The Montreal Canadiens finally believe they have found their “mentality” in the defensive zone. At least that’s what Kaiden Guhle and head coach Martin St-Louis have said in recent days.
Almost all the statistics, advanced or not, paint an alarming portrait on defense since the start of the season, but the games against the Minnesota Wild and the Columbus Blue Jackets give the members of the Habs the conviction of a mistake in progress. ‘go into this side of the game.
Saturday morning, St-Louis had raised more than one eyebrow by confiding that he “loves the way we defend ourselves”. An observation that takes on a little more meaning after a second good defensive performance in a row against the “Jackets”.
“Most of our mentality has changed,” Guhle corroborated after Sunday’s morning practice. We play with more rhythm in the defensive zone.
By more rhythm, Guhle means that the defensive group deploys more effort and aggression to break up plays instead of passively containing the opponent.
“We don’t trivialize being beaten one-on-one, but the best players in the world want time and space and that’s what we want to take away from them,” he explained. If they manage to make a play, you tip your hat to them and reposition yourself in the center of the ice.
“We are more comfortable [avec ce risque] than we were before.”
Much of the work done by the players in training over the last few days revolved around the importance of playing with urgency in the defensive zone. This explains it according to Guhle.
“You’ve probably heard ‘Marty’ talk about it, but our alarm level when we lose the puck and go from offense to defense is much better.”
Same system
Guhle uses the term “mentality”, because the famous system, which has caused a lot of ink to flow at this tumultuous start to the campaign, is practically the same as last year, recalled the young defender.
“Hybrid coverage (man for man at the top of the territory and zone at the bottom of the circles), we have always done that. Honestly, nothing has changed since last year. Maybe it’s just different for the new guys.”
Before even arriving in the NHL, Guhle was quite familiar with the system advocated by St-Louis, in fact.
“It’s a lot like what we did during my last year in junior with the Edmonton Oil Kings,” he noted.
Question of priorities
The Canadiens finished 2023-24 fourth in the NHL in goals scored by defensemen.
An important contrast with what we have observed so far: only four CH defenders moved the strings and none of them scored more than one goal.
“Maybe last year we had a few more lucky leaps,” Guhle suggested. We have a lot of good defenders, but sometimes defenders need luck to score.
Also, the priorities are not the same.
“Right now, we are focusing more on our defensive coverage. All of this is attributable, I believe, to the mentality that currently prevails.”
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