Two losses. That’s the point at which an NHL team must recover to stop the bleeding. Teams with a lot of three-game losing skids often don’t make the playoffs.
Montreal was much better against the Winnipeg Jets Wednesday night. It went to a shootout with the Canadiens coming through to win 3-2.
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The Canadiens showed so much more than they did against the Senators on Tuesday. They finished their checks. They used the body a lot more. They found their man defensively with more success. The lines that the head coach switched to had more cohesion.
Juraj Slafkovsky was moved back to the first line because that line was not winning its shifts without him. Zach Bolduc was relegated all the way to the fourth line after not seizing his opportunity at all. Alex Texier got a spot on the second line with Ivan Demidov and Oliver Kapanen.
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Demidov had a strong first period. He is playing better defensive hockey. He’s learning quickly to get on the proper side of the puck to make sure he is in a better position. He is among the best in the entire league in points-per-60, but he has not won the heart of coach Martin St. Louis to get more ice time. That starts with better defence.
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Demidov looks on the verge of delivering that. Intelligent hockey players pick up everything in the end. It’s in their makeup. He won’t be a liability in that manner. He has the will to be a complete hockey player, and it’s clear that it is coming.
The Canadiens had the better high-danger scoring chances in the first period, but they couldn’t convert. It isn’t often that Cole Caufield has a goalie beaten, yet he puts it off his pad with the entire top shelf available. Jake Evans also had an open net off a Josh Anderson rebound. He, too, put it off Eric Comrie’s pad. That’s 2-0 Montreal nine times out of 10.
The second period finally saw the first power play unit lineup as it always should. Demidov was back on the first unit, and he was instrumental in the offensive-zone win that propelled the possession that led to an easy goal. Hutson took the Demidov wraparound on the left side. He fed Suzuki, who found Caufield, who gave Slafkovsky a one-timer. It was poetry. The power play should not be galaxy-brained. They are the best five players, so put them out there together.
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Demidov is on the verge of breaking out. The confidence is pouring out of him. It’s strong play after strong play. What he is quickly adding in his rookie season is concepts on how to win pucks, angling out defenders. This was exactly the case on the 2-2 goal.
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It was a race into the corner. Demidov won the puck, but more than that, he rotated through the movement and blocked out the Jets defender. He did all this while having an eye to the front of the net, where he found Oliver Kapanen with a perfect pass.
On his next shift, Demidov did it again with a seeing-eye pass to Kapanen through six bodies, but this time Kapanen couldn’t convert. Texier was effective on the line with them. Texier needs to play with talented players. He’s an ineffective fourth liner. He’s a skills player. He may just be able to find a spot on the second line. He certainly earned a longer look.
A shoutout to a .935 save percentage from Jakub Dobes. Positive feelings don’t seem real without goaltending. It might be time to just run with him as the number one. Dobes stopped all three shots he faced in the shootout.
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Mike Matheson’s sticks.
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The development of a prospect is fascinating. There are no absolutes, but there are trends. If a player is against any trend before draft day, he may be too highly ranked. It’s a difficult task to choose on draft day, but if a team takes a player who is not still growing his game, it’s a giant red flag.
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Shane Wright was consensus number one for 18 months leading up to his draft day. However, something happened in his draft year. His numbers weren’t getting better. They were dropping off. He lost his status at number one, and he hasn’t shown that anyone made a mistake relegating him to Seattle fourth overall.
Angelo Esposito was also consensus number one early in his draft year. He completely fell out of favour because his game wasn’t improving. The scouts were right.
James Hagens was unstoppable at the World Junior Championships, leading into his final season to prove his draft stock. He was the number one pick, but he didn’t improve. He eventually dropped to seventh. This year, at Boston College, Hagens looks exactly like he did last year. He hasn’t taken a step forward.
It’s too early to suggest that Gavin McKenna is in that category, but the consensus number one is falling back at Penn State. His numbers, while good, are not off the charts. Whispers are starting that he won’t be the number one pick in June after all. That thought would have been met with wild laughter only two months ago.
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What is a better scenario leading up to draft day is a player exploding in their final weeks, discovering new heights. There’s no idea what the ceiling actually is with a player in that profile. Their improvement could be just getting started. Unlike the stagnant pick, if it’s close between the two choices in the present, the future favours the prospect that’s levelling up.
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Beckett Sennecke wasn’t even on the board in February of his draft year. By draft day, he had leapt to third overall. Now, he’s fighting for the rookie points lead in Anaheim. Sennecke was levelling up, and he’s still levelling up.
Jake Sanderson was in the mid-teens as a prospect, but he absolutely dominated at North Dakota in his final half-year there. By the time it was draft day, Sanderson was a steal to Ottawa at five.
The Canadiens under Nick Bobrov as head scout seem acutely aware of these patterns. They passed on Wright for the fast-rising Juraj Slafkovsky. They targeted the vastly improving Michael Hage, trading up to get him.
They traded up to get a kid blossoming in Russia, Alexander Zharovsky, who is possibly going to break Ivan Demidov’s KHL scoring record this season.
They saw the spectacular play of Lane Hutson absolutely dominating the World Juniors and didn’t let his lack of size deter them with their second-rounder.
The final massive pick in question is David Reinbacher. He fits the blueprint. He was growing his game substantially in the weeks leading up to his draft. They liked his development more than Matvei Michkov, with whom they saw red flags.
Since then, it’s been difficult for Reinbacher to grow his game because he hardly gets to play due to injuries. Now that he is finally looking healthy, he’s definitely levelled up, while Michkov seems to be waving those red flags that Bobrov saw.
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Bobrov’s big picks have the pattern that the player approaching draft day must be raising his ceiling. Bobrov wants to see that they can keep levelling up. Look at Slafkovsky, Zharovsky, Demidov, Hage, Hutson and even Reinbacher. They’re all continuing to expand their games, while the players that they avoided, feeling they were stagnating, have, in fact, done exactly that.
Drafting is a risky business, but the best at it understand that you must choose a young player still expanding his portfolio.
Bobrov’s work is one of the big reasons this Canadiens rebuild is one of the most successful in the NHL this century.
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Brian Wilde, a Montreal-based sports writer, brings you Call of the Wilde on globalnews.ca after each Canadiens game.
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