After one of the worst performances of Martin St. Louis’ tenure Thursday night against the Los Angeles Kings, the Montreal Canadiens looked to bounce back from that embarrassment on Saturday against the New York Islanders.
Montreal has the worst analytics in all of the NHL by a wide margin. They needed to toughen up, and they did and were forced into overtime. The Islanders won it in a shootout that took nine rounds to determine the winner. Oliver Kapanen and a perfect snip by Emil Heinemann were the scorers in the shootout for Montreal.
Despite the loss, it was a respectable match for the Canadians in general. It is the beginning after the violent competitions that preceded it.
Wild horses
It was great for Montreal to score in this game. Logan Maylox scored his first NHL goal. It was beauty. Jake Evans saw Maylox coming from the point. From a corner kick, Evans sent a perfect pass onto Mylox’s stick.
Mylox fired a quick shot into the far corner to level the contest at two. It was Mylox’s first match of the season. He was partnered with Lane Hutson most of the night. It was a look into the future as Mylox looked at ease during the contest.
There was an unusual turn as Christian Dvořak’s line was pinned to the ice with a four-minute Mailloux-Hutson partnership inside the Montreal zone. Oliver Kapanen has lost his stick, and things could get worse when that happens.
Through it all, the stamina shown by the defenders was impressive. Even though the Isles looked like a short track speed skating team doing laps around the perimeter and didn’t actually create anything, four minutes was still quite a challenge to be on the ice.
It was only seconds after the end of the shift that the couple could be seen laughing. A desperate search for oxygen would have made more sense. They weren’t struggling for air at all. Mailloux will have a career in the NHL. He has the goods. He’s already healthy enough defensively, and will get more comfortable as time goes on.
The opening goal was a classic Cole Caufield. He had one shot blocked, then got an almost impossible angle to the side of the net for the rebound. He actually found the leads on the far side just in front of the goal line. Not many shooters can hook this angle.
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The Canadiens’ tying goal with just two minutes left was also an own goal for Caufield. He took the pass from Slavkowski, then turned and fired from about 30 feet away. There was nothing special about it, except to say that the scorers know how to score goals. They feel that a shot at an unusual time might surprise the goalkeeper. This happened to force overtime.
Caufield has scored six goals this season in six matches. Caufield is trying to become the first scorer to reach 40 goals in Montreal since Vincent Damphousse in 1994. He’s off to an excellent start. Imagine if the line played better than Caufield could.
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The league leader in terms of goals this season is Nikita Kucherov with seven goals.
Wild Goat
One of the most worrying aspects of the club this season, if not the most worrying, is the play in the first line. If there was one given this season, he thought it was the first line. Nick Suzuki, Cole Caufield and Juraj Slavkovski can be counted on to play good hockey. It seemed as if it was known that they would score goals, defend well and be the foundation for the rebuild.
Last year, when they neared the midpoint of the season, for several weeks, they were in the top 10 in the league in shot share. They played a lot of hockey in the offensive zone and had 60 turnovers. It looked like the Canadiens had a real number one streak.
In the last 41 games of the season, the line scored 53 goals. The prorated rating was 106 goals and would have put the line in the top six in the entire league. Their shot share dropped a bit last season, but they didn’t give up at all. Everyone thought the first line was behind, so it was time to work on the second number.
This season, 5v5, the Suzuki line will be demolished. Sure, they’re up against the other club’s best players, but that didn’t seem to matter last year. This season, the line’s share of expected goals is just 38 percent. They are one of the worst lines in the league in this vital stat.
Too many hockey games are being played in their own neighborhood, and they simply have to figure out what went wrong since the first couple of months they spent together last year.
All of this increases losses due to the large number of goals scored. It’s a young hockey team. There is a lot to learn, and we must get started. They don’t look like an organized club. Montreal is the worst expected scoring club in the league by a wide margin. They are too talented for this.
The Canadians’ expected goal share is 38 per cent. The Philadelphia Flyers are 31st in the league at 42 percent. The Carolina Hurricanes lead the league with 67 percent expected goals shooting.
The Canadiens can count on Samuel Montembault to steal only so many games. Ultimately, they should be the better team that spends more time per game in the offensive zone.
Wild cards
Something seems right in Laval. It has been years since the missile has lived up to their expectations. For a long time there was a feeling like the prospects were talented enough to make a top-tier team, but they struggled every season as they fought for a spot in the playoffs.
Bring in Pascal Vincent as the new head coach, and it pays dividends immediately. It’s not just that the Rocket have three wins in their first four games, it’s also about the way they’re going. In Game 4 on Saturday afternoon at Place Bell, the Syracuse Crunch managed just 23 shots as the Rocket won 1-0 with Connor Hughes getting the shutout. Owen Beck scored the only goal.
The Crunch were looking for a goal in the final two periods to tie the game. This often leads to unbalanced ice due to human nature, but Laval was so solid, they allowed little in their zone. Watching the Rocket on Saturday, the best word to describe them was curated. They played with the structure.
Vincent has been coaching since 1995. He has served as an assistant in Winnipeg and as head coach of the Columbus Blue Jackets. He also coached Team Canada at the Under-18 World Championships. The guy knows the drill and you can see how clean he plays the Rocket.
They also had a great deal of talent in their squad, but so did Laval’s other underachieving clubs. At the top of the list of scorers is Philippe Mazar. He has yet to excel in North America after looking so comfortable earlier in Europe’s top flight.
Masara helped the winner in Saturday’s match to get his fifth point in four matches. Logan Mylox is second in points with four points in just two games. Alex Barré-Boulet also had four points in two games. Joshua Roy has three points in three games. Adam Engstrom also looks solid so far.
What a masterful signing by GM Kent Hughes to acquire Barré-Boulet. He was signed to a one-way deal which means he is getting NHL money in the AHL. This is ingenious because Hughes knew he had to send the veteran over the waiver wire. No one was going to take him knowing they had to pay NHL money to play in the minors.
Hughes knew the Quebec-born player would ignite the Laval fan base. Hughes also knew that the winger was a hugely successful player at the AHL level. Barré-Boulet has been a starter in every American Hockey League game since 2019, including in 2023 where he had 69 points in 58 games. Very smart move by Hughes.
It’s early, but it looks like this will be a better season for Laval. They tied for the first time so far. The only difficulty might be if the roster is raided due to injuries in Montreal. Nothing can be done about it. Let’s hope it doesn’t happen again.
Montreal-based sports writer Brian Wilde brings you the Call of the Wilde on globalnews.ca after every Canadiens game.
