Sometimes you have to let your little brother win

I find it very difficult to understand what is surprising in the fact that the Canadian is among the last clubs in the ranking.

Because the Canadian, this year, is poor. Last year, the team was poor. This year, everything indicated that it was going to be pocketable again.

The victory against Buffalo gives a nice smile. Like that of our little brother who we let win at ping-pong one time out of seven. It feels good. And that doesn’t mean that our little brother won’t score volleys against us in a few years.

The club will certainly not finish last. Not far, but last. Far from the series. There are even smaller clubs. And that doesn’t mean that reconstruction is a failure or that the Glorieux aren’t going anywhere.

I was talking to a scout from another team last week. He finds it great, what CH is building, especially defensively. But he is not surprised that the club is bad this year.

Because that’s what everyone was planning, except in Montreal.

Mixology

It started in April. Geoff Molson told my colleague Renaud Lavoie that the Canadian could “dream of being in the mix” this year. That was before the arrival of Patrik Laine. This famous “mix” was still the line at the golf tournament before the camp opened.

In 2023, Geoff Molson was vilified for not setting expectations. This year, the team is focused on being in the mix and because it doesn’t work, the team gets vilified even more. I don’t know what I would have said in their place.

Let’s return to the current season. You had to live in a world of Cuddly Bears to believe that CH was going to be in the race for the playoffs. But there are so many Quebecers who need the Canadian to get better. May it make so many people happier. All this allowed me to coldly analyze that the Canadian is unfortunately still poor.

Let’s look at it objectively. Without the blue-white-red Kool-Aid or the vapors of the papal red smoke from the Bell Center.

We can definitely say that the Canadiens players are not working hard enough. In my opinion, it is rather and above all that the Canadiens players are less good than those of other teams.

Less good than the others

Martin St-Louis has two first-line players on hand. Others might be, but right now it’s not the case or it just is from time to time. That’s not my opinion. This is a statistical fact.

Juraj Slafkovsky played well in Buffalo. But he and Kirby Dach have a total of 6 expected goals since the start of the season. They scored two. In short, it’s not very threatening. Nearly 150 players are better than them this year in the league in this regard.

We can see them as stars to steal the disc from opponents with their physique. But the opposite happens. Before Monday’s match, Dach struck five and lost 13 times. Slafkovsky took three and lost 11 times. That ranks them among the worst in the league. Hopefully the Slovak’s three passes will get him going.

Jake Evans and Brendan Gallagher are the biggest surprises in terms of depth. Alex Newhook scored two great goals last week. So much the better. But, the chances of seeing him on a top 6 of a good team in the future are zero, in my opinion.

Otherwise, Joel Armia, Christian Dvorak, Josh Anderson, Emil Heineman… they perform at the level of fourth line players, statistically. This is reality.

Three strong defenders

Defensively, Martin St-Louis has three top 4 defenders on hand. No more. It’s Mike Matheson, Kaiden Guhle and Lane Hutson.

Hutson causes turnovers. But he provoked as many as Arber Xhekaj. Hutson has spent 348 minutes on the ice this season. Xhekaj is 172 minutes.

Hutson isn’t any worse defensively, even if a lot of people expected the worst. As if he was going to play with the stick upside down in his zone. But his incredible talent helps his defense. He cuts passes, even when they are three feet high. He anticipates the games.

In the corner, however, he remains a 162-pound guy. Like Quinn Hughes, it’s not easy for him when the other club has complete control of the game and he has to chase everyone.

David Savard, Arber Xhekaj, Justin Barron and Jayden Struble are good defenders, but numbers 5 or 6. No more. A defensive system cannot work miracles.

And advanced statistics may well have their weaknesses according to Martin St-Louis, but few figures show that his team has any chance of being in the race.

– With help from data from MoneyPuck and NHL Edge