After 11 games, the Habs needed to rearrange the deck chairs

November 5, 2023

This past week the Montreal Canadiens were on a three-game road trip. On Monday night, they put the Stanley Cup Champion Vegas Golden Knights through their paces in a 3-2 shootout loss. In Arizona on Thursday night, a less industrious team showed up in a 3-2 regulation loss. They were no better on Saturday night in the Midwest, losing 6-3 to the St. Louis Blues. Here are some thoughts about the Habs after 11 games.

The power play has picked up its effectiveness, even if it is still kind of ugly to look at.

The coach said that they would get around to looking at the power play, and it’s looking like that time has come. Believe it or not, the Habs are firmly middle of the pack, hovering around 20% effectiveness with the man advantage. The sling shot still makes my eyes bleed, but there is no denying that the power play has improved. It was good to see Barron get Xhekaj’s spot on the second wave on Saturday night. Do you think it’s possible that as personnel improve that this coach might be able to raise them up a notch? I think it’s very likely.

It’s unfortunate that it took an injury to change up that top line.

Martin St. Louis is a stubborn fellow, we’re discovering. When Kirby Dach was injured and lines needed some adjustment, it was the perfect opportunity to move Anderson off that top line where he has never really fit, and to try someone else there. It’s unfortunate that it took a second injury to move the next guy out. Rafael Harvey-Pinard is a solid gold find for the Habs, but he’s not top line material.

It might have taken longer than it should have, but clearly Marty saw Dvorak’s return as when he would shuffle the lines. When he did, he made the right call to boost Slafkovsky up to play with Suzuki and Caufield. They looked good in their first game together.

As much as it has irritated me to see those same line combos announced, I confess I don’t miss the line blender coaching of the past, with no one getting a chance to form chemistry before being abandoned. There is something very settling about Marty’s consistency and patience, even if our need for immediate gratification is not satisfied.

The Slafkovsky-Cooley debate is a myth.

This week on Habs Twitter saw a special kind of revisionist history unfold. With the Canadiens in Arizona, a Slafkovsky versus Cooley debate ensued with the relentlessly critical trying to convince us that HuGo made the bad call for Slaf over Cooley because of one impassioned speech from Nick Bobrov. Come now. We’re smarter than that.

I was planning to be at that draft, and in the weeks leading up to it I read reams of material about the prospects. I listened to every radio hit and podcast I could manage, and read every article about what the Habs might do with the first overall pick. There was pretty much a consensus top five that included Wright, Slafkovsky, Cooley and the two defensemen, Nemec and Jiricek.

Early on, it was Wright that everyone assumed the Habs would pick. I actually travelled to several rinks in Ontario to watch the kid. My assessment was that he lacked a sexy factor, but that he would likely become a solid 200 foot centreman for the Habs. I was concerned that he might be too similar to Suzuki in what he brought to the table, and wondered if Hughes’ college hockey knowledge would lead him to the offensively-minded Cooley.

I remember Arpon Basu wrote articles about all three forwards and their fit with the Habs, and I could see the potential of Hughes liking Cooley. Arpon opened his Cooley article with this line. “Logan Cooley is the clear underdog in this three-man race for the top of the NHL draft board.” That sentiment was not controversial. Cooley was in the discussion, but not in the way the other two were.

The closer it got to the draft, the more draft wizards focused on Slafkovsky as the top prospect. I didn’t think the Habs would draft a winger, unless they had another plan at centre. I hoped that plan would be trading for another top pick in that draft so they could pick both Wright and Slaf. I even proposed Romanov as a trade chip.

The folks who had Cooley at number one were a very lonely crew. Don’t trust my report. Google the gurus and their lists. For the list makers, they mostly landed on Slafkovsky or Wright for the top pick. Habs fans and pundits assumed they would take a centreman, so some wondered, as I did, about the college connection. But that’s all it was. Wondering. The debate was between Slaf and Wright.

I could go into more detail, but instead I’ll just drop the article that I wrote in the days leading up to the draft. It was a high level summary of what I was reading and hearing back then, and my predictions for draft night.

Fans may try to tell you they favoured Cooley back then. Yeah, maybe some did. Or maybe I call bullshit. I can tell you that was not the dominant view. Both Cooley and Slaf walked into that arena unmolested, while Wright was mobbed and surrounded by security, lingering for pictures and autographs. No offense to the kid, but fans barely recognized Cooley, and I suspect it was only his size that gave Slafkovsky away.

In the hours before the draft began, it was practically common knowledge in Montreal that they were taking Slafkovsy. My buddy and I talked about the reaction it would cause when they called the pick. Those boos were not about Cooley. They just weren’t.

There is definitely a legitimate question to be asked about whether Cooley will have a better career, or if maybe he would have served the Habs better. We’ll know in a few years. But what I know today – what I knew in July 2022 – was that if the Habs had selected Cooley, it would have been a shocker that defied the guru lists. The choice being discussed broadly was between Wright and Slafkovsky.

I didn’t see one Cooley jersey in the audience. There was no group wearing Cooley t-shirts. The cameras weren’t glued to Cooley’s mom, and there were no alleged stares from Cooley toward the Habs table.

As for that Bobrov video, I doubt Bob McKenzie saw it before he published his list.

Who would have thought Christian Dvorak would be so important to this team?

I will say it again – there is no such thing as too many centremen. Certainly, the Habs would like to be paying less for what Dvorak brings, and it would have been nice to have him to replace Danault without giving up on Kotkaniemi, but here we are. And where we are is needing him to get back into the line-up so that Newhook could be moved back to the wing and to give a struggling line a little shuffle.

Is it possible that Brendan Gallagher has been resuscitated?

I’ve been calling them the resuscitation line – Monahan between Pearson and Gallagher. Three guys with more stitches than we can count, probably. But man, Gallagher is looking more like his old self and is on pace for a 50-point season. That wasn’t an outcome I was banking on for this season, but good for the veteran.

After 11 games, the Habs are a young up-and-down team. We can see the gaps and the signs of life, and that’s what we ought to be looking for in a developmental year.