slump last November, but this one brings back memories of another Price slump that resulted in coach Michel Therrien getting fired on Feb. 14, 2017, and replaced by Julien. Price had a 3-7-1 record in the 11 games before Therrien was fired. He quickly found his game after the coaching change was made.
“It’s just one of those things where we had gotten away from our identity as a team,” Brendan Gallagher said after Therrien was fired. “In no way am I blaming the coach for that, that’s more on us as players. I think, as a group, we’ve just got to get back to what made us successful.”
When the Canadiens used to struggle, the legendary Red Fisher would write in The Gazette: “Show me the players.” Today, you could also add: “Show me the salary cap numbers.”
The Canadiens have $8.223 million in salary cap space, according to CapFriendly.com, which isn’t making Julien’s job any easier and also brings us to that crossroads I mentioned earlier. With the possibility of the Canadiens missing the playoffs for a third straight season and the fourth time in five years, does GM Marc Bergevin try to swing a big trade, giving up prospects, to give his team — and Julien — a better chance? Or will it soon be time to start thinking about shopping Price and captain Shea Weber for more young players to start a rebuild — a word Bergevin has refused to use — for the future?
Price, 32, made it clear at the end of last season that his window to win a Stanley Cup is getting smaller and he really wants to win. A Stanley Cup is the only thing missing from Price’s resumé and it’s something Weber, 34, also hasn’t won.
The way this Canadiens team looks, they’re nowhere close to winning a Cup, and you wonder if Price might be getting frustrated.
Maybe the Canadiens will rebound from this slump, starting on Thursday night at the Bell Centre, and in a month or so it will be almost forgotten. But, at this point, I wouldn’t bet a lot of money on that.
That crossroads could be coming sooner than expected.