By J.D. Lagrange, Senior Writer, All Habs Hockey Magazine
When Marc Bergevin took over as the team’s General Manager, he brought with him the experience of seeing guys like Duncan Keith, Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane developing into impact NHL players for the Blackhawks and he wanted to use that experience to do the same with the Canadiens’ top prospects.
PENTICTON, BC. — He went through a lengthy process before stopping his choice on Michel Therrien as the new Head Coach as he wanted someone with experience, someone who had a positive track record in easing good prospects into this league and none had more pressure than Sidney Crosby when he joined the Pittsburgh Penguins at the tender age of 18, with all the pressure of being qualified as the new Wayne Gretzky.
With that in mind, the Habs’ brass chose to keep rookie Alex Galchenyuk straight from training camp and it didn’t take long before they called up another youngster in Brendan Gallagher. In order to teach Galchenyuk the ropes as a pro, and considering that the outstanding talent had missed most of the past season due to a knee injury, Therrien decided to lower his responsibility load by playing him on left wing, a position he had played regularly with the OHL’s Sarnia Sting. Considering that the team already had David Desharnais, Tomas Plekanec and Lars Eller as the top three centres, this decision made a lot of sense.
But what about ice time?
In his first pro season, Galchenyuk averaged just over 12 minutes of ice time per game. In spite of this limited ice time, the Habs’ rookie managed an impressive 27 points in 48 games, tied for fifth in NHL rookie scoring with Blackhawks’ Brandon Saad, who played more than four more minutes per game! In fact, according to NHL.com, a total of 45 rookie forwards spent more time on the ice than the Canadiens’ forward, if you can believe that.
Brendan Gallagher? He spent on average 13:51 on the ice per game, which ranked him 20 amongst rookies at the forward position. Yet, he finished fourth in rookie scoring, three points behind Nail Yakupov and Jonathan Huberdeau! Many are left wondering if one of them would have received the Calder Trophy as rookie of the year had they played more.
Yes, the 2012-2013 season was an anomaly with the shorten season due to the NHL lockout. So let’s look at the longer, more gruelling season of this year. A total of 41 rookie forwards have had more ice time than Galchenyuk received in his rookie season. Yes, fourty-one! Worse, Galchenyuk plays on average fourteen and a half minutes per game in ice time this season: How many rookie forwards average more than that? A grand total of 16! Sure, there are some who play for non-playoffs’ teams, guys like Trocheck and Barkov in Florida, or Monahan in Calgary, but this also takes into account two rookies in Tampa Bay (Johnson and Palat), MacKinnon in Colorado, Kreider with the Rangers, Chiasson with Dallas and Hertl with the Sharks! Galchenyuk is in his second year, remember.
And we have not touched on the powerplay ice time here folks, as 17 rookies from this season spend more time on the ice with a man advantage than the Habs’ young talent in his second year!
Punishing instead of living with mistakes
Young players bring not only cheap labour but a desire to win, an incentive to earn a spot at that level, a desire to prove that they belong and therefore, sometimes a better effort than someone with a long term guaranteed contract will give a team. However with youth also comes inexperience and with this inexperience come mistakes. A team must learn to live with the good and with the bad and most teams seem to do just that.
Lars Eller seems to have totally lost his mojo this season and one has to wonder why that is. Some will go as far as blaming Therrien for the wingers he’s provided Eller with. While there is some merit to the theory, I don’t buy that the player doesn’t have to take some of the responsibility. The player needs to be mentally stronger and Eller is still averaging over 16 minutes of ice time per game, proving that Therrien has not given up on the guy. But it’s also a coach’s decision and responsibility to find the right button(s) to push in order to help his young player to succeed.
We all know the way Therrien has been trying to control P.K. Subban and while some will argue that Subban is the player that he is because of his talent, many of us think that the way Therrien has handled his thoroughbred has contributed to the success he’s been having. By this time however, considering that the Canadiens don’t have another top four quality right-handed defenseman, isn’t it time to let him loose a bit? We’ve seen Drew Doughty shine at the Olympics. We’ve seen how Erik Karlsson, Duncan Keith, Shea Weber and Ryan Suter are being let loose. Do you think for a minute that these guys don’t make mistakes? They do, but they (hopefully) learn from them.
The latest example is really worrisome as far as I’m concerned… although he played a decent game, young stud Jarred Tinordi made a couple of mistakes, including on the game winner against the Blue Jackets. Result? Tinordi is a healthy scratch against the Toronto Maple Leafs, a tough physical team. While putting Douglas Murray in the line-up is understandable, the right decision would have been to dress Tinordi as well and perhaps sit a guy like Weaver or Bouillon, even at the expense of limiting Tinordi’s ice time a bit more.
What is Michel Therrien really doing with the team’s youth? Gallagher is a definite success and there are some very positive points with many others, but it sure seems like they are being restrained a bit too much to the fans liking, to my liking. Here’s hoping that Therrien realizes what other coaches, other teams do with their youths and what contributes to their success. If they keep repeating the same mistake, by all mean punish them but to expect perfection from them is unrealistic… especially when veterans like Markov, Murray, Bouillon and Weaver (amongst others) make mistakes.
Go Habs Go!
En français: Le CH veut développer ses jeunes… ou le veut-il?