by Blain Potvin, Staff Writer, All Habs Hockey Magazine
ROCKET SPORTS MEDIA | Halifax, NS. — To me, the Canadiens season somewhat paralleled a favourite flick of mine: Dr. Strangelove. It is a great movie with a terrible ending.
The campaign closed on Saturday night with the Montreal Canadiens accepting their fate as their best efforts were not enough to keep them from being nuked out of the playoff picture. Many fans are rightfully disappointed that the Habs didn’t make the playoffs, especially after the disastrous season both the team and fans suffered last year.
This season isn’t a complete failure. The Canadiens recorded 44 wins and miss the playoffs after earning 96 points, tied for the most points earned by a non-playoff team in the salary cap era. The 25-point improvement over last season was welcome.
The Habs played an exciting brand of hockey with most players providing their best efforts. The leadership group ensured that attitudes were held in check for the most part.
Marc Bergevin brought in Tomas Tatar, named Shea Weber captain and traded for Max Domi, who certainly enjoyed playing in a traditional hockey market. The moves added some much needed skill and vigour while keeping the team focused.
Unfortunately, that alone will not be enough. In the Eastern Conference arms race, there will be a need for a game-breaker at forward before the Canadiens’ can be taken seriously. That being said, this season was a large step forward.
There was a concern this past summer revolving around scoring after last season’s team finishing at 29th in the NHL in goals for. This season, the team finished 14th, although 5-on-5 scoring tailed off in the second half.
The Canadiens defence is still in need of major upgrades as they are the 19th best defence in the league. It is an improvement from a 25th place ranking last year but that was solely due to the play of Weber and Carey Price. The penalty-kill improved from 30th last season to 14th this year.
One issue that plagued the team this season was a pitiful power-play ranked 30th in the league. Over the short span of games 71 through 81, the Canadiens power-play clipped along at a 21.1 percent efficiency. If the players had been able to execute the coaching staff’s strategy earlier in the season then maybe the playoff picture would look slightly different.
Many players’ best efforts also provided the desperately needed production. Brendan Gallagher has proven himself as a goal-scorer with his second 30-plus goal season in a row. Andrew Shaw provided a career high in points with his signature gritty play. Ryan Poehling scored a total of four goals in his first NHL debut, including a hat trick and the deciding shootout goal.
Phillip Danault has started his journey to become a shutdown center who, this season, put up over 50 points. There are many other wonderful stories, all pointing to a team that found itself back on track to respectability. Unfortunately not all players were able to hit their stride this year.
Jonathan Drouin is a streaky player. He disappears from the scoresheet for long stretches, but in my view, played defence well enough to not hurt the team when he wasn’t producing. Although Drouin has been in the league for five years and has played more than 320 games, it is hoped that he may still learn the defensive aspect of the game, and more importantly, show some commitment when he doesn’t have the puck.
I saw some defensive effort in his 25-plus game scoring drought. Drouin isn’t the centerpiece of the team’s offence. He’s only a complimentary piece, meaning he won’t be heavily relied upon to score. This could lift some pressure off of him which would allow him to focus more on what is needed to improve his game.
The main issue for the Habs going forward is they will have to deal with playing in the toughest division in the NHL. This season they fell behind the Lightning, the Bruins and the Leafs. Their record against those clubs is 4-6-2. That’s a winning percentage below .500.
There will also be an improved Buffalo Sabres squad that could become an issue as well as the Habs record versus them was a subpar 1-1-2. There needs to be a marked improvement in performance against these teams, as any future playoff success would need to go through them. This is why an influx of fresh youthful talent will be required, especially to help in the top four on the left side of the blue line.
Finishing the season with 44 wins and 96 points is wonderful. Full marks should be given to a team that worked very hard all season long. Seeing Bergevin stick to the plan of keeping youth and draft picks is somewhat reassuring. He seems to have learned his lesson not to try and rush a rebuild.
The team was missing major pieces before last season’s crash. Hopefully the general manager doesn’t rush this process again and finds a way to fill team needs. A failure to do so would mean new management will be needed to start the process again.
The current team is far from being complete. There are still a couple major pieces to be added and the younger players need to gain experience. Bergevin’s caution at the deadline means the team has retained draft picks to continue restocking the prospect pool as well as its current crop of prospects who should add much needed quality and depth in the coming seasons.
One of those prospects, Nick Suzuki, may eventually become a solution to the team’s need for a goal scoring sniper on the wing and the power-play.
While Bergevin did well enough to keep his job for now and turn the team around to head into the right direction, a “good effort” will not be enough moving forward. There is still much to be done before this team can be considered a cup contender or have a shot at the playoffs. Until then, there are still many who have enjoyed the revamped Montreal Canadiens and learned to love the reset.
Now cue Vera Lynn. We’ll meet again.
