The Montreal Canadiens’ ability to keep the puck out of their own net this season has been a huge key to their six wins in eight starts, but Connor McDavid and the Edmonton Oilers have the ability to flip that switch easily.
Montreal faced its biggest defensive test, and passed with five-on-five dominance of the Oilers, but couldn’t stop the refs from giving the Oilers five straight power plays to get back into the game.
The wild affair ended 6-5 Oilers.
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The Canadiens need to start burying their chances much better than they are. In Calgary on Wednesday, the Kapanen line was 91 per cent in expected goals, and the Suzuki line was 89 per cent in the first period, yet Montreal was up by only one. In Edmonton a night later, the Suzuki line was 100 per cent, and the Kapanen line was 96 after 20 minutes, and the score was tied at one.
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The Canadiens could have been up three or four in each of the first periods in Alberta. Instead, they made life a lot more difficult for themselves. On Wednesday, they were hitting the middle of the Flames crest against goaltender Dustin Wolf. In Edmonton, they were firing it off the glass on great opportunities against Calvin Pickard.
The Canadiens have periods of complete dominance territorially, but a part of hockey is finishing, and some great players aren’t converting chances as much as they should be. Nick Suzuki should have far more than one goal this season. It feels like he could have one goal per game.
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Ivan Demidov also only has a single goal this season. That hardly seems possible watching him create offence with such ease. If the Canadiens keep playing behind the opponent’s defence as much as this, surely, the goals will come in abundance, especially for Demidov, who was bumped up to the first unit on the one power play Montreal had the entire night
The only goal the Canadiens scored in the first, when it felt like they could have had four, was Alex Newhook scoring on a rebound after Lane Hutson threw it at the net. Oliver Kapanen recorded an assist; that line is the revelation of the season so far.
Kapanen is likely a third-line centre in the NHL, but don’t tell the players he’s lined up against who spend the night defending him. Kapanen’s line is succeeding against high-quality attackers.
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The Oilers took a 3-1 lead late in the second period, and it looked like a lost cause. However, these Canadiens were not deterred. Montreal scored three goals in 1:50 to conclude the middle frame — Josh Anderson first, and then absolute magic from Cole Caufield.
Caufield’s first goal was in tight. He made a move so stunning, tucking it inside the near post, that Pickard was not even close to saving it. On the same shift, Caufield flew down the right wing and ripped a shot just inside the post on the far side.
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Caufield moved to seven goals on the season. He is tied for the league lead with three others. Suzuki is tied for the league lead in assists. After 40 minutes, it was dominance by the Canadiens in analytics, with the top two lines at a 95 expected goals.
In the third period, the Kapanen line left five Oilers as spectators. They threw the puck around with ease. A fifth goal concluded with a Kapanen pass to Newhook for his second of the night.
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This may seem like nitpicking, considering the player in question is the second favourite for the Calder Trophy behind only Matthew Schaefer of the New York Islanders, but Demidov has to start shooting.
It’s completely normal for a rookie to keep deferring on shooting opportunities. It’s a matter of respect to defer to veterans. However, it’s time for Demidov to fire it with all these clean looks. He’s passing into more difficult shots than the one he has on his own stick.
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Demidov has only seven shots in nine games this season. With the amount of time that the puck is on his stick, this is a ridiculously low total. A top player counts on about 20 per cent of his shots, if he is on fire. Usually, a player like Demidov will settle into about a 10 per cent success rate in his first season.
This means that for Demidov to score 30 goals, he needs to fire 300 shots over 82 games. He needs to fire close to four shots per game. He is at less than one shot per game. Demidov has a terrific shot, and he’s around the net all the time. It’s time to shoot the puck.
The obvious negative of the night was the continued frustration for Samuel Montembeault. The Canadiens’ number one goalie allowed three goals on the first 11 shots he faced.
Montembeault entered the night with an abysmal .857 save percentage. It dropped to .842 in the loss. In goals saved above expected, Jakub Dobes is third best in the league, while Montembeault is fourth worst of 65 goalies. He’s a career .900 goalie. It has to turn soon for Montembeault.
The biggest goat of the night was the refs. The Canadiens got the last five minors against them. This included a boarding call on Juraj Slafkovsky that was embarrassingly soft, a soft trip for Mike Matheson and an unsportsmanlike penalty to Josh Anderson where all he did was fire the puck down the ice after a goal.
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The refs are too personally invested in keeping the games close in this league. No other sport officiates like the NHL officiates. You’ll see complaints in the Call of the Wilde once or twice per season. Here’s your first time. It’s well deserved.
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The opportunity head coach Martin St. Louis gives young players to develop their games isn’t appreciated enough around the NHL. St. Louis is the perfect coach to develop the youngest squad in the entire league.
It’s a fine balance for a head coach. A coach would love to give a young player all the freedom in the world, but too much too fast produces errors. Errors then produce a loss of confidence, and, with it, a will to be creative.
For a coach, it’s not simply a matter of giving complete freedom to a rookie to be Bambi out there. Good coaching is much more complex. An opportunity given has to be well-timed.
Mistakes are inevitable. They have to be teaching moments, not an opportunity to berate a player. It’s easy to forget, watching a seasoned Caufield, that he was benched by former coach Dominique Ducharme. Caufield fell out of favour in the previous regime.
Caufield has blossomed into a complete player under St. Louis. It has never felt like St. Louis has tried to destroy a player. For Michel Therrien, it felt like that was his primary strategy.
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Take Hutson as another example. Early in his first season, as much as he was making beautiful offensive plays, he was also minus-14. Again, most of the coaches in the league would have tightened the leash, and maybe even a demotion to the American Hockey League was possible.
This head coach kept on teaching and kept on giving challenges that Hutson could handle. Some 70 games later, Hutson was holding the Calder Trophy.
This season, the same story. The praise is flying around the hockey world for the stick skills and computer processing of Demidov. However, he is a player with defensive holes in his game. He got caught coasting on the back-check last season, but this year, he was praised enthusiastically for back-checking 160 feet full-speed to break up an odd-man rush.
Demidov is becoming a more well-rounded player while not abandoning his offensive gifts. He is embracing learning how to defend. Perfect guidance again from St. Louis.
One player some have felt the head coach has held back is Arber Xhekaj. You won’t hear that from Xhekaj, though. He loves his head coach, who he feels is making him a better player.
St. Louis is also impressive with players whose skill set is degrading in terms of goal scoring, and rewrites how they play the game. Under St. Louis, Anderson and Brendan Gallagher continue to flourish in the NHL when another coach may have abandoned them.
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Take Kapanen as another example: once timid, he comes back this year as a ferocious puck battler.
If you want to learn and keep developing your game, St. Louis is your man. You’ll get excited to see what you are doing wrong, because you know that he can teach improvement.
It’s a special coach who can motivate a pro athlete to be even better through difficult changes for the team’s good. The Canadiens have that special coach. He’s an outstanding tactician and a terrific motivator, and he’s just getting started.
Brian Wilde, a Montreal-based sports writer, brings you Call of the Wilde on globalnews.ca after each Canadiens game.
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Call of the Wilde: Canadiens season begins
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