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In Hainsight: Rebuilding Habs Competing Hard |
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Follow me @KarineHains for all updates about the Montreal Canadiens and women's hockey
With 17 games to go to the season, the Canadiens now have a 26-33-6 record good for 58 points which means that they’ve already got 3 points more than they did in their whole 2021-2022 campaign when they ended the year with 55 points and a 22-49-11 record. For the tanking advocates, this is a disaster, but for those who know that losing year after year does not guarantee that you’ll become a winner (see Edmonton for instance) it is an encouraging result.
Sure, finishing last gives you better odds of drafting generational talent Connor Bedard, but the truth is, as things stand, the best (worst) result the Canadiens can hope for is a 28th place finished. With 58 points, there’s just no way they’ll be able to catch-up (catch-down) to the Jackets, Hawks, Sharks and Ducks. Only the Coyotes, holder of the 28th place seem realistically within reach. If they do finish there, they’ll have 8.5% chance of drafting in first place while right now, in 27th place they’ve got a 7.5% chance of doing so. For a single percentage point, is it worth wishing to see your team lose each and every game? I don’t think it is.
The time for finishing last was last season for Montreal, it wasn’t the best timing considering the crop of prospects was nowhere near as good as this year’s, but it is what it is.
One year on, the Montreal Canadiens have progressed enough to give a run for their money to some of the league’s top teams like Carolina, Vegas and New York. This depleted version of the Canadiens is buying in so well to what head coach Martin St-Louis is selling that they could have beaten the Rangers last night.
Kaiden Guhle, freshly returned from injury, opened the score 35 seconds in and got an assist on Alex Belzile’s goal (his 3rd in as many games) which came late in the first. The young blue liner is playing like a grizzled vet and his performance is rather impressive. As for Belzile, the 31 year-old AHLer is living the dream right now and it doesn’t look like he intends on waking up anytime soon. As for the Habs’ 3rd goal, it came through Josh Anderson who scored his 19th of the season when Chris Tierney fed him after benefiting from a Patrick Kane turnover.
Speaking of Kane, while he did get his first 2 points in the Rangers’ uniform, he didn’t have a great game not only did his turnover allow the Canadiens to score a 3rd goal, but he took a silly penalty in the third which could have allowed the Habs to win the game had their power play been clicking. Thankfully for Showtime though, it wasn’t, and the Rangers escaped from that late 3rd period penalty and from an overtime one to claim the win in the shootout. For the 1st time of the season, captain Suzuki failed to find the back of the net in his attempt. As for Pitlick, his shot was sent wide and Belzile’s effort was saved by Shesterkin.
Like it or not, these Canadiens are too good to play the punching bags and they intend to entertain you for the 17 remaining games, no matter what or who’s up for grabs at the next draft and that’s actually a good thing. The Canadiens’ brass knows what it’s doing and wants to build a winner for years to come, have a little faith, you’ve got nothing to lose and you actually get to watch some exciting hockey in the process, you don’t need to pray that their goalie can steal the game and that’s already a big improvement in itself.
If you want to complain about something though, you can complain about the “update” the Canadiens gave on the health of 3 players after the game last night: Dach will be out indefinitely, Gallagher will be out 3-4 more weeks and Xhekaj had shoulder surgery on March 1st and should be ready for training camp. In other words, they’ve simply told us what we already knew.
Montreal Canadiens Blogger • 
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