It must have been a great evening for Lane Hutson. The first real big scene for the diminutive defender in the absence of Mike Matheson.
Twenty-six minutes of ice time, almost six minutes on the first wave of the power play. We know that Hutson will be the bread and butter of this team with an extra man for a long time, but yesterday, his timing was not there. He failed this first real quarterback test…
Nothing to do with the defeat of the Canadian, but this small team full of altar servers lost again and this, beyond 60 minutes, a moment where it should excel given the smallness of its players which they say , on the other hand, very talented…
Exactly, are they as good as they say? Are they as promising as we are willing to believe by swallowing liter after liter of blue-white-red “kool-aid”?
Juraj Slafkovsky was the least used element, with only 11 minutes and 29 seconds of playing time, including three minutes on the power play.
Kirby Dach was less bad, but he was not good and fate wanted him to look crazy again in front of more than 21,000 spectators and hundreds of thousands of viewers in overtime, while both feet in the cement, it was circumvented more easily than a demonstrator entering Concordia to punch the face of a security guard.
Nick Suzuki was atrocious, as were several others. Not to be confused, Brendan Gallagher looks to be 26 years old and on the way to scoring around thirty goals.
There is a clear lack of talent and depth on this team. Martin St-Louis may stir up the trios, but nothing works. Players seem to have become convinced that the current formula will not work.
Last night, Samuel Montembeault was the best of the CH, again… Followed closely by Kaiden Guhle, who was fantastic, and Cole Caufield who, against a team of small, talented skaters, had space and was elegant.
Joshua Roy hasn’t looked good, but has Martin St-Louis put him in an enviable position? Did the coach help him? Not a crumb…
An unacceptable response
On Saturday, the group failed miserably against a very good team, the Vegas Golden Knights. Yesterday was a wonderful opportunity to bounce back against a highly competitive team.
The group’s response? Five shots in the first, three in the second, five in the third and none in more than four and a half minutes of overtime play. Utah had more shots in the first period, with 14, than CH in more than 64 minutes of play.
Everything is confusing, foggy, the coach seems defeated and, obviously, short of solutions.
The coach, his assistants and, ultimately, his general manager, are all on their first experience in the National League in their positions. Does Jeff Gorton have full authority to govern the destiny of this team? If so, does he intend to do anything to shake up the group?
And Geoff Molson? Does he really believe that this laborious process will irremediably lead to the promised land?
From what I see, this team is overvalued, as is the entire organization. I think more and more that our collective rose-colored glasses make us very poorly measure the true talent of these hopefuls.
The CH is not even a good little team, at best, it is in the making, but when?
The team’s official network has just announced a second season of the series “The Reconstruction”. At the rate things are going, this infomercial serving to sell us failure by filling us with hope will have more seasons than “Canadian Evening”…
