The Montreal Canadiens are injury-riddled and are 4-4-2 in their last ten games, facing a risk of being dropped to a wild card spot, or even worse. With this quickly coming down on the Canadiens at a rapid pace, head coach Martin St. Louis needs to step up more as a coach.
Canadiens Look Lifeless
The Canadiens, throughout their last three games against the Los Angeles Kings, Dallas Stars, and Boston Bruins, have been outscored 15-3. All of the contests have been on home ice and include a 5-1 loss to the Kings and a 7-0 loss to the Stars.
Related: Stars Shut Out Canadiens as Johnston Nets 100th Career Goal
Sure, Montreal is down Kirby Dach, Kaiden Guhle, Alex Newhook, and Patrick Laine, but there’s no reason they should be this bad. They still have a decent team without them; they should be somewhat competitive and not be getting shut out 7-0 and losing 5-1, especially on home ice.
The fans are starting to get over this already, but the problem is, all of Dach, Guhle, Newhook, and Laine are out for an extended period of time. This is going to be a struggle for most likely the rest of the season. The players can only do so much — it eventually comes down to the coaching staff, including St. Louis, to make some adjustments. The problem is that they haven’t.
St. Louis Needs to Shake Things Up
St. Louis is off to a hot start, finally putting Zach Bolduc on the line with Oliver Kapanen and Ivan Demidov for the game against the Columbus Blue Jackets. Beforehand, Bolduc was on a line with Jake Evans and Josh Anderson, rotting away on the third line. Now, he can really hit his potential on the second line with Kapanen and Demidov. The boys also came out to play on Monday against the Blue Jackets, losing 4-3, finally showing some life. However, unfortunately, that’s about where it ends in positives from this coaching staff.
The power play has struggled the past few contests. The Canadiens had seven power plays in the game against the Bruins on Saturday, including a long 5-on-3, and didn’t score on any of them. Their problem is that they have Cole Caufield on the goal line, everyone out of position, they pass too much, and there’s no presence in front of the net. With an extra man, you can afford to do the opposite of everything listed. St. Louis needs to revamp the whole system and go back to the drawing board. For the game against Columbus, St. Louis took Demidov off the power play, and then threw a subtle shot that seemed to be aimed at him, which is something you don’t want to do.
“When 5 guys are connected and they’re doing their job, it shouldn’t take 7-8 passes. It takes a lot of passes because one or two guys aren’t doing their jobs.”
Secondly, St. Louis’s management of the goaltending situation has been poor. He came out and pretty much said that no matter what Jakub Dobes does, Sam Montembeault will always be the No. 1 goaltender. He killed Dobes’ confidence while refusing to play him when he was hot, and instead went back to Montembeault, who is a liability every time he’s in between the pipes. It showed in the game against the Stars when he allowed five goals, his highest of the season by far. Plus, Dobes is an emotional guy — he wears his heart on his sleeve — he was in tears after the game against the Devils. You have to take that into consideration when talking about him if you’re a coach.
St. Louis was highly touted because he was a motivator and a guy who could fire up a locker room. Well, it’s about time he does that, and continues to do so, because this young team that roared its way to the top of the standings needs it right now.
