So, it appears that the CH will be (again) in the “mix”… for a top-5 choice. It’s a near certainty.
After 14 matches, CH presents the 3e worst record in the entire NHL. Fourteen games is almost 20% of the season, that…
With his 10 points in 14 games, he has a percentage of .357, a nice average… in baseball.
He ranks 24e rank for goals for and in 31st place (or 2eit depends) for the goals allowed.
The goalkeepers don’t work miracles and the team’s way of playing in general is often pitiful.
In short, look at it any way you want, all the indicators are in the red.
So this is clearly shaping up to be a fourth consecutive season of misery.
Not convinced yet? Shouldn’t you panic? Nerves, Patoine?
Ok.
Which teams have a real chance of finishing with a worse record than our very, very secularized Flannel?
At a glance, we can anticipate that only a very small handful will fight with the CH for the very first overall pick at the next auction: San Jose, Philadelphia, Chicago and Anaheim.
The Sabres, the Islanders, the Predators, the Avalanche, the Penguins, all clubs who are having a bad start to the season, will logically end up leaving the bottom.
CH is therefore clearly one of the five worst clubs in the NHL once again this year.
It would take quite a turnaround for the Habs to position themselves “in the mix” for a playoff spot or a draft pick outside the top-10 as many anticipated, at least before Patrik Laine’s injury .
Of course, if this same Laine returns in fairly good shape in December, stays in the lineup until April and scores around twenty goals in 50 games, the CH could start playing for .500, or around that.
But we would be here in an ideal world, without another injury to this same Laine or any other impact player on the team.
Don’t bet a penny on it!
Heavy losses…
The truth is that CH really doesn’t have a better club on the ice than at this time last year.
Sean Monahan and Johnathan Kovacevic brought a lot of stability offensively and defensively.
Monny35 points in 49 games with CH, a very respectable pace of 59 points over an 82-game season, was the very definition of a good second line center, which Kirby Dach, nor anyone else, is Right now. I have my own ideas about what might be worth trying about this, but hey…
The very underrated Kovy IIIgreat leader of the team on the differential side (+11), and very appreciated player in the locker room, did not commit the kind of blunders and repeated bad readings as practically all the team’s defenders do this season .
It’s simple, apart from Lane Hutson, no player from the current edition brings anything better to the team if we compare it to last April.
In 33 games following the Monahan trade on February 2, CH maintained a record of 10 wins, 15 regular losses and 8 overtime losses for a total of 28 points out of a possible 66, a percentage of points per game of 0.424. He was playing for .490 before February 2.
We repeat, the team is currently at .357, even if Dach returned to the game.
Even following a theoretical improvement of .500 from Laine’s return with, say, 50 games to play, the CH season will go “sul yab'”!
Without its Finnish scorer, CH went to record 23 points in 32 matches.
If we VERY POSITIVELY add 50 points in 50 games after his return, that would still only be 73 points at the end of the season.
This would be three points less than last year when CH concluded the calendar on 28e rank in the entire NHL…
So, more convinced that we can dream of a choice, top-5, or even top-3?
Another season for draft enthusiasts!
It will be another season where we will have to start watching the top-20 very early in view of the next draft, because yes, we must also keep an eye on the Flames’ choice which should logically be found between 12th and 20th rank.
Don’t think the Flames will maintain their current pace of .571% which currently places them 20th in the draft, but who knows…
Podcasts like Process, Recruits and company will therefore continue to be a hit since all the “hopes” – literally all the hopes! – will be permitted once again for the Habs.
For my part, I will also start my pre-draft analyzes again in the coming weeks…
This means that after the selection of an exceptional talent like that of Demidov and a possible home run at 21e rank in Michael Hage in 2024, the CH will potentially add two other top prospects to its already rather well stocked bank.
Martone, Hagens, Schaefer, Misa, Frondell, Ryabkin and Desnoyers are names that we will hear very often in the coming months…
Meanwhile in Chestnut Hill, #WorldU17 points record holder James Hagens (2025) to Ryan Leonard (WSH) in OT. pic.twitter.com/5Gq3gLBPgb
— Scott Wheeler (@scottcwheeler) November 9, 2024
However, we will not talk about an exceptional year at the top – neither Bedard nor Celebrini – but most likely a leading trio in Hagens, Martone and Schaefer, then a solid top-5, or even a very good one. top-10.
We will see in time if there are reasons to get excited about the top 20, but there are still good players between the 15e et 20e places…
A word of advice for Martin St-Louis!
We simply and very logically have to be very patient with the 2nd youngest team in the entire NHL.
Four of the organization’s top six prospects aren’t even in the NHL yet: Demidov, Reinbacher, Hage and Fowler.
The other two, Slafkovsky and Hutson, are doing pretty well thank you and are just 20 years old. Twenty years!
Even if Suzuki and Caufield enter their prime, the core of CH is therefore still very far from having reached maturity.
So, for the here and now, I am convinced, we cannot make water come out of a rock or, as the very beautiful image by Martin Leclerc illustrates, “it is not in pulling on the flower that it will grow faster”…
I therefore sympathize enormously with Martin St-Louis.
But, even if he will never ask my opinion as a simple sports columnist, beer league player and philosopher by profession, by way of conclusion, I would still like to offer him this humble advice: practice what you preach to your players yourself.
If you tell them that they “must constantly play the game who is in front of them”, you must do the same in your role behind the bench.
If you tell them that “the game is on you parle », elle parle to the coach too!
So – without even broaching the thorny subject of the defensive system – if you see the game who is in front of you and you notice, as was the case against the Devils on Thursday evening that:
1) your first power play unit isn’t doing anything worthwhile, adjust accordingly and play your second unit more or place your most creative player, Hutson, on the first unit.
In short, change the recipe durant the game who is in front of you.
2) If you notice that nothing is working with Dach to the right of Caufield and Suzuki, and that Gallagher is on fire or that Slavs or Newhook has a solid one in its legs, like in New Jersey, don’t wait!
Make changes durant the game who is in front of you!
Practice what you preach!
And for defensive play, maybe we need to stop trying to fit squares into circles…
