by Michael Ham-Fan, Managing Editor, All Habs Hockey Magazine
MONTREAL, QC. — The Montreal Canadiens are 5-20-1 in their last 26 games. During that period, they have only managed to score 1.7 goals per game on average. With their star goaltender out, this explains a huge part of their inability to win games.
I have very rarely criticized coaching decisions, but the usage of our offensive talent has been very sub-optimal this season. I think anyone would agree that in a slump where scoring goals is a problem, you have to try to get the players going and try to put your best offensive guys on the ice.
After suffering the 20th loss in 26 games to the Sabres on Wednesday, Michel Therrien pointed out the “bad defensive plays” and the “inability to maintain the lead” as reasons they lost that game.
In my opinion, that’s exactly the mentality that has been plaguing the team this season. They try to maintain leads rather than increase them. Once they get the lead, they get really tense and they lob the pucks out as far as they can. I just get the feeling that the creativity has been totally toned down and when they can’t execute “the system”, they are just going through the motion and waiting to lose.
Many analysts have pointed out the lack of ice-time of skilled forward Alex Galchenyuk and the coach’s stubbornness to not develop him as a centre. I will not argue on that point as it has been thoroughly discussed, but I wanted to point out another example of how the so-called pure offensive talent is not valued on this team.
GF% shows the percentage of goals scored by the player’s own team versus goals scored by the other team when the player is on the ice. Sven Andrighetto is second among a group that is generally viewed as good offensive players.
Granted, it is a small sample size at 17 games played, but Sven Andrighetto is one of the most creative offensive talent the Canadiens have.
A defender of the coach could say that this may be the result of sheltered minutes, where Andrighetto wouldn’t be placed in defensive assignments, but the fact that the team performs well when he is on the ice makes it hard to understand why he isn’t given a bigger role instead of Brian Flynn. He averages less than a goal against per 60 minutes played!
Meanwhile, Andrighetto has been a healthy scratch very often during the last run, and combine that with his average ice-time at around 12 minutes per game, it is indicative that the coaching staff does not trust him enough. You could clearly see that he was on a run when he was freshly called-up at the beginning of the season, with three points in his first three games. Then, the line shuffling started and his ice-time dropped for no apparent reason after five games.
It is obvious that this coaching staff doesn’t believe in giving important roles to young offensive talent.
In a situation where there is remote hope to make the playoffs, I would like to see the Habs give more ice-time and more opportunities for young players to develop. Look at the way they handled Jarred Tinordi, and how they are handling Greg Pateryn right now, and you can see that there is a lack of effort in developing young talent. That is very incompatible with the “building from within” principle that the general manager has been selling since his debut.
They went into the season with the preconceived idea that Tinordi wasn’t going to make it without really giving him a look. Pateryn looked very good last year, looked like he had a rising developmental curve, and after one bad turnover, he has trouble getting back in the line-up since then.
At this point, I am with those that think that there is no point in “going for it” this season anymore. Let the young players develop, get more draft picks and get those already drafted more time to grow. Then, come next year, regroup with Price and do it all over again.