Call of the Wilde: Montreal Canadiens give up 7 in loss to Toronto Maple Leafs – Montreal

The time is now for the Montreal Canadiens to move into a wild card playoff spot this season. Six of the next seven games are at home starting with the Toronto Maple Leafs on Saturday night. Excitement was in the air as Montreal hockey fans feel they may finally be close to equal footing with their arch-rivals.

However, the Maple Leafs scored seven straight in a 7-3 win.

Wilde Horses 

Ever since the Maple Leafs drafted Auston Matthews it has felt like Saturday night at the Bell Centre has been a day of sad realizations that Montreal was second best. The Canadiens didn’t just lose most of the time; they left the ice demoralized.

While the Canadiens have been the hottest team in the league the last month, psychologically, no one would truly believe in this growth until they could dispatch the Leafs. From the opening minutes, they looked able to finally flip the script.

Mike Matheson was sent free on a breakaway, but he couldn’t convert it.  Less than two minutes later, Jake Evans had a clean look also, from within five feet. Joseph Woll was the star of the game early.

Woll couldn’t stop the amazing set-up on a delayed penalty to give Montreal the lead. It was a perfect pass from Kaiden Guhle. Guhle had a chance to shoot. He faked that he would shoot. That opened the net wide for Kirby Dach to count.

The play of Dach has been one of the keys to the turnaround. It was his third goal in three games and seventh goal in the last 11 games. The second line has gone from the worst in the league with only eight goals in 28 games to then having Patrik Laine join it, to move to 20 goals in 17 games.

A total of 65-70 is a strong total for a second line, so pro-rated 50 this season is a great start, and everyone knows that is going to improve with the arrival of Ivan Demidov to replace Newhook. It’s starting to look like Dach could be that second line centre after all.

Add another goal to the total later for the second line as Laine counted on the power play from his office. Parked on the left side, he waited for the Lane Hutson pass and ripped it home. Laine has 10 power play goals this season and Hutson has assisted on eight of them. Hutson has an assist in seven straight games.

On the next shift, the Bell Centre absolutely erupted as the Canadiens counted again. Josh Anderson scored an absolutely beautiful goal as he undressed a defender and took it to the net scoring on a backhand deke. The Canadiens with a 3-0 lead after the first period. They dominated. Woll was strong. It could have been 6-0 Montreal after one.

Just as exciting as the first half of the game was, the rejuvenated play of their number one overall pick is more exciting. Juraj Slafkovsky has suddenly figured out that he can destroy people with his strength.

Slafkovsky is leading with the hip sometimes and leading with the shoulder on other occasions. What he is not doing is putting a long stick into the battle and losing it. He’s playing heavy hockey and winning pucks easily as a result. This is a massive development.

The Leafs are first in the division, so naturally, there was pushback. Toronto did find the formula to leave the city with yet another win. However, there should be no despair. Montreal was Toronto’s equal. However, there was a clear reason Montreal couldn’t hold their big lead. That is the focus of the Wilde Goats below.

Wilde Goats 

The road from bottom-dweller to competing for a playoff spot is not a linear pathway. There are lessons to learn, and bumps along the road. As well as the Canadiens played, this was a definite bump. One of the most difficult things to learn is how to take the game out of the game when you have a healthy lead.

It was exciting to get that lead. The play was wide open. However, once the lead is attained, the good teams know that it’s now time for everything to get boring. It can’t be an exchange of chances like the Toronto first goal when they scored on a two-on-one. In fact, leading by three, there should be no two-on-one or odd man rushes at all.

William Nylander can’t score on a breakaway to start the third period. Nylander should see, at least, two guys in front of him at all times. Nylander saw nothing but space when he should see no space. The team that is giving up breakaways and odd man rushes is the team losing by three. They are the ones who need to take chances to get back into the contest.

The game should have no momentum. Montreal tried to keep adding on with overly bold plays when they didn’t need to do that.

That doesn’t mean stop forechecking. That doesn’t mean stop getting pucks deep. That doesn’t mean stop taking the body, and putting your will on the game. It means keep it safe, keep it calm, and frustrate your opposition.

That’s why this is one that the Canadiens can take to the ‘experience’ bank. They will learn to make sure a game doesn’t stay stretched. The game has to get congested with a big lead. The mantra has to be to destroy the will of your opposition because the clock keeps ticking, and nothing is happening.

Montreal, as a rebuilding team, has no experience in this area at all. They do not have a clue what kind of hockey is played to hold a lead, because they’ve never had one. Montreal could have won this game. They were strong. They don’t need to be that much better next time, but they need to be considerably wiser.

Wilde Cards 

The traditional sentiment when a head coach contemplates his defensive pairings is one offensive player with one defensive player. In that partnership, one player handles more of the physical battles, and the other more of the creative input.

However, Martin St. Louis doesn’t think like most NHL coaches. He started to take the tact that if he could put an all offensive partnership on the ice for an offensive zone face-off, he could create shifts where they didn’t need to play much defence.

The tactic, naturally, continued with a contemplation of a defensive zone face-off when he didn’t want his offensive group to have to handle that assignment, but, instead, have an all defensive posture for that important moment inside his own zone.

This non-traditional concept created the surge that the Canadiens are on. It was 14 games ago that Alexandre Carrier joined the club. The defensive pairings became Carrier with Kaiden Guhle and Lane Hutson with Mike Matheson. On paper, it looked absolutely wrong – two defensive rearguards together and two offensive ones.

It’s worked perfectly.

With offensive zone face-offs, and easier match-ups, Hutson and Matheson are on fire together. Their partnership has seen Hutson absolutely take off with 15 points in 14 games.

The defensive pairing gets the harder match-ups, and own-zone face-offs, but again, it’s worked brilliantly. The arrival of Carrier has stabilized everything. Guhle is now on his left side and he is playing the type of hockey that made him the MVP of the Western Hockey League playoffs when the Edmonton Oil Kings went to the Memorial Cup. Guhle is an absolute force suddenly.

All credit to St. Louis for this innovative manner of dominating the game. The greatest benefit is the arrival of Hutson as not just one of the best rookie defensemen, but one of the best overall defensemen.

Hutson rarely gets beaten in a physical battle, because he doesn’t get in them. When he does, though, it is shocking that he can handle players like Tage Thompson and come away with the puck. He is clever on defence reading plays well, and anticipating forwards actions. To think, in the scouting reports, on draft day in 2021, they said ‘weak skater’ and ‘poor edge work’.

Since the first of December, no defender in the entire league has more assists than Hutson. He also leads all defenders in completed passes to high danger areas. He has 11 points in a seven-game point streak.

Hutson leads all rookies in points with 37. Matvei Michkov is second with 33 points. He’s four up, and he’s a defender. Remarkable. However, perhaps the most powerful number is the second highest scoring rookie defender is Emil Andrae. He has five points.

It simply is not the same team defensively anymore thanks to the arrival of Carrier, the partnerships that St. Louis has created, the natural side for Guhle, the growth of Hutson, and the stability of the third pair of Arber Xhekaj and David Savard.

In their 11 games in October, the Canadiens allowed 50 goals. In the last 11 games, even with the poor night against Toronto, the Canadiens have allowed 27. A stunning reversal, and the number one reason Montreal is the best team in the entire league in the last 14 games.