MONTREAL — The Ottawa Senators visit the Bell Centre Thursday on the heels of nine consecutive losses, over which they’ve been outscored by a margin of 45-19. Their power play is running at 13.6 per cent, their penalty kill at just 70 per cent, and they’ve allowed a league-leading 32 goals at 5-on-5.
This is the mother of all trap games for a Montreal Canadiens team that leads the NHL in points and goals. One that’s rolling efficiently on special teams and has had its engine red-lining since the season started — with every skater but one having accumulated at least a point and all but two forwards having scored at least one goal.
The new guys — Tyler Toffoli (the NHL’s leading goal scorer), Josh Anderson (six goals), Corey Perry (a goal and three points in five games), Joel Edmundson (the NHL’s leader in plus/minus), Alexander Romanov (59. 1 per cent Corsi For) and Jake Allen (.930 save percentage) — are a big part of what makes this team so different from the one that sputtered to 24th in the standings a season ago. They don’t intend on letting their guard down.
“No easy games in this division,” said Anderson after the Canadiens beat the Vancouver Cancuks 5-3 on Tuesday. “I don’t care what their record is, I said this from the very beginning: every night is going to be a battle. We expect them to come out and compete and play hard because they’re well-coached, they’ve got some young players there and people are fighting to be in the lineup right now with those guys. So we know it’s going to be a tough game. We can’t take it lightly, and we’re not.”
So long as the players who were a part of the Canadiens team that lost all four of its games against the bottom-dwelling Detroit Red Wings last season take the same approach, they won’t fall into the trap.
Danault line on call
The line of Phillip Danault, Brendan Gallagher and Tomas Tatar has accumulated 15 points in 10 games — 13 of them at 5-on-5 — and yet they seem to be the one everyone is looking at for more through the early portion of this season.
At a time where seemingly everything is going right for the Canadiens, there’s a nitpicking aspect to it, and that’s in spite of the fact that the line — which is depended on to regularly play against the opposition’s best players — has scored at a reasonable rate and limited that opposition to just 35 per cent of the expected goals at 5-on-5.
“I’d say that because we have all lines playing well, it’s certain that right now people are searching for what’s not working,” Canadiens coach Claude Julien said before Tuesday’s game. “I’d say that in their case, we’re lucky because all our lines appear to be capable of scoring. Listen, Gallagher did it (Monday), and we’re sharing the success. We have less reliance on that line because we have other lines capable of producing. I don’t necessarily see a problem, but I would expect we’ll see that, as we advance a little bit, that line will recapture what it had last season. I know that line can play a bit better, even if they’re not playing bad.”
That’s the proper way of looking at it.
Danault, meanwhile, hasn’t produced at the level he’s capable of, with no goals and just three assists so far. He’s had chances, but they’re not going in, and people are wondering if he’s feeling the pressure of playing for a contract after La Presse reported nearly two weeks ago that he turned down a six-year offer worth $30 million back in September.
Compounding the issue is that Danault had a rough outing on the penalty kill while the team was in Vancouver two weeks ago, and he’s since been used less there than Jake Evans has. It’s a big part of the reason his ice-time is down nearly three minutes from what it was last season.
But the other part comes back to what Julien said. All of his lines are going well.
Also, 21-year-old Nick Suzuki has emerged as a point-per-game player — he actually has 11 points in 10 games — while centring Montreal’s best line this season, and he’s proven to be nearly as effective in his own zone, alleviating Danault from some of the responsibilities he’s solely undertaken over the last two seasons.
But Suzuki’s linemate, Jonathan Drouin, isn’t too concerned about Danault.
“I’m not looking at stats this year, so I haven’t seen his totals, but Phil is playing very well,” he said. “He’s still playing his 200-foot game, he’s on the puck, he’s winning faceoffs and he’s an important player for us. I’m sure he wants to get a goal and start getting on the scoresheet more, but if you put that aside there’s nothing about the way he’s played that’s changed. He’s one of our most reliable centres — winning his faceoffs and always skating — and he’s hard to play against.”
Julien feels the same way.
“I thought his last game was one of his better games,” the coach said after Thursday’s morning skate. “He was more assertive and all that stuff. And I’m not so worried about the production of Phil Danault more than is he getting chances? Is he creating chances offensively? Overall, is he playing his type of game? And he’s a player that we feel is a reliable player at both ends of the ice. He’s able to create some offence, he’s able to defend well, and so I think, if anything, it was more about the assertiveness of his game that he’s been trying to find. And I thought the last game was, again, as I mentioned earlier, his best one so far. So (we’re) just encouraging him to continue to do those things, and the other stuff that everybody’s talking about will fall into place.”
Tatar off PP2
Meanwhile, Tatar, who led the Canadiens with 61 points a season ago and also tied for the team lead in power play points (14), found himself replaced by Anderson on the second unit of the power play at Thursday’s morning skate.
Tatar has only two points on the power play so far, and even if Anderson doesn’t have any, he’s the hot hand.
“It’s all of the above,” said Julien Thursday morning to explain the change. “It’s a long year, things change as you move along. We make some adjustments here or there, and for all the right reasons, and that’s basically what all this is all about right now.”
We’ll see if it works, but it could also be something to monitor regardless because, like Danault, Tatar is also in a contract year and power play time is an opportunity to continue building his market value.
Romanov draws back in for Victor Mete
Julien announced at the beginning of the week, when he scratched Brett Kulak for Victor Mete, that he was starting a rotation at the bottom end of his defence.
Since then, Mete played for Kulak Monday, Kulak played for Romanov Tuesday, and now Romanov is coming back in for Mete against the Senators.
We won’t wait for Saturday’s morning skate to announce Mete’s coming back in for someone.
Canadiens debut reverse retros
Thursday’s game will be the first of six the Canadiens wear their new third jerseys.
They’re more bleu-rouge-blanc than bleu-blanc-rouge, so the reverse part works.
As for the retro element, the jersey was inspired by the colour of the team’s first sweater in 1909 and the actual design from 1974-2007. And the number 76 is etched into the neckline, representing the year the Canadiens had their best season (60-8-12 in 1976-77).
Edmundson’s got a new ride he can’t drive anywhere
The new Canadiens defenceman posted a picture of this Maserati he picked up on Wednesday.
Unfortunately for Edmundson, with Quebec under strict lockdown, there’s nowhere for him to go in it.
“I haven’t really done much,” he said. “The city’s kind of in a lockdown and we’re trying to avoid Covid at all costs. So it’s just a lot of time in the apartment. The other day, me and Josh Anderson, we went out to Mount Royal and kind of checked that out, but that’s pretty much it. Went for a nice little drive in the car yesterday and just got outside.”
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