There is no such thing as a club that keeps its four scoring lines and three defensive pairings intact for 82 games and then the playoffs. Injuries, trades, scoring funks, healthy scratches, you name it, a lot can encourage or force a head coach’s hand. That said, Martin St. Louis’ formations for the Montreal Canadiens lately have people talking. What has worked? What hasn’t? Let’s discuss.
St. Louis’ Top Trio Shuffling
At the season’s outset, some of Montreal’s line combinations felt obvious. The Hockey Writers’ own Trege Wilson justifiably envisioned a top trio of Juraj Slafkovsky, Nick Suzuki, and Cole Caufield. Frankly, a lot of people who track the team, from fans to analysts, thought so too. Had this author produced that piece, he’d have arrived at the same conclusion.
And yet, things are not gone according to plan. Not that plan, at least.
Here, we’ll be heavily referencing the excellent data resource that is Natural Stat Trick. It won’t win awards for graphics, but by golly, it is useful and in-depth.
Related: Canadiens Can Learn from Senators’ Errors in Their Rebuild
The Canadiens have played 22 matches thus far, including the 4-3 overtime win against the Columbus Blue Jackets on Wednesday (Nov. 27). Acknowledging that the team is experiencing significant growing pains this season and St. Louis surely wanted to shake things up a few times, one would presume the aforementioned star trio has skated together 18 times out of 22. Or 16 times? 15?
No. Eight games.
After verifying every starting lineup shared by the club’s official social media account since Halloween night and through Nov. 27, the Slafkovsky-Suzuki-Caufield connection has not started a single contest.
Now, a top line will get a lot of minutes. As such, the fact that they’ve at least played in eight games together means the trio is fourth on the team in total five-on-five ice time with 73:37. In first place is the surprisingly consistent Brendan Gallagher-Jake Evans-Josh Anderson line. The latter have joined forces for 10 matches and 83:55. In second place isn’t even another version of a top line, but rather another Gallagher combination, that being Gallagher-Christian Dvorak-Josh Anderson, with 79:19 to their credit.
In essence, the makeup of Montreal’s top line, its most important one, has been far from consistent.
Dach, Slafkovsky, Newhook Go Up and Down
Why is the head coach doing this? It’s an easy question, but the answer is nuanced and some of which only St. Louis may know. A coach isn’t obligated to reveal all their secrets to the media.
Was the predicted top line not paying dividends? Yes and no. Sticking with five-on-five otherwise we’ll be here forever, the Slafkovsky-Suzuki-Caufield combination has a Corsi For Percentage of 39.16%. In a nutshell, that’s rather brutal. Even Corsi percentages in the mid-to-highs 40s indicate that, mathematically, the other team is generating more offence than you are. Their Fenwick Percentage (it’s like Corsi% but excludes blocked shots) was 39.34%.
Of course, the band had to be broken up. Well, funnily enough, the Goals For Percentage (GF%) was 70%. Simple math when one sees the line scored seven times and conceded three goals.
But St. Louis is the person in charge and he must have had a bitter taste in his mouth with those other figures. A High Danger Chances For percentage – HDCF% – of 33% is also ugly.
On Nov. 26, we published a piece about Kirby Dach’s journey through the NHL – which has seen its set of challenges – and the need for him to reward the club for its patience by getting out of his productivity slump. Lo and behold, when he lines up alongside Suzuki and Caufield (eight games, 74:55 minutes), the Corsi% is 48.99%, the Fenwick is 48.62%, and the expected goals for (xG) is 3.31, second-best among Montreal’s forward lines.
For all the worry about how Dach is doing, there are numbers suggesting he’s not really performing that poorly. Key moments in contests are hurting his game and the club, but overall the numbers are decent.
A Slafkovsky-Suzuki-Dach line (six games, 51:37) has a 60.24% Corsi%, a 62.26% Fenwick%, and a ludicrously-high 75% HDCF%. On the flip side, the xG is a lowly 1.45.
Social media denizens went mad the few times Alex Newhook was given top-line status. He’s slotted between Suzuki and Caufield three times for 31:10. The Corsi% was 68.33%, the Fenwick% 61.29%, and the HDCF% was 50%. Alas, a moribund xG of 1.55.
Top Line Needs a Consistency Combination
Should people be angry at St. Louis for the unpredictable line shuffling? It depends on one’s point of view. Some lines many would be ready to stick their nose up at have generated decent offence. Not great, but decent. They weren’t unmitigated disasters.
The problem is that those same lines haven’t put the puck in the net often enough. At the of the day, that’s how a club wins hockey games. Samuel Montembeault can repel 48 shots, but someone has to score.
That’s precisely what the head coach is trying to figure out, with emphasis on “trying.” Naturally, the boo birds come out when the offence fails. It’s an expected, instinctive reaction from a fanbase that has seen more than enough losing than it cares to experience. On the flip side, unless St. Louis is a total clown who hasn’t the faintest clue what he is doing, there must be a reason for the perceived madness.
When people are quick to judge, and conversations about the coach being on the hot seat emerge, THW downloads spreadsheets from Natural Stat Trick to read between the lines. Rather, between the numbers.
This isn’t to say that everything St. Louis has done is genius. There is a ton of work to be done. Still, Montreal is currently 19th in offence (2.82 goals per game). After 2023-24, they were 26th, although, ironically, that was by scoring 2.83 times per match. See? It’s all a matter of perspective.
Is the experimentation working? Yes and no. Have some lines impressed? Yes. Have others disappointed? Yes. Is Gallagher supposed to be tied for second on the team in goals with eight? No, but he is. None of what we have discussed changes the reality of the situation: the consistency with the combinations must be ironed out.
It is a shame that the Slafkosvky-Suzuki-Caufield trio hasn’t started a game in such a long time. That was the plan. It’s the top line on our website’s roster page for the team, but the line was abandoned just a few weeks into the present campaign. Permanently? Probably not. For how long? Who knows. If those three are seen as the future – and most agree they are – they have to get back together sooner or later. St. Louis can only change things so many times before management unfortunately believes that the coach needs to be changed as well.
