Thoughts on the Habs recent slump
February 15th, 2008 by wrightAt the allstar break, the Habs were the trendy dark horse pick amongst many hockey experts to possibly represent the eastern conference in the Stanley Cup final. A poor start in February, featuring three straight losses, and suddenly many pundits, quickly backtracked, stating the Habs were a very average team that was vulnerable to missing the playoffs for the 6th time in the past 9 seasons. The truth probably lies somewhere between the two extremes.
The Habs of the first 50 games was not a mirage. The creative offensive flair, up tempo speed game, highlighted by a fluid transition game and quick puck movement was facilitated by a quality core of emerging young talent, insulated with strong contributions from key veteran players in Kovalev,Markov and Hamrlik. The Habs diversity of attributes: the top rated powerplay in the league, reliable/confident goaltending, a consistent disciplined positional play validated the teams ascendancy into the upper echelon of the league.
The Habs recent struggles have more to do with the capricious nature of a long season: injuries to key personnel, mental and physical exhaustion that comes from playing a multitude of games in a compacted time frame. Roman Hamrlik’s absence due to injury, set off a chain reaction of events that contributed in part to the Habs current slump. Without the self assured presence of Hamrlik on the Habs blueline, the team’s solid defensive play eroded. Hamrlik’s 25 minutes of nightly ice time, which featured, consistent high percentage, low risk defensive play in the Habs zone went missing. It forced Carbonneau to give more icetime to Bouillion,Georges and Brisebois, three defensemen that had to play too many minutes for their capabilities on a game to game basis. Their limitations became exposed,the Habs defensive zone coverage, as well as the teams transition game suffered. As an up and coming team, the Habs are not, as yet, a strong enough team to be able to compensate for the loss of one their key performer for a prolonged period of time. In that regard, the Habs are not much different fro a vast majority of teams in this era of parity in the NHL.
A protracted NHL schedule will create peaks and valley’s for all teams. The Habs are one of the youngest teams in the league, maintaining a level equilibrium for an entire season is not easily learned. The immaturity of the team was illustrated in the 5-3 loss to the Rangers on Super bowl Sunday. The Canadiens raced out to an early 3-0 lead, highlighted by Sergi Kostitsyn’s laser like penalty shot goal. Over confident, the team stopped working, went into a defensive shell, and gave up 5 straight goals. Suddenly, the hallmarks of the team: great puck possession, aggressive forecheck, creative high skill plays built on a strong work ethic disappeared in ensuing games. With low energy, the Habs frailites became exposed: too heavy a dependance on one scoring line, shoddy defensive zone coverage, too many players unwilling to pay a physical price to make a play, and an inability to win faceoffs in either the offensive or defensive zones.
The Habs have the personnel to overcome their recent downturn, and to some extent neutralize the liabilities inherent with the team. Higgins recent goals in back to back games is an encouraging sign in terms of giving the Habs a necessary secondary scoring capabilities. Carey Price’s goaltending performance against Florida illustrated his great technique, great puck handling skills and economical movement that enables him to have great net coverage. In Price and Huet, the Habs have a goaltending tandem that few teams can match. There are still worriesome issues with the team. Koivu’s non descript play, a 20th ranked penalty killing record, poor faceoff winning percentage and a lack of a true efficent checking line have all been issues that have plagued the team all season long. The team is still missing some pieces of the puzzle. Nonetheless, the team has a reserve of young talent and prospects that will continue to develop, and give gm Gainey various trade options to address the clubs shortcomings.
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