Roughly 20 minutes before the Montreal Canadiens took their final strides in a loss to the Edmonton Oilers, the Buffalo Sabres overtook them in the standings with a 2-1 win over the Tampa Bay Lightning.
You could feel it coming. Not just because the Sabres have been nipping at the Canadiens’ heels for a couple of weeks now, but because the Canadiens have been giving up the type of chances even the best teams can’t survive.
Result: Six losses in their past 10 games.
On Tuesday, it was a 6-2 loss for Montreal to Connor McDavid and the slumping Oilers. And the team allowed enough Grade As in those final 20 minutes to lose 12-2.
While Canadiens coach Claude Julien searches for answers to his team’s defensive woes, let’s get to some takeaways.
Goaltending an unexpected problem for Canadiens
There have been many surprises about the Canadiens since the season began 18 games ago, but none more shocking than the fact that goaltending has been their biggest weakness.
It’s why Carey Price, who’s in Year 1 of an eight-year, $84-million contract didn’t start against Edmonton on Tuesday.
Price, who last appeared (terribly) in a 6-5 overtime loss to the Sabres on Nov. 8, has an .892 save percentage and 3.07 goals-against average.
“It’s all upstairs,” he said following the loss to Buffalo. “I’ve got to figure it out.”
If the idea was for Antti Niemi — who came into Tuesday’s game with a 12-3-3 record against the Oilers — to buy Price some time to do that, it backfired.
In fairness, Niemi made some incredible saves in this one. Some of the best ones we’ve seen in the NHL this season.
But almost all of them came after allowing backbreaking goals to Drake Caggiula, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and Kris Russell.
Matt Benning’s first-period marker bounced off the backboards and hit Niemi in the back of the leg before crossing the goal-line.
Woof. Not good enough. Not even close.
As a result of his performance in Edmonton, Niemi now ranks behind Price in goals-against average (3.74) and save percentage (.887).
We know who will be in Montreal’s net for a game against the Calgary Flames on Thursday.
“Carey’s a good goaltender,” said Julien earlier in the day. “So as much as it’s going to be talked about, there’s no issues there and we’re looking forward to having him back in the net, too. Sometimes it’s like anything else — especially for a goalie. We’ve seen it with different goaltenders in the past. They just take a step back and then you get back in between the pipes and you regain your confidence and your form and everything else. It’s a tiny reset in his case and then we’ll see the Carey Price that we all know very soon.”
If we don’t, Montreal’s good start to the season is going to be undone.
Good at evens, terrible on the PP
If Montreal’s goaltending has been the biggest shocker of its season thus far, its ability to score at even strength — after trading away 30-goal scorers Max Pacioretty and Alex Galchenyuk in the off-season — isn’t far behind.
The Canadiens, who got goals from Max Domi and Andrew Shaw on Tuesday, lead the NHL in even-strength scoring (44 goals).
Unfortunately for them, they can’t buy a goal on the power play, which appeared as inept as it has all season in the loss to Edmonton.
And it’s not just the failure to score with the man advantage that’s hurting the Canadiens; it’s the fact that their inability to set up plays after cleanly entering the zone is costing them momentum — or an opportunity to gain momentum.
In the first period, a minute and three seconds after Leon Draisaitl made it a 2-1 game in favour of Edmonton, the Canadiens drew a power play.
Then they proceeded to give the puck away four times after breaking the blue line cleanly with possession.
They didn’t have a single shot attempt over those two minutes, and they nearly got scored on.
Three more whiffs with the power play put them at 13 per cent efficiency for the year. Only the Chicago Blackhawks and Nashville Predators have been (marginally) worse.
There’s no stopping Connor McDavid
Especially not after he was kept off the scoresheet in a loss to the Colorado Avalanche for the Oilers prior to Tuesday’s game.
Here’s the thing, though: If the Canadiens had a prayer of containing McDavid — a huge “if” — pairing Mike Reilly with Jeff Petry would have been their best bet.
Reilly and Petry are Montreal’s most mobile and reliable defencemen, with respect to Victor Mete. And David Schlemko, who lined up as Petry’s partner, didn’t have a chance against McDavid after missing 16 of Montreal’s 17 games with a knee injury to start the season.
It showed when Schlemko tried to hit McDavid at the Canadiens blue line and got left in the dust on Draisaitl’s goal. It showed on virtually every other shift the two had against each other in the game.
McDavid added two more assists before time expired.
Paging Shea Weber
You can bet it was a real boost for the Canadiens to have Shea Weber back at practice on Monday for the first time since undergoing off-season knee surgery.
Julien said afterwards that the original timeline that would have him return mid-December hasn’t changed.
Weber didn’t take contact during Monday’s skate and isn’t expected to before the week is up.
But even though the Canadiens are being cautious in what they say about Weber, word is circulating that he’s ahead of schedule in his rehabilitation and could be back before the end of November.
Montreal has seven tough games to play between now and then. The defence has its work cut out for it to show something better, and the power play needs drastic adjustments to be functional (nevermind good).
Weber, at his best, can solve a lot of that.
But even if the big man is back in short order, it’s likely going to take him some time to get up to speed.
Either way, his return shifts other players into their proper places. It can’t come soon enough.
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