CANADIENS
Montreal

PREDATORS
Nashville

Lineup

Forward lines and defense pairings: 

[one_half]Pacioretty – Desharnais – Weise
Eller – Galchenyuk – Carr
Fleischmann – Plekanec – Byron
Flynn – Mitchell – McCarron[/one_half]

[one_half_last]Beaulieu – Subban
Emelin – Markov
Tinordi – Gilbert[/one_half_last]

Goaltenders:

Tokarski
Condon

Scratches:  Greg Pateryn, Sven Andrighetto, Jeff Petry (upper-body)
Injured reserve:  Brendan Gallagher, Carey Price, Devante Smith-Pelly

Game Report

In the first 10 games of the season the Canadiens were 9-1-0. They were the best team in hockey, no question. In December, the Habs are now 2-8-0. There is no team in the NHL who have had a worse month.

So what is going on?

We’re told that the Canadiens have the best GM in hockey. The story goes that Marc Bergevin has fleeced his counterparts in every trade since his arrival.  And we have the best coach in the NHL (well, at least that meets the language criteria.) After all, he has coached the team to a 145-75-26 regular season record in his second stint with the Habs.  Lastly, this team is much more than just Carey Price as they have been proving regularly this season.

All of these oft-repeated narratives are false.

Bergevin may be a snappy dresser. He may be one of the funniest men in hockey. But he doesn’t hold a candle to his former boss, Stan Bowman. Dale Weise is often cited as one of his best moves. But let’s not forget Danny Briere, P.A. Parenteau, Douglas Murray, Bryan Allen, Davis Drewiske, Alex Semin, Zack Kassian, Sergei Gonchar, Eric Tangradi and Colby Armstrong.

The Canadiens came into the season with very thin top-6 depth. While with the Habs, Bergevin has been focused on adding fourth liners and depth defensemen. Rather than acquiring a player like Justin Williams, Bergevin was banking on taking a wild stab that Alex Semin would be the answer at right wing and that his coach would give the enigmatic winger a fair shot. Neither happened.

There is no doubt that Bergevin bears a good deal of responsibility for the current state of affairs.

Then there’s coaching. Anyone who uses the Canadiens record largely driven by Carey Price to argue that Therrien is doing a good job is being disingenuous. Therrien has ridden the coattails of Price and is now lost when he is forced to make adjustments. Having the sole strategy of turning the lines upside down is not the mark of a sophisticated coach.

But weren’t the Canadiens one of the highest scoring teams at the beginning of the season? Yes indeed. The system that produced a potent offence was built on the expectation of extraordinary goaltending by Carey Price. The Canadiens speed was unleashed and the defence activated yielding a relentless puck pressure and possession team.

But remove the confidence provided by the best goaltender in the world and the system collapses. Giving up early period goals and trailing on a regular basis means that the winning system is discarded and coach Therrien has not offered any solutions to adjust for the new reality.

The Canadiens were built on and have been coached on the assumption that Price will provide extraordinary goaltending. And with him sidelined with a significant injury, the bubble has burst. Coaching and management strategies overzealously cheered have been exposed.

On Monday night the Canadiens didn’t get the goaltending they needed. After two carbon copy 55-foot point shots beat Dustin Tokarski, one got the feeling that the visitors were done. With the Alex Galchenyuk, Lars Eller, Daniel Carr line generating scoring chances, Therrien chose to allocate ice time elsewhere.

In Monday’s game even-strength time on ice was as follows: Paul Byron 15:18, David Desharnais 14:25, Dale Weise 14:02, Alex Galchenyuk 12:53. Galchenyuk had the Canadiens only goal and Desharnais had a minus-3 rating.

Bad goaltending, poor coaching and a lack of depth all played into tonight’s loss. The Canadiens have now lost eight of their past nine games. With Carey Price unlikely to be back anytime soon, who will provide the answers to get the team back on track?

The Canadiens head next to St. Paul for a Tuesday night game against the Wild.

▲     Daniel Carr, Alex Galchenyuk, Lars Eller

▼     Tom Gilbert, David Desharnais, Dustin Tokarski

1. Roman Josi  NSH
2. Shea Weber  NSH
3. Pekka Rinne  NSH

• “We were the better team tonight. The only place that we didn’t dominate was on the score sheet. Shots, scoring chances for, scoring chances against, the puck possession, we were the better team. That’s the way it is.”
• “Puck luck is going to turn. We need better performances from goaltending obviously. Every goalie that we face, they end up having the first star. The thing a coach could ask is to make sure they are focused about playing the right way, playing in a structure and having a really good work ethic. This is what we ask from the players.“
• “[Jarred Tinordi] was not responsible for scoring chances against. I thought he did well.”

Alex Galchenyuk

• “I thought we as a line (Eller, Galchenyuk, Carr) created some chances, but at the end of the day we have to score more. The chances were there, but we have to find a way to put it in. We especially had a good couple of chances in the first and second [periods], and it’s unfortunate that we are trying to get offense and get goals and things aren’t working.“

Predators coach Peter Laviolette

• “Our guys were opportunistic. We got one on the power play, got some goals by our defensemen. When we had the opportunities, we made the most of them. We didn’t have that many, but when we did get the looks we were able to get it behind them.”

Quotes courtesy of NHL.com