After allowing 14 goals in the last two games, just a non-embarrassing game would serve as a morale-boosting victory for the Montreal Canadiens on Saturday night. The Pittsburgh Canadiens are hoping for revenge after their 6-3 loss in October to the Penguins.
They did not get revenge, losing 3-1 thanks to two goals scored by Sidney Crosby.
Wild horses
The Canadiens’ heat map in the offensive zone looked like Nunavut in January. They only had two quality chances. Lin Hutson hit the base on a single. He is still stymied in the search for that first target. Looks like he could have gotten five with some luck.
The goal was scored by Christian Dvorak, who needed it to regain some confidence. It wasn’t even close to enough. They did their best, but they are playing with low confidence that has to be slowly rebuilt.
Wild Goat
These are difficult times. The team is playing very poorly as they try to break in four defensemen who do not have enough NHL experience. These four have bright careers ahead of them, but they don’t have enough concepts at the moment.
It leads to a lot of errors and missed tasks. It has to be said that this team does not appear ready for the hybrid system they are trying defensively.
In a hybrid, they have to switch man-to-man to zone depending on the situation. This requires a lot of communication and maturity. It’s not quite there yet, and perhaps they should help these players regain some confidence and settle their games with a system they can handle better. It only makes sense to switch to the zone, and allow players to feel more comfortable.
This was a low-event game. The Canadiens barely had a chance on goal. Pittsburgh was full of holes in its own zone, so they wanted to tighten the measures, and they did so at the expense of the Canadians, who could not get rid of the checkers at all.
It could be said that Montreal did not have a single dynamic play in the first 40 minutes. It was so boring. After allowing 14 goals in two games, the Canadiens were probably headed for boring play, because the embarrassment wasn’t fun either.
What to do? What to do? Read below about the Wilde Cards because they are building something that requires patience, and it will take a lot. We are in month 25 of what they hope will be a 60-month rebuild.
Related news
-
![]()
Wild Call: Canadiens are bad on defense in 6-3 loss to Washington Capitals
Wild cards
Get breaking national news
For news affecting Canada and around the world, sign up to get breaking news alerts delivered to you right as they happen.
Fans and the media have run out of patience. This is the biggest enemy that the rebuilding process must face. The management team will not lose focus, if they are given the freedom to do it right. However, if fans boo the Bell Center, talk radio gets impatient, and podcasts suck, everything could change.
If Hughes has to, he’ll have to trade the future for the present, and that will result in him remaining in the middle for another decade in Montreal.
Part of the problem now is Canadians’ self-ownership. Duplicating the management team “in the mix” was not a good idea. Expectations rose. The media ran with it. The forecasts (listed here) were for strength. However, so much has gone wrong that they have been suggested to be “in the mix”.
What happened instead was all the negatives possible: Kirby Dutch returned tentatively, Patrik Laine suffered a major injury, Alex Newhook isn’t in the top six, the defensemen are extremely inexperienced, and the goaltending has completely collapsed?
Add all these factors, and you will see a regression. However, Hughes still has a long leash, which is the key to success. Once the constraints on the GM get short, he starts trying to save his job with short-term gains that kill long-term hope.
That’s why the most important word in any rebuilding process is patience. Some rebuilds take a decade. The Canadians hope to rise from the ashes for five years. This is only the first month of the third year.
Fans and the media have the impression that Reconstruction is a young adult, but this Reconstruction is still a child. The best example of this is if you polled fans, they would probably say they have a lot of draft picks, and they should all make a difference now. However, the reality is that only two rebuilding candidates are in the NHL – Juraj Slafkovsky and Lane Hutson.
Both players are performing very well, yet you will see complaints that Slavkovskiy should be dominating by now. He’s 20!
It’s common for fans to say they just want to see a good game every game, but you can’t be a losing team and completely lose – keeping it close and showing promise every time. It doesn’t work that way. You can’t have perfect losses. Some losses will be painful. This is the process.
If we want the process to continue for 60 months, we must remember that we are only in the 25th month.
All defensemen between the ages of 20 and 22 will reach their prime in six to eight years. They will improve before age 28 of course, but then they will peak.
Consider all the players who have been selected and the upcoming selections that have yet to arrive, let alone improve. There will likely be two top 15 picks this year alone. It took three to five years before those picks excelled.
Add in all the players drafted who need access and improvement: Owen Beck, David Reinbacher, Logan Melo, Ivan Demidov, Michael Hague, Jacob Fowler, and many more who could surprise NHL players like Adam Engstrom and Luke Tuch.
This still has a long way to go, and it’s going very well so far. GM Kent Hughes has done a great job acquiring talent.
Our job is to allow the rebuilding process to grow, so that Hughes doesn’t have to make a stupid decision to appease the fans.
What a farce it would be if angry voices were raised to dismiss the coach. There is some heat on Martin St. Louis already before he gets a chance to work with mature talent who understands how to excel at the NHL level.
It would be a shame if this super smart and capable management team didn’t have the time to get this right.
For us, our interests are best served by keeping expectations low while the best arrives and matures. If we let them build it, the wins will come.
Montreal-based sportswriter Brian Wilde brings you the Call of the Wilde on globalnews.ca after every Canadiens game.
