BROSSARD, Que.— Saturday’s game against the Buffalo Sabres presented an opportunity to not only see David Reinbacher in action, but also to see what the Montreal Canadiens look like with three perfectly balanced defence pairings all featuring legitimate NHL talent.
We hadn’t seen enough of either since Martin St. Louis stepped behind the bench in February of 2022. Not of Reinbacher, who’s been plagued by injuries since being taken fifth overall by the Canadiens in June of 2023, and certainly not of three lefty-righty combos giving St. Louis all the optionality he looks for in different situations.
And even though St. Louis may have had that balance through a handful of games over his first three seasons as Canadiens coach, it’s not as if he was able to depend on six players that could truly execute every option he’d have wanted to have exercised.
Hey, we’re not knocking righty Gustav Lindstrom, who filled in quite admirably on the third defence pair during the 2023-24 season. But his 14-game espresso with the Canadiens was indicative of who they were then—a young, inexperienced, shallow team learning how to play before it could be taught how to win—versus who they are now.
Now that the Canadiens are considerably deeper on the blue line, and now that they know how to win, they’re focused on the finer details that will enable them to beat the best with regularity and eventually overtake them. And a team in that position only benefits from the optionality that lefty-righty balance on the back end gives you.
“I feel it helps,” said St. Louis before he played Reinbacher to the right of lefty Arber Xhekaj beneath lefty Lane Hutson and righty Noah Dobson and lefty Kaiden Guhle and righty Alexandre Carrier.
“I know there’s guys who can play on their off-sides,” St. Louis continued. “But just to give you an example, just off face-offs in our own zone, if you have two lefties, you’re going to be handcuffed in what you can do. Strategically, it takes some of the plays out of the equation if you have two lefties. If you’ve got a lefty-righty, we have different things we can do, and we can do them all. When you have two lefties or two righties together, you can’t do them all, so you become a little more predictable for the other team because there’s a few things that you can’t do. So, that’s one element that helps you to have lefty-righty (combos).”
Another is in the offensive zone, where you can choose between shifting each defenceman to their off-side to position them for one-timers off face-offs or leave them on their strong sides to keep them on their respective forehands moving down the wall.
Keeping them on their forehands in all three zones, but particularly in the defensive zone, is optimal, which is undoubtedly why St. Louis said he thinks every team would opt to have three lefty-righty combos if they could.
“I’m pretty sure they’d take that,” he said, knowing it’s a luxury in short supply.
Exactly half the teams in the league are currently icing a lineup that features three lefty-righty combos, though that number would shrink to 15 if Simon Edvinsson had a contract in Detroit.
And it could go down to 14 as soon as Mike Matheson returns from the lower-body injury he’s currently nursing if Reinbacher can’t supplant either Xhekaj or Adam Engstrom on the Canadiens’ third pair.
There’s no telling if the young Austrian will be able to, but his third NHL game was still one to build on, even if he was at the root of an early goal against and used sparingly due to the Canadiens being shorthanded four times through the first 60 minutes.
“I thought he did great,” said St. Louis of Reinbacher’s 9:09 spread over 13 shifts. “You know, the first goal, sometimes things like that—especially early on—can affect the rest of the game, (but) I didn’t feel it did. I thought he just really tried to have good intentions; play the game that’s in front of him. Overall, I was pleased, especially after being on the ice for the first goal.”
St. Louis had reason to be pleased, because Reinbacher was on the ice for a lot more good than bad, with the Canadiens controlling shot attempts 14-4 and 53 per cent of the expected goals over that time.
But because that time was so limited, we didn’t get enough of a glimpse of what the Canadiens would look like with the optimal lefty-righty balance they could deploy in a given game. And we still might not have full perspective on it until Matheson is back in a game where Reinbacher is also deployed.
But in Matheson continued absence, it’s worth extending Reinbacher’s runway. First, to reinforce his confidence, see what he can do, and give him valuable repetitions at this level. And second, to see what that balance does for the Canadiens.
Penalty kill has come to life
After allowing five goals on the first 21 power plays given to their opposition, the Canadiens have only allowed one goal on their last 17 penalty kills.
It’s a stretch that’s allowed the Canadiens to climb from 24th in the category to 12th—an unlikely jump considering Matheson wasn’t available to play the last three games.
He not only led the Canadiens in time on ice on the penalty kill last season; he led the league in the category.
Kaiden Guhle’s return to play is a big factor in the turnaround, with the 24-year-old currently averaging 3:43 per game on the penalty kill. Arber Xhekaj, who’s averaging 2:08 per game in his new penalty killing role, is also fairing quite well.
But what it really comes down to, according to penalty killing forward Alex Newhook, is the unit finding the cohesion they were missing in employing a new, more aggressive structure assistant coach Derek Lalonde put in place.
“We’re coming together, and we’re like one bounce away from being very, very good,” said Newhook before the Canadiens killed all four Sabres power plays on Saturday. “We’re realizing when to apply pressure, making teams uncomfortable in some instances. Trusting it is probably the biggest thing for us, even though we had a tough start and a lot of goals against. We just kept trusting it, and now it’s starting to click.”
St. Louis could see it, too.
He just wants it to be maintained now.
“When we’re applying our rules, we can kill penalties,” he said. “I feel like when they’re trying to find their best options, I feel like they don’t get it easily, so I’m encouraged by that. I feel like when we’re on, we’re not giving Grade-A looks. It’s a work in progress. It’s a cat-and-mouse game; the more you’re going to go through the season, they watch video, they’re going to try to break you every which way, and we’ve just got to stay composed and detailed and inside our rules.”
Mr. Saturday Night living up to his name
Cole Caufield came into this season with 34 goals on Saturday nights since the start of 2024-25, and through three Saturday nights has continued to be as productive as ever.
Caufield now has four goals, including the overtime winner he scored against the Sabres this past Saturday night.
It was the 66th goal in the 106th Saturday night game of Caufield’s career, placing him sixth—behind Mike Bossy, Wayne Gretzky, Cam Neely, Brett Hull and Pavel Bure—in goals per game on Saturdays.
It’s an absolutely inexplicable phenomenon, even if Caufield tried to offer a reason for his Saturday night success.
“I think less traffic,” the 25-year-old said. “That might be it.”
Considering he lives less than five minutes away from the Bell Centre, that can’t be it.
Also, it doesn’t seem to matter whether the Canadiens are on the road or at home, even if Caufield said, “Saturdays are great here. I think the crowd, the building, the city, you can just feel it, so very special.”
There’s no rhyme or reason to it; Saturday is just Caufield’s night.
