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Antoine Mathieu
Rabid Habs
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10 Reasons the Habs Will be Better This Year: Part One
Over the last month or so, one of the hottest topics in the hockey world has been whether or not the Canadiens are a better team after trading PK Subban for Shea Weber. I have let the dust settle and I am ready to lay out my ten reasons as why the team is closer to a Stanley Cup than they were a year ago.
Before I get going, don’t forget to check out the article that Tina Poole wrote sharing her reasons as to why the Habs are NOT a better team following the ballsy decisions that Marc Bergevin has made this summer.
1: The Entire Management Will Be Under Close Scrutiny
Geoff Molson is a businessman and like any businessman, at the end of the day, what matters most for him is making a large profit on his investments. Although, we the fans sometimes have difficulty to accept it, the Habs are a corporation. When our beloved team misses the playoffs, it makes us very sad because it means that our depressing Stanley Cup drought has gotten longer by one year. But for an owner like Geoff Molson, it means he’s missing out on MILLIONS of dollars.
Based on this report from The Hockey News, in 2010, the Habs earned an additional three million in revenue for EACH game they played at home in the playoffs. When you add all the expenses of the organization to the mix (all players who are contracted by the team, all staff members which includes: coaches, scouts, doctors, equipment managers, marketing experts, lawyers, etc), that means that Molson is EASILY investing over a hundred million year-in, year-out.
With that much money on the table, Molson has no choice but to adopt the quite common mentality of what-have-you-done-for-me-lately. If the Canadiens don’t make the playoffs, the ownership is losing out on millions of dollars. This is why I believe the management, which includes both head coach Michel Therrien and General Manager Marc Bergevin, will be on a MUCH tighter leash this year. The fan backlash that occurred after the PK Subban trade who happened to be Geoff Molson’s biggest cash cow on the team won’t help the Habs cause if they miss the playoffs for a second year in a row.
After the historical collapse that the team experienced last season under Therrien, the team under him simply cannot afford to have a bad start. If the team is playing below .500 before Christmas, Therrien SHOULD unquestionably get canned. That’s why I feel that it’s no coincidence that the Habs decide to bring in an old friend in Kirk Muller earlier this summer. Considering that not only the organization for political reasons has to hire a bilingual coach AND that the pool of coaches available is probably at its thinnest as we speak, Muller is probably the only English speaking coach that could be named Head Coach of the Canadiens with no repercussion from the media due to his long history with the team.
Another element that certainly won’t help Therrien if the team is struggling is that Bergevin has done his best throughout the years to give his coach a roster that fits with his vision. Weber, Prust, Shaw, Weaver, Mitchell, Bouillon, Armstrong, Murray, Farnham, Bartley and Brown are all players who fit with Therrien’s image of what hockey is. Bergevin has also had no problem choosing his coach over certain players (Subban, Eller, DSP, PAP, Briere, Sekac and Semin). If Therrien can’t get it done with a roster that fits his system to a tee, Bergevin will have to start thinking to himself that either the system is the problem or his coach is. Hopefully it doesn’t take another loss in the playoffs where our team can’t score for our GM to finally realize that Therrien and his system will never bring us to the Promised Land.
These two factors mean that the coaching staff can no longer afford to do idiotic decisions like they have been doing since 2013. Therrien can no longer make Galchenyuk play on the wing. He can’t foolishly not play his top defenseman on the penalty kill because he doesn’t think he’s good enough defensively. He can’t play washed up veterans like Murray, Bourque or Moen over younger and better players like Andrighetto, Beaulieu or Sekac. He can’t make silly mistakes like not sending two centers on an important face-off in our end or decide not to pull his goalie when he’s trailing by two goals because he felt his team simply didn’t ‘deserve’ it.
On the other hand, Marc Bergevin is no longer in a position where he can try those low risk experiments that have yet to see pan out (Semin, Parenteau, Briere and Kassian all come to mind). Since becoming GM of the Habs, Bergevin has yet to add a player on the roster who’s surpassed the 30 points mark. Hopefully the signing of Alex Radulov can make us forget that depressing tidbit of information but the fact remains that this core was inherited by Bergevin and before this crazy summer, other than Petry, he hadn’t done much over the years to assure the team’s status as a legitimate contender in the East. Given the amount of assets at our GM’s disposal (five second round picks at the next two drafts plus prospects like De La Rose, Reway and Scherbak), Bergevin has no excuse not to guarantee that the team has all the tools required to make a deep playoffs run.
Unlike previous years, there will be pressure from the upper management for the team to do well. For some individuals the thought of possibly losing their job might make them fold, for others it will be used as a source of motivation and get the best of them. We will see under what group our management falls when the adversity is at its highest.
2: The Team Has More Depth
If there was any year where our depth was truly tested, it was definitely last season. Price, Gallagher, Petry, Subban, Beaulieu, Gilbert, Barberio and Carr all missed long stretches of the season due to injury. After getting lucky with the injury bug ever since Bergevin took over, it was bound to happen. At some point, only seven of the players that started the season with Montreal were playing; the rest were all injured. Montreal finished third in the NHL for man-games lost with 383 (only New Jersey and Toronto were ahead). That’s quite the contrast after finishing with the lowest amount of injuries just the season before.
The Al Montoya signing is the perfect example of how the team is much deeper than it was last season. Montoya is a quality back-up who’s played 136 NHL games since becoming an NHL regular in 2010-11 with the Islanders. The void for an experienced back-up has been there since the departure of Peter Budaj and it was felt the most last season when Price went down. Therrien had a carrousel of goalies (Condon, Tokarski and Scrivens) but none of them were even passable options for the club short term.
NHL experience is definitely an element that your back-up should have and none of them truly had it: Condon had zero games in the NHL before this year, Tokarski only had a handful (33 NHL games) and Scrivens, well he was Scrivens…You know the same dude who was waived by the EDMONTON OILERS out of all teams. One other noticeable facet that works out great for Montoya is that he is very good at moving the puck. That means the transition from Price to Montoya will be a lot smoother for the team than it was with Condon.
Defense is another position where our lack of depth was deeply exposed last season. Fifteen defenders suited up for the bleu-blanc-rouge in 2015-16 and five of them had zero NHL games prior to their stint with the Habs. This is partly why Bergevin didn’t qualify either of Dietz (166 AHL games) and Ellis (230 AHL games) and decided to sign Redmond (114 NHL games) and Samuelsson (304 AHL games and 13 NHL games). These two are expected to start the season in St. John’s but if injuries occur, they are incontestably better options than Johnston and Hanley were last year.
As far as the forwards are concerned, players like McCarron and Hudon got their cups of coffee in the NHL and know what to expect and what they need to work on to become NHLers. That’s without taking in consideration the signings of prospects like Lehkonen and Reway who have a ton of experience versus men in Europe that will come in handy if they make the club this year. Finally, the signings of players like Farnham (64 NHL games) and Terry (138 NHL games), presumably for the farm team, will give the team some more NHL polished options than the previous ones (St. Pierre, Hensick and Holloway) in case of injuries.
3: The Kids are a Year Older
In a season that was full of disappointments, the progression of some of the team’s young players was definitely one of the clear positives from last year’s fiasco.
Alex Galchenyuk
After years of fans demanding for it, Therrien finally saw the light and not only played Galchenyuk at center but he played him with our best winger (Pacioretty) and the results speak for themselves: 19 points in the last 19 games of the season. It was clear from the start of training camp that Galchenyuk was a different player than the previous seasons, he was no longer the frail Chucky who would easily get pushed around: he was a beast. Although the numbers didn’t back up his play at the start of the season, the six foot one center was our most dominant forward on many nights. You would see him dictate the play on the ice for a whole shift, cause a stoppage by the other team and next thing you know, Therrien would unjustifiably take him off the ice to put Desharnais’ line. With Galchenyuk’s emergence, the team has finally a number one center that can stand toe-to-toe with other team’s top lines without looking out of place.
Brendan Gallagher
Gallagher is definitely the Habs spark plug up front and the 24-year-old was well on his way of surpassing his personal best (was on pace for 29 goals and 62 points) before suffering an injury after blocking a shot with his hand. I would lean on Gallagher being a finished product at this point but there is no doubt in my mind that with the strides he made this year in terms of production that he is a better player than he was last summer.
Sven Andrighetto
After being in Therrien’s dog house for ‘reasons’, Andrighetto finally got his opportunity to shine following the departure of veterans like Weise, DSP and Fleischmann. These roster moves opened up a spot for the Swiss forward and he was put on a line with Alex Galchenyuk and Max Pacioretty where he had his most successful stretch in the NHL (8 points in 11 GP). Albeit I have never been Ghetto’s biggest fan, he proved last season that he can be a solid option in a team’s top nine. If the 2013 draftee gets a fair chance under Therrien (in other words, more than twelve minutes a game), I can see him producing 35 points for the Habs this season.
Daniel Carr
Carr quickly made a name for himself in his call-up by being productive right from the get go. He scored in his very first NHL game and he made it instantly known for fans that he’s not afraid to get his nose dirty and shares a similar resilience as Gallagher. Carr might be an afterthought for some but I believe that his impressive stint with the team last year made him a lock for our roster next season. Similarly to Gallagher, I think Carr is the type of player who can move around the line-up and energize a line with his hustle.
Nathan Beaulieu
Beaulieu’s road to the NHL has been a rocky one but last season marked the first season where Therrien trusted him enough to be a regular in the line-up. There were games last year where the smooth skating defender was used for more than 20 minutes a game which is quite the leap after only playing 15:42 minutes on average the season before. Although Beaulieu has yet to show at the NHL level the offensive game that got him selected 17th overall in the 2011 draft, the 23-year-old has made a lot progress defensively where I wouldn’t bat an eye if the coaching staff decided to try him on the top pairing with Shea Weber. I think Beaulieu’s mobility and passing ability would complement the former Predator’s game very well.
Greg Pateryn
If you looked at the definition of what a late bloomer is in the dictionary, you would probably find a picture of Pateryn. Okay now that I think of it, maybe not. Fact remains that the 26-year-old is finally establishing himself in the NHL after being cast aside by the coaching staff in favor of veteran Tom Gilbert. Pateryn had to bear with his misfortunes patiently and wait for a spot to open up via injuries or poor play from one of the guys ahead of him. That’s exactly what happened and after a few mistakes along the way, like this one, the rugged defenseman proved that he could more than hold his own in the NHL, he started to be a mainstay on the Habs PK and averaged over 20 minutes a game down the final stretch of the season.
That being said, I do concede that while our young players got some useful experience, Andrei Markov (37 years old) and Tomas Plekanec (who will turn 34 next October) are not getting any younger and will most likely regress in the upcoming season. Both players last year showed signs that their best days are behind them and that regression is to be expected from them.
Plekanec has been notorious for slowing down the stretch but the fact that half of his goals from last season came during the month of October and November makes it hard for fans to be optimistic for him to deliver the production that we usually expect from the two-way center man. Last year marked the first time since his rookie season, which was over a decade ago (feel old yet?), that he didn’t score at least fifteen goals during a season. It will be interesting to see how Plekanec does in a smaller role behind Galchenyuk, who will now be used as the team’s top center.
As far as Markov is concerned, it is hard to get a good grip on how much his problems off the ice (went through a break-up and had a child with his new girlfriend) affected his performance on the ice last season. He had a very rough stretch after Christmas that made us question whether or not the General was finished. Mistakes like the one he did here on the first goal were mistakes we were simply not used of seeing from the cerebral defenseman. I have been preaching for Markov’s minutes to go down for the last three years and I think this year will finally be the year. I believe that Markov can be a useful defenseman to have but I feel the days of him playing 24 minutes a night are well behind him at this stage of his career. With Subban’s departure and Weber who’s not the most mobile defenseman, I think Markov can no longer be used on the top pairing by virtue, with PK gone, of not having a defender agile enough to make up for his lack of speed.
4: The Hiring of Kirk Muller
I briefly mentioned the Muller acquisition in my first argument but I will go more in depth as to why this move is definitely a positive for the organization. He will be the yin to Therrien’s yang and vice versa.
Kirk Muller is the Perfect Assistant for Therrien
Muller is the ultimate player’s coach and he replaces the hole that was created in the coaching staff when Gerard Gallant left the organization to become Head Coach of the Florida Panthers. After the season that the team had last year, Muller will be a breath of fresh air in the dressing room and should boost the morale of the room. Considering how much of a hard ass Therrien is, the sound of a new voice will be refreshing for the players and having a coach that is a pal should help the atmosphere and hopefully remove the obvious friction between Therrien and the players. After working with Ken Hitchcock in St. Louis, he’s certainly used to playing the role of the good cop in the coaching staff. As a former star in the NHL and an icon in this city, he commands the respect of the players and he will be the bridge between the players and his colleagues behind the bench.
Our Solution for the Powerplay?
The man advantage is incontestably Muller’s bread and butter and the biggest element that he brings to the table as an assistant coach. Captain Kirk started his coaching career in 2006-07 when he came in to be an assistant for one his former teammates, Guy Carbonneau. The results immediately started showing when in his very first season, the Habs finished in first place on the PP (23%). With practically the same player personnel, the best his predecessor (Claude Julien) managed was fifth place in 2005-06 (19.2%). The year after, history repeated itself and the Canadiens once again finished in first place and even improved their success rate by 1.3% (24.3%).
In 2008-09, the PP took a nose dive and dropped to fifteenth (19%) in the league. That drop can be explained by the management’s decision to not re-new Mark Streit’s contract which left a big hole on the PP scheme with the lack of a big shot from the point. It didn’t take a PhD in algorithms to realize what was missing on the PP and Bob Gainey pulled the trigger on a deal before the trade deadline for Schneider and his point shot. What’s interesting to note is that the Habs jumped from twenty-fifth place to fifteenth in the span of two months following the trade.
After the massive disappointment that the centennial season was, the Habs management completely revamped the look of the team which is otherwise known as the summer that Bob Gainey went crazy. With Kovalev no longer on the team, Muller had his work cut out for him to continue Montreal’s dominance on the power play. With new tools to work with like Mike Cammalleri, Brian Gionta and Marc-Andre Bergeron, the Habs finished in second place (21.8%) and the Habs prolonged their reputation of being a team who will make you pay if you take penalties.
Amazingly, management didn’t learn from their mistake in the centennial season and let go of Bergeron without replacing his big shot in the line-up. The Habs PP was sitting at twelfth before Pierre Gauthier acquired James Wisniewski from the New York Islanders. The move paid off and the team finished seventh in the league (19.6%).
That season marked the last one with Muller behind the bench of the Canadiens. Following the absence of Muller behind the bench, the Habs have finished in bottom ten of the league every year except for the lockout season where they ended fifth. With hindsight, it’s easy to conclude that the lockout season was clearly an anomaly and that the Habs PP has been a shade of himself ever since Muller left the organization.
The problem with the Habs power play in the last few years has been that similarly to our style of play as a whole, there’s no creativity or effort put in the tactics. For the longest time the PP consisted of hoping Desharnais didn’t lose the faceoff, Markov and Subban switching spots at the point and then try to set up Subban for the one-timer until a) the shot is blocked b) his stick breaks c) he misses the net or d) which rarely happened by the way; he scores. This PP set-up is very predictable and the fact that the forwards were always stationary and that down low, there was never a real threat of scoring made it easy for the opposite team to neutralize our man advantage by simply putting bodies in PK’s shooting lane.
Muller’s MO as the coach in charge of the PP has always been to have multiple scoring threats at once rather than being a one trick pony. It can be the defenseman sneaking in from the backdoor, a sniper at the half-boards that can exploit extra space, the point with the one-timer or the player in charge of screening the front of the net being set up for a tap-in via a cross crease pass.
I have faith that this team has the pieces to have a top ten power play league wide. You have Galchenyuk who is coming off a 30 goal season and is a legit threat with his one timer (à la Cammalleri). You have one of the league’s top front-net presences and the most fearless player in the NHL in Gallagher. You have an elite QB and a defender who has seven seasons with more than 40 points on his resume in Markov. You also have an elite goal scorer in Pacioretty who has two 35+ goals season under his belt. Finally you have Weber, since 2010-11 a) he is the defenseman with the most PP goals with 50 b) he has the fourth most amount of shots behind Karlsson, Burns and Byfuglien (the last two have spent time playing forward in that timespan) and c) his slap shot is an absolute rocket, at the 2015 Skills
Competition, his shot was clocked at 108.5 mph! With that kind of power, you’d have to be a fool to try to block it.
With those tools in hand, there is no reason for Montreal not to have a dangerous power play after years of mediocrity in that department. With the acquisitions from this summer and Muller coming back, we might have a PP that gives us flash backs of the days where we had Souray, Koivu and Kovalev lighting up teams.
I can’t imagine how much of a difference having a respectable PP would have made in the past playoffs runs. In 2015 alone, the team lost two of their games versus Tampa Bay by a single goal. Considering that in that series, the PP went 1/16 just one extra goal could have changed the series entirely in Montreal’s favor.
For the conclusion of Antoine Mathieu’s “10 Reasons,”stay tuned to Rabidhabs.com!
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