BROSSARD, Que. — I’d say the knives were out for Kirby Dach on Monday if they hadn’t already plunged straight into him.
Not to suggest Dach was outstanding, or even as good as he needs to be to ward off Florian Xhekaj from stealing his spot. But all the vitriolic tweets aimed in his direction for a pre-season performance against the Ottawa Senators that was anything but bad reeked of confirmation bias.
Without going through the boards on every shift and scoring multiple points every game, it doesn’t feel like Dach will be able to reverse it.
Never mind what’s expected of him from the Canadiens, which coach Martin St. Louis said Wednesday was to just “continue to work on his game and get ready for the season.” It also doesn’t matter that Dach rebounded from a tough start to last year’s playoffs to offer valuable contributions to the Canadiens’ run through the first two rounds.
Balanced against his injury-plagued tenure with the team and his shortcomings through the first 300-odd games of his NHL career to fulfil the promise he once held as a third-overall pick of the Chicago Blackhawks, the deficit feels too big to overcome to win over fans and pundits here.
If they were to have offered an objective evaluation of Dach’s game against the Senators, they would’ve at least noted how his attention to detail freed linemate Alexandre Texier up to have the puck on his stick on each of their shifts. They would’ve remarked about how he disrupted things defensively, about how he was sound positionally at both ends, and about how he was generally a lot cleaner with the puck than other linemate Zachary Bolduc, whose play with the puck was about as impressive as Vladimir Guerrero Jr's slugging percentage with the Blue Jays this season.
There actually wasn’t any noise around Bolduc at all, despite him struggling mightily in front of his hometown fans in Trois-Rivieres, Que.
But Bolduc is only 23 and just entering his third full NHL season. That he’s still in possession of some top-six upside — and signed to a four-year, $16.8-million deal to hit it — buys him benefit of the doubt in the court of public opinion. The type that no longer exists for Dach, who’s still only 25 but seemingly on his ninth life with the Canadiens.
That’s how it goes for a player who has averaged only 14 goals and 36 points per 82 games over seven seasons in this league. Especially a six-foot-four, 215-pound one in possession of a well-rounded skillset.
Lower-body injuries — two tears of the same ACL, to the MCL of the same knee, a fracture to his foot — and other unspecified upper-body ailments have gotten in the way over Dach’s four years in Montreal. They’ve set him back.
“He missed some time. Had he not missed that time, he’d be further ahead,” said St. Louis on Thursday. “But it’s to control what you can control. Injuries did happen. Did they slow him down a bit? Would he be further along? Maybe. But it’s (important) to look ahead. That’s what we’re doing, and that’s what he’s doing.”
There’s no denying Dach is looking ahead at a last-chance opportunity to prove he’s even worth the $3.6-million deal he was given this past July, and that his hold on a position with the Canadiens is tenuous at best.
So, wanting or expecting more from him — urgency, production, everything — in a shortened camp that puts every shift under heavier scrutiny is only natural.
But is it too much to ask for some balance in the evaluation?
Because even if Dach hasn’t blown the doors off in two pre-season showings, it’s inaccurate to suggest (as so many did Monday) that he’s just breezing through them carelessly.
Not that Dach is paying attention to any of that.
“I feel good,” Dach said after filling in on the second line for a scrimmage Ivan Demidov wasn’t available to participate in. “I feel I’ve played well. In the games I’ve tried to make sure I’m doing the little things right, the details correctly of what the coaching staff has asked of us. Continue to take a step forward every day.”
Surely, he knows he’s going to have to take them harder and faster each day between now and when camp breaks Monday if he wants to be in the opening-night lineup in Toronto on Tuesday.
But so will Bolduc — and even Texier — with Xhekaj pushing with full weight and at full speed.
That shouldn’t be forgotten by all those taking aim at Dach right now.
