The missing element
March 15th, 2008 by wrightA recent four game west coast road swing, followed by back to back home games against New Jersey and Ottawa provided a real insight as to how far the Canadiens have developed in terms of becoming a legitimate Stanley Cup contender. The evidence points to a team still in transition, not fully functional in terms of being able to compete on equal footing with the leagues power house teams, as yet.
The Canadiens lost to the Ducks, San Jose and Ottawa, while defeating a persistent nemesis in New Jersey. The commonality in the teams defeats was an inability to break through tight checking, persistent physical punishment in high traffic areas. The Senators, Sharks and the Ducks were able to impose their brand of suffocating defensive positioning combined with an intimidating brand of physical play that at times completely disorientated and stifled the free flowing uptempo offensive game the Habs have utilized to succeed this season. Additionally, the Habs most potent weapon, the powerplay, was completely negated in those three losses. The Habs were 0 for 15 on the powerplay in those three games. In each of those losses, the opposition used an aggressive puck pursuit style of play. The opposition aggressively forechecked Alex Kovalev (the key element to the teams powerplay) giving him little time to set up for a one timing shot, and gave him little room to manouever in terms of distributing the puck to a teammate. Without an effective powerplay, the Habs were unable to adapt and find another element to counter the oppositions tactics.
The defeats illustrated a missing element to the Habs foundation, a lack of a physical component. Statistically, the Habs have some of the league leaders in body checks on defense in Komisarek,Hamrlik and Bouillion, however that physical toughness is lacking amongst the teams forward units. What seperates Anaheim,San Jose and Ottawa from Montreal is that those three teams feature a plethora of third and fourth lineers that do the heavey lifting in terms of imposing a physical dimension on the opposition. Playing a very disciplined game, those teams third and fourth lines would play a north/south style of dump and chase. Get the puck in deep into the Canadiens zone, force the Habs defense to retrieve the puck and then impose a tough physical hit on the player. This tactic was done consistently for the duration of the game. It was effective in disrupting the Habs finesse game. The Habs role players did not adequately respond in kind. The Habs rarely crowded the opposition goal, did not aggressively physically finish off their body checks. In all three losses, the Habs were, on balance, manhandled by the leagues elite teams. In all three instances, the oppositions top tier players were given a free ride, and had time and space to use their offensive creativity to create quality scoring opportunities. The Habs elite players were not given that luxury, in part because, the Habs “energy” lines came up woefully short in the physical dimension of the game.
The Canadiens short coming in terms of an effective response to the oppositions physically tight checking game is due in part to inexeperience, and inadequate personnel to counter the efficent strategy of negating the teams superior offense. The Habs are one of the youngest teams in the league, with very little big game experience. Only the continued exposure to dealing with playoff style hockey will enable them to adapt and learn how to adequately deal with suffocating defenses utilizing tough checking techniques. Secondly, Gainey needs to tweak his personnel to bring in a slightly more gritty style of play amongst the teams third and fourth lines. Players, such as Begin and Kostopolous offer a rugged approach to the game, but have shown an inconsistency in terms of playing a physical dominating style game in game out. Other third and fourth line players like Streit, Ryder,Smolinski play a style that is incongruous to a physical game. The Habs do have some players, such as Lapierre, Latendresse that are capable of playing a rougher style, but they need a veteran presence to provide leadership in that department. Kovalev, has been a effective mentor for the Kostitsyn brothers in terms of teaching the finer points of offense. The Habs need that sort of leadership amongst the forwards for the physical side of the game.
The Habs are moving closer and closer to becoming an elite team, and it is possible that they could go deep into the playoffs this season, based on dominant goaltending and a potent offense, but they are still missing an element to ensure playoff success. Experience, and the addition of some more grit on the bottom half of the roster will help facilitate the Habs into a more multi dimensional team that will make it difficult for the opposition to contain.
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