Habs Notes from the Conference Finals

June 1, 2023

On Monday night, the Dallas Stars were eliminated by the Vegas Golden Knights and the third round of the 2022-23 Stanley Cup Playoffs drew to a close. Only the Stanley Cup Final remains, and it’s time to consider the lessons that were learned in the Conference Finals.

With the off-season ready to ramp up, Montreal Canadiens GM Kent Hughes will be attentive to developments on the ice, and what can be learned. If I were Hughes, here are three things that would be in my notebook from the third round.

A Canadian Stanley Cup hopeful must win at cap management first.

The four teams that competed in the Conference Finals – Carolina, Florida, Dallas and Vegas – are located in states that have the lowest tax rates in the NHL. The Montreal Canadiens, along with other teams north of the border, have the highest tax rates. Simply put, players who choose to play for a team in a low tax market have a higher percentage of their salaries land in their bank accounts. The salary cap, being equal for all teams, is most certainly inequitable.

Hughes cannot hold his breath waiting for Gary Bettman to care. Hughes must employ strategies right now that will contribute to good cap management for the future.

The obvious tactic is to maximize the draft. Drafting, developing and retaining young players under team control is essential for a cap-conscious team. But it’s not quite that simple. The highest skilled players are the most expensive, so obtaining them via the draft and maximizing cost control is mission critical. One implication is that Hughes would be wise to leave the draft with fewer than eleven new prospects because he chose quality over quantity.

Another strategy Hughes must consider is replicating the Kirby Dach deal. Last year, Hughes traded a middling asset in Alexander Romanov along with picks to land Dach, a player with high potential who became available. With a new team, Dach was prepared to sign a “show me” deal, and that means cost control. Hughes has said he will look for a similar opportunity this summer – Alex Newhook and Kappo Kakko are names that surface in this group. What might it cost to land Evan Bouchard out of cap-strapped Edmonton?

The final tactic is to target, through trade and free agency, players who want to play in Montreal and won’t be put off by tax realities. The obvious name is Pierre-Luc Dubois, but local guys are not the only players who grew up fantasizing about wearing a Habs jersey. Where this factor can be exploited, Hughes must be alive to it.

Sometimes big risks are required for big rewards.

Last summer when the Florida Panthers coughed up an enormous package for Matthew Tkachuk, my immediate reaction was that GM Brad Treliving had done alright in a difficult situation. I still think he did. Did any of us imagine it would be such a win for Florida?

Is there any NHL team that doesn’t covet a player like Tkachuk?

GM Bill Zito did his end of season post-mortem and found his team lacking in grit and competitiveness, and was willing to pay the price when Tkachuk became available. Zito paid a steep price to get the player he wanted, and is being rewarded for his risk.

In November 2021, I suspected the Vegas Golden Knights had made a big error when they paid what they did to acquire Jack Eichel. Frankly, they probably didn’t win that trade. But just one season later, Eichel is leading the team in playoff scoring at more than a point per game.

If Eichel hoists the Cup this Spring, will anyone in Vegas care what was paid to get him?

The lesson for Kent Hughes here is this. As he gets closer to landing his core, and filling all the important roles, he may reach a point where there is an important missing piece. He may reach a point where he has to lose a trade to win the Cup.

A legitimate Stanley Cup contender learns how to load manage, especially in net.

Load management has long been practiced by NBA teams. It can be argued that the Toronto Raptors have an NBA Championship because of their masterful load management work with Kawhi Leonard. A rested Kawhi led the Raptors on a parade to Nathan Phillips Square.

The NHL has not quite embraced the merits of load management. Some teams with confirmed playoff positioning have allowed veterans to rest, or applied a lower injury threshold late in the regular season. But neither of these comes close to what happens in the NBA.

Perhaps the best example of load management in the NHL is in the teams that employ a goalie tandem. I don’t mean the teams that carry a collection of goalies, none of which are a true starter, and roll the dice. I’m referring to teams with a true starter that utilize a solid backup for a significant number of games in the season so that the starter is well rested come playoff time.

We kept waiting for Jake Oettinger to find his form, but instead he looked spent by the time the Stars were eliminated – he played 62 games this past season. Connor Hellebuyck was disappointing in the one round the Winnipeg Jets managed – he played 64 games in the regular season. For folks trying to solve the Andrei Vasilevskiy mystery, look at his workload in recent seasons. The Lightning are riding him like a rented mule, much like the Habs did with Carey Price.

In the meanwhile, the scouting report is out on Sergei Bobrovsky – he plays best when rested. He had a 50 game load during the regular season, got some rest in the first round, and has been an absolute wall since.

Fans and pundits are clamouring for the Habs to strengthen the goalie position. Sam Montembeault may make that point moot, but in the meanwhile I do expect Hughes et. al. to add in this area, whether by draft, trade, or free agency. Whatever path they choose, here’s hoping they don’t add a netminder with a plan of playing him 60+ games every year and expecting him to be ready for playoffs.

If they aren’t already tuned into the folly of that approach from their experience with Carey Price, these playoffs are a good reminder.