On this week’s first show of the new year, our panelists — former Canadiens defenceman and assistant coach Rick Green, Gazette columnist Stu Cowan and Canadiens podcast host Andrew Berkshire — along with host Moe Khan, discuss the Habs’ recent struggles, why the wheels have come off a promising start to the season and where they’re headed.
They also weigh in on these topics:
• How the long-term losses of Sean Monahan, Mike Matheson, Brendan Gallagher and Kaiden Guhle to injuries have had a ripple effect throughout the lineup.
• Continuing defensive-zone miscues and disorganization are resulting in the Canadiens chasing the game and reducing their puck possession.
• Rookie head coach Martin St. Louis’s learning curve, what he can do with a roster that is long on youth, but short on depth and talent, and if he might benefit from the addition of a veteran coaching presence behind the bench.
• The team’s recent goaltending struggles behind a suddenly porous defence corps.
• The reasons behind the decline in shooting percentage and overall offence for captain Nick Suzuki, who nonetheless remains on pace to put up career-high numbers.
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11 Comments
I think what has happened is that the rest of the league has figured out if you shut down Suzuki & Caufield you shut down the Canadiens.
While completely expected, losing is no fun and we've started to see the frustration come out in the players (Edmundson, Evans, etc). My take-away is that our young d-men have gained valuable experience, and will return more seasoned next season; same goes for Slafkovský. Despite everything, as a Habs fan I've enjoyed the season way more than I thought I would, and I remain confident and hopeful in this rebuild under this new management. Lastly, looking forward to PK being honoured in Montreal this evening!
Wondering if Suzuki is able to the Captain of the habs Compared to other captains he seems to have a lot less impact on his team compared to a Player like Bergeron who demonstrates great leadership
Why is there a new host every season…. we want julien
Good answer, we don't the same team as last year, so many key injuries.
the players are affected by the losses, especially the young kids.
Suzuki is a number 1 center but not undisputedly because some ppl don't think he's a number 1 center at all which is absolutely false, the reality is that he needs a very good second line center to insulate him like a Monohan or a Danault or so on, obviously as most ppl already know by now is that this team lack so much depth up front and through out the entire lineup and the head coach could only do so much with the kind of roster they have..
Joel Edmundson is a minus 17 so far this season. Keep in mind that Luke Richardson was the Asst Coach last season and I suspect he had a lot of influence on the team. My point is that if a player whom you expected a lot from this season, is showing mediocre results, is it right to blame the player and not the coaching staff? 5 players are in the minus with double digits, and almost all the players are in the minus.
It's easy to blame the goaltenders but stats show that they give away 3 to 4 goals a game. It's not great but these stats and seeing them play tell me that there is no coaching system in this team.
The goal for the Canadiens management is to tank organically or economically but at the same time they try to maintain that competitive culture and that is not what's happening right now so that is why the head coach is very disappointed right now. I agree with Stu that they will have to go back to playing a system game if the concept that St Louis is preaching is not working.
Correction;MSL is the only one of the coaching group that has No experience.
Stu rocking the Steve Jobs look is great.