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Canadiens Postgame

Primeau, First Line Limit Damage In Canadiens Loss To Rangers

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3 weeks ago

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montreal canadiens cayden primeau

The Montreal Canadiens took a trip to New York on Sunday evening to face the high-flying Rangers at Madison Square Garden.

Montreal was outclassed by a rather wide margin, a predictable result given the situation for both teams.

The Habs are rebuilding, the Rangers are the best team in the league, and the Canadiens played the previous night in Montreal against the Toronto Maple Leafs.

New York emerged with a 5-2 win, but things could have been much worse if not for some solid play from the usual suspects.

Let’s dive into those highlights!

Neutral Zone Play

If there’s one thing the Canadiens miss from their once-dominant Brendan Gallagher, Philip Danault, and Tomas Tatar line, it is their ability to generate chances off the rush.

To do that, you need all three players to contribute by offering outlet options to defencemen, controlling the neutral zone with quick and clean passes, and of course, the most necessary element is the controlled entry, which allows the team to generate high-quality scoring chances.

Nick Suzuki is one of the few players on the team who can create a controlled entry at 5v5, but it’s simply not enough to have just one player who excels in transition.

Thankfully, Juraj Slafkovsky has taken it upon himself to help out in that department, a rather encouraging sign given all the other positive elements he has already added to his game this season.

He has the wingspan to become a menace in transition, now he simply needs to work on repetition to perfect the art of the controlled entry.

A Good ‘Bad’ Year

As is tradition, the Habs counted on their top line to maintain some semblance of respectability from an offensive standpoint.

There are two things worth keeping in mind from Cole Caufield’s 24th goal of the year.

The first is that David Savard made the right decision to send a puck down low where Caufield could create chaos.

The second is that Caufield has had some of the worst shooting luck in recent NHL history, and yet he’s still well on his way to scoring 25 goals, with an outside chance to score 30.

It should also be noted his goal on Sunday night wasn’t just his 24th of the season, it was his fourth in as many games. It seems like the young sniper is intent on finishing the 2023-24 campaign on the right foot.

One of the more interesting aspects of his recent scoring spree is that Caufield has pivoted away from his usual shot selection, which involves him beating a goalie with a clean shot taken from a distance.

He’s much more active around the net, and his style change is giving him a variety of scoring options.

Prime Water

While the top line was getting results, the same cannot be said about the rest of the lineup. Fortunately for the Canadiens, Primeau held the fort while the Rangers put together dominant shifts in the offensive zone.

Now that Primeau no longer has to wait a month between starts he can focus on preparing for games and the results have been quite good, especially when compared to his early-season outings.

The Rangers would end up with a well-deserved two-goal lead midway through the period, but it did not erase the solid play from Primeau.

The first goal against was a deflection, the second was a tip on the powerplay, and the third was scored by one of the best players in the league who was given way too much space in the Canadiens’ offensive zone.

Primeau faced a dozen high-danger chances at 5v5, not to mention almost 40 shots on net during all-situations play.  Thanks to him, the scoreline ended up being quite flattering for the road team.

 

The Canadiens made it interesting in the third period when both Mike Matheson and Alex Newhook used their speed and penchant for executing quick plays to cut the Rangers’ lead to one goal.

It wasn’t enough to push the game to overtime, but it was Newhook’s 13th goal of the year in addition to being Matheson’s 57th point of the season. He has a fair chance to hit 60 points this season, which would be the first time a Canadiens blueliner reaches the 60-point mark since P.K. Subban in 2015-16.

Say what you will about Matheson’s defence, but his offensive awareness is a breath of fresh air in this Canadiens lineup. It was also refreshing to see a little offence come from anywhere but the first line.

The Rangers put the game out of reach when Josh Anderson, who has been a disaster in all three zones this season, gave away the puck in the defensive zone.

We don’t have to dwell on this play, as Anderson’s shortcomings have been well-advertised this season. The good news is that things couldn’t possibly get worse, and there’s always tomorrow.

The Montreal Canadiens are back in action on Tuesday. They will host the Philadelphia Flyers at the Bell Centre. The puck drop is scheduled for 7 pm ET.

All Montreal Canadiens statistics are 5v5 unless otherwise noted, via Natural Stat Trick.

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Me2

Still 5 games to go before anybody can do a post-mortem on the 23/24 Habs.

These last 5 games are against teams either on the bubble or out of the playoff race, there’s winnable games here. Good chance to get to 75 pts.

Some people may scoff at the comment that the team is still trying hard and putting in a good effort, but if you recall the end of last season, the players mostly mailed it in, discouraged.

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Dana

Which guys do you think will quit and not play hard the last 5?

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Me2

None.

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morrisk

Disagree on a lot of this…

Last season, the Habs broke their own record for most man-games lost to injury. By the last month of the season they weren’t even going on fumes. Slaf was out, CC was out, Monahan was out, Guhle in and out…who else? This season they actually have had a relatively healthy season – Dach, Newhook and Dvorak only serious injuries to good players. So last season a bad finish should have been expected. This season, they are a smidge better, but still relatively speaking in the exact same spot at #5 in the 1st rd draft.

Only one of the final 5 games is against a non-playoff team – and that non-playoff team has beaten the Habs every time they have played this season (closest game being a 3-goal loss). The other 4 will either make or just miss the playoffs. For the Habs to finish with 75 pts, they must finish 2-2-1. It can happen, but I don’t see that happening…more like 2-3 or 1-3-1.

And please don’t tell me Anderson has not “mailed it in” You think he will score once in these next 5 games? When was the last time he scored…were there cars then, or did we “do things” on horseback???

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Me2

@morrisk,

I don’t think the Habs are much better than they were a year ago. A smidge better is a proper appraisal.

But let’s see how they do these final 5 games against much weaker opposition than they faced in the previous 5 games. Going 2-3 gets them to 74 pts, which is still 6 pts better than they fared a year ago. Whether that matters or not, or is within the margin of error, people will disagree.

The roster is stuck with Anderson, Gallagher, Armia and Dvorak, who combined will eat up about $20 m, or almost 1/4 of the team’s cap space while not producing much at all.

That’s why 2 years from now seems the earliest the team might be competitive.

But if you say that, you get pushback from the diehards who think the team is on the cusp of greatness.

I’ll play it down the middle and wait and see.

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Dana

2 years is my prognosis for being in the playoffs although I think they will be playoff competitive next year for the following reasons:

1. Slafkovsky improvement. For the first half of this year he was still competitively compromised. Second half, he was a good nhl player. Expect continued growth next year and 70 points. And I also think it’s reasonable to expect Caufield to have better stats. So if those two have improved results, is it fair to suggest Nick will also benefit?

2. New blood up front. Roy, Beck, Dach ( combined for about 20 games this year) up front plus any signings or trades and I do expect at least one player. They will replace lesser contributors, the size of the net gain could be as much as 40 goals?

3. New blood on the blue line. Hutson Reinbacher and Mailloux will all likely play games and help improve the blue line, likely only marginally as rookies seldom move the needle. Lot of the young returning guys will now be more comfortable and show improvement.

4 Other improvements. Goaltending, special teams and general growth from experience, which usually helps the road record and results in 1 goal games which we played in and lost the most of in the league. Anderson and gally should also be better.

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Me2

All of those things you list, all reasonable expectations. If you think they’re in the playoffs in 2 years, OK. I’m more skeptical than you.

These things rarely go in a straight line up, it’s better to take the longer view.

The team had slightly improved metrics this season over last, but not to the point where they’ve made any great leaps. They’re put up a better effort over this last month than they did during the same stretch a year ago, and blaming that on injuries, no. That’s too easy an excuse.

Some young talent on the team, lots in the pipeline, but it’ll take time for the coach to put all the pieces together, to see who plays best with whom, move on from the dead weight that’s taking up both time and cap space.

Take their time, get it right rather than put what might be unreasonable expectations that might lead to disappointment if they aren’t met.

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Dana

Reasonable as stated. Look at the devils. They over achieved last year and under performed this year. To your point, it’s rarely linear. I look at the past 3 seasons and we went from 55 to 68 and sit at 70 currently so let’s say 75. Likely take 90-94 to make the post season so it’ll be a big challenge next year but they should be in the hunt right until the end.

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