Fervent fans of the Canadian will say that the team is unlucky and will be able to bounce back from this horrible season. I would be very happy for them, but the reality is that there is almost nothing, factually, to believe it. In addition to flirting with last place in the general rankings, several statistics reveal how pocketable the Canadian is in pretty much everything.
To score, you have to throw
Ben Pelosse / GoM
CH averages 24 shots per game. This is not ordinary. This is historically bad. Montreal is in last place in the NHL. The Sharks, with their terrible season last year, were better. In fact, in 20 years, no team has been this bad. You have to go back to the Washington Capitals in 2003-2004 to break this record of mediocrity. The team averaged 23.7 shots per game. The Senators and Penguins get six more shots than CH on average each game this season. It’s huge. Montreal threw 576 times. The average is above 700 in the NHL. Among the 50 players who obtain the most shots on goal per 60 minutes of playing time, we find none from the Canadian. Cole Caufield (55th) and Brendon Gallagher (99th) are the only ones in the top 100 out of the 422 NHL players who have played more than 300 minutes. The majority of Canadian players arrive after the 300th rank. If so many players don’t throw often at CH, it’s not because the whole team decides to pass too much. Rather, it’s because most players aren’t capable of having that many throwing chances.
3 goals per match, CH is far from it
Photo Martin Chevalier
Montreal scores on average 2.83 times per match. That’s good for a respectable 21st place in the NHL. We can say that at least there are several teams worse than CH in this category… but not that many. Because in fact, according to advanced statistics, the Canadian should have scored 2 more goals since the start of the year. The Nashville Predators, for example, are scoring 2.32 goals per game on average, but should have scored 17 more based on the quality scoring chances they had. It’s the same for the Bruins, Flames and Penguins. These are therefore anomalies. These teams should and will start scoring more often, unlike Montreal which is where the team should be, statistically. Remember that at 2.83 goals per Match, Montreal is in exactly the same place as last year and 0.06 goals more than two years ago.
CH are not unlucky in attack, on the contrary
Getty Images via AFP
11.8% of Canadian players’ shots find the back of the net. The NHL average is 10.6%. In other words, Montreal is one of the most opportunistic teams in the NHL. So, it would be utopian to believe that the team can score much more. The Bruins are at 8.9% for example. The Predators are at 7.9%. These clubs therefore risk returning to the average. Conversely, the Capitals are at 14.5%. They therefore risk scoring less… like the CH. Note also that the Canadian faces on average more often the second goalkeepers of opposing teams. This has happened 8 times this season, which should help the team score more often statistically.
CH is not unlucky in defense either
Ben Pelosse / GoM
Montreal gives up an average of 3.83 goals per game. This is the worst performance in the NHL. If we look at the number of goals the team deserved to give up this year, we arrive at 3.43 goals allowed. So it’s still horrible. Only the Ducks are worse. Concerning the goaltenders, Cayden Primeau actually allowed more goals than he should have by analyzing the shots he received. But this is not the case for Samuel Montembeault who scored as many goals as one would have expected.
Guys who don’t come close to scoring
Photo Martin Chevalier
240 forwards played more than 300 minutes in the NHL this year. The Canadian has ten. In terms of expected goals, Montreal has five among the 50 worst. They are Joel Armia with two expected goals, as well as Jake Evans, Juraj Slafkovsky, Josh Anderson and Christian Dvorak, with 4 expected goals. All this in 24 matches. Considering some of them play on the power play and on the top two lines, this is clearly concerning. Nick Suzuki is also far from the top at 172nd out of 240 with only five expected goals since the start of the year. Conversely, Cole Caufield is 14th best in the league.
The trend is to have the puck taken away
MARTIN ALARIE / JOURNAL DE MONTREAL
This statistic contributes to the team’s woes. Aside from Mike Matheson, all Canadiens players have the puck taken away from them more often than they take it from opposing players. It’s not that abnormal. But when it is generalized and so unbalanced, it is very problematic. Here are some examples.
- David Savard: 6 (steal the puck from the opponent) -18 (give the puck to the opponent).
- Lane Hutson : 13-27
- Nick Suzuki : 9-21
- Cole Caufield 6-20
- Jake Evans : 2-16
- Joel Armia : 3-15
- Brandon Gallagher : 4-18
- Josh Anderson 4-12
- Christian Dvorak : 5-19
- Kaiden Guhle : 5-14
- Jurak Slafkovsky: 5-16
- Kirby Dach: 5-17
- Mike Mathson : 23-21
Is there a light at the end of the tunnel?
Getty Images via AFP
Let’s get back to the Canadian’s fervent fans. There is no need to be alarmed. Yes, we can start to worry, but there is light at the end of the tunnel. Replace Joel Armia, Christian Dvorak with Ivan Demodiov and Michael Hage. Add David Reinbacher. Imagine Kaiden Guhle and Lane Hutson with more experience. Think of Jacob Fowler. Think of Caufield and Suzuki better surrounded. Think Jake Evans in the right chair. There’s just Juraj Slafkovsky and Kirby Dach who are difficult to project. As for Alex Newhook, I don’t really believe it anymore. In short, it’s still a lot of guesswork. But as long as we have been living on hope for several years, we can always tell ourselves that we can at least continue to do so.
-With data from the NHL and Moneypuck
