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Montreal tried to put extra emphasis on their defensive play this past week in an effort to try to stabilize things.  They had some success on that front but still made plenty of mistakes that were costly while their offensive production grinded to a halt.

The Week That Was

Nov. 5: Flames 3, Canadiens 2 (OT) – Special teams were a strong spot for Montreal in this one with both of their goals coming away from five-on-five play – a power play marker from Brendan Gallagher and a shorthanded tally from Joel Armia early in the second, allowing the Habs to take the lead.  They held it for most of the second half of the game but a late goal from Matt Coronato tied it up.  Then, in overtime, Nick Suzuki lost his stick off the faceoff, helping create space for Coronato to come in and beat Samuel Montembeault just seven seconds into the extra session.

Nov. 7: Devils 5, Canadiens 3 – The Habs got off to a sluggish start in this one but a goal from Gallagher late in the second made it a one-goal game heading to the third.  However, early in the third, a missed scoring chance led to a New Jersey goal for the second time in the game, this one coming from Jack Hughes whose line was too much to handle for Montreal all night long.  Alex Newhook picked up a pair of goals in the losing effort.

Nov. 9: Maple Leafs 4, Canadiens 1 – This wasn’t Montreal’s best effort by any stretch.  They were better in the defensive zone (but still got burned on some coverage lapses) but offensively, they couldn’t muster up much of anything until the third period when they were down three and the game was clearly out of reach.  Gallagher had Montreal’s lone marker, a good end to what was a solid week for him if nothing else.

StatPack

Skaters:

Goalies:

Team Leaders:

Goals: Cole Caufield (10)
Assists: Matheson/Suzuki (9)
Points: Nick Suzuki (13)
+/-: Kaiden Guhle (E)
PIMS: Mike Matheson (27)
Shots: Cole Caufield (39)

News And Notes

– Montreal assigned Oliver Kapanen to SHL Timra following the Calgary game.  He is recallable if needed although it’s unlikely they’d do so midseason.  He could be an option late in the year, however, depending on how the playoffs go for Timra.  Lucas Condotta was recalled from Laval to take his place on the roster.

– Last season, the defence was a big part of Montreal’s attack, scoring 48 goals out of 236 (20.3%).  This year, they’ve been much quieter on that front, tallying just three goals so far out of 39 (7.7%).  While they will be hard-pressed to get back to 20%, there’s definite room for their goal percentage to go up.

– With seven losses, Samuel Montembeault is now the league leader in that category (heading into Sunday’s action).

Last Game’s Lines:

Caufield – Suzuki – Dach
Newhook – Evans – Slafkovsky
Gallagher – Dvorak – Anderson
Heineman – Condotta – Armia

Matheson – Guhle
Hutson – Savard
Xhekaj – Struble

The Week Ahead

Monday at Buffalo – The Sabres were like Montreal for the first few weeks, underachieving with a roster many felt would be more competitive.  However, they’ve won three straight to get back to a .500 record.  Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen has taken the starting goalie job and run with it while Tage Thompson has rebounded well after a tough year, notching 10 goals and 17 points in his first 15 games.

Thursday at Minnesota – Expectations were relatively low for the Wild heading into the season but they’ve been one of the top teams early on, ranking in the top eight both in goals scored and allowed.  Filip Gustavsson has bounced back following an ugly 2023-24 season while Kirill Kaprizov is averaging nearly two points per game early on.

Saturday vs Columbus – As expected, it has been a bit of a tough start for the Blue Jackets.  Injuries have been a big issue early on with Boone Jenner and Kent Johnson being key absences up front on a team that didn’t exactly have a lot of offensive depth.  Among the former Habs they have, Sean Monahan is off to a nice start anchoring the top line while Jordan Harris has been a healthy scratch six times already and isn’t averaging 14 minutes a game when he’s in the lineup.

Final Thought

Montreal had a chance to add some defensive depth over the weekend when Dante Fabbro was made available on waivers.  While he isn’t having a particularly strong season, he has enough of a track record where it easily would have been justifiable to claim him.  Even as a rental, he’s young enough that they could have tried to evaluate him to see if he was worth keeping around beyond this year.  But they opted not to and he wound up getting claimed by Columbus.

While the Habs have ample cap space with LTIR, early indications from trade speculation is that they are telling teams that they don’t want to take money on.  To me, that’s probably the reason they didn’t pick up Fabbro as he carries a $2.5 million cap charge.  Otherwise, there was really no reason not to add him. 

At this point, it seems like Montreal’s approach with the cap this year is that they want to get out of LTIR once Rafael Harvey-Pinard and Patrik Laine get back or least get out of it after the trade deadline if they wind up selling (which seems like the probable outcome if things stay like this much longer).  With that in mind, it would be surprising to see them do much of significance in terms of roster movement at this point unless injuries dictate that they’ll stay in LTIR all season (using Carey Price’s contract).  I don’t mind the approach (which could save on bonus carryover penalties for next season) but it means don’t be expecting much in the way of reinforcements coming in anytime soon.