The third week of Habs action revealed some impatience

October 28, 2024

The Montreal Canadiens had three games on the docket for the third week of action in the 2024-25 season. On Tuesday night, they were hammered at home by the Rangers in a 7-2 loss. They recovered on Saturday with a 5-2 win over the Blues. Then on Sunday they were in Philadelphia for the second game of a back-to-back and the result was a 4-3 regulation win.

The patience of fans, pundits, players and management was tested early this season.

The schedule maker successfully pranked Habs fans early in the season.

We learned something this week. Some Habs fans and media cannot handle long gaps between games. With little actual hockey to talk about, folks lost their shit about Coach Martin St. Louis holding Arber Xhekaj accountable for his level of play. Marty reminded us that Xhekaj is not a rookie any more, and he needs to raise his standard to where he is concerned about making mistakes.

Fans lost their minds. Why didn’t St. Louis call out Dvorak or Armia? Really? Both are leaving very shortly. He’s been trying to drag more out of them since he got here and now he’s trying to keep them useful until the deadline. But Xhekaj has potential to be in Montreal for the long haul, and the coach knows what he can become, and it’s the coach’s job to make him better.

The famous “sheriff” narrative is a distraction for Xhekaj. I hated the “if I was in the line up Trouba would have paid” bit. What about the seven pucks in the net? Would you have prevented some of those? Fans might crave an enforcer, but the Montreal Canadiens are trying to develop something closer to Pronger than Rempe or Reaves.

Xhekaj was back in the line up on Saturday and played an excellent game, and his coach wasn’t reluctant to call it. Perhaps Marty knows more about helping Xhekaj reach his potential than fans and pundits.

St. Louis may not be the unicorn we’d all like him to be, but it’s a tad early to criticize him too harshly.

Marty is a new age coach. His players love him. On the Yoda-Berube scale of coach interviews, he sounds more like Yoda. His mind is constantly thinking offence, and he wants to coach where the game is going rather than where it has been.

But he’s still an NHL coach.

Veterans are still going to have to lose their spots rather than be forced to win them. Rookies are going to have to earn their ice time, and Coach Yoda is very reluctant to overwhelm them with too much too soon. Martin St. Louis is no different than any other NHL coach. He still has a locker room to manage.

Marty didn’t deserve the criticism he got this week. Some said his defensive system was too complicated, while others said there was no system at all. Some accused the coach of running a country club who couldn’t hold his players accountable, while others had a cow when he did.

For the love of all things sacred, look at the roster. Every night he’s playing four kids, one veteran who is playing hurt, and another veteran who is probably being asked to step up more when his body feels like stepping up less.

The Montreal Canadiens can never look any better on D until they have gone through a period of looking like this. The kids can only grow through reps, and this is what it looks like. Lots of missed assignments, confused looks, and pucks at the back of your own net.

You said you wanted a rebuild. You said you wanted to turn the team over to the kids. This is what that looks like.

The veteran line is finally exploiting the competition.

The line of Jake Evans between Josh Anderson and Brendan Gallagher has been strong to start the season, but it wasn’t showing much on the scoresheet. With goals from Evans in consecutive games and an addition from Gally, the line is paying off.

Of course, with the salary attached to that line, you’d like them to be bringing more. But the reality is that two-thirds of the line cannot be traded, so we’re in the managing expectations stage.

Evans has always played his role well, and Gallagher and Anderson have worked hard to play different roles. As much as fans might gripe, that trio is not hurting the Habs.

Nick Suzuki’s slow start appears to be over.

It didn’t take too many games for the “Suzuki is not a 1C” crew to complain about his slow start and resurface their chant about the Habs needing to find a first line centreman.

There is no argument from me that Suzuki didn’t look quite like himself in the early games, even if he was still producing at nearly a point per game. But with three games in the books and Suzuki finding his stroke, the captain has 11 points in 9 games. And once again, he’s doing it without a legitimate second line behind him.

So here we are, after three weeks of action and a lot of criticism from fans and pundits, and the Habs are at .500 and tied with five other teams for third place in the Atlantic.

You could say they’re “in the mix”.