It was far from being a glorious weekend for Les Glorieux. Two losses in two nights, and Carey Price wore 'em both despite offering solid performances.
A little over a week ago, the Montreal Canadiens were atop the league standings. Now, the team sits third in their own division, and with 36 points in 29 games, they're behind 10 teams in the league.
The trend remains the same. Bad starts are undoing this team game after game. Undone by two early strikes and two late ones in Chicago, over a barrel early on against Dallas. Chasing the game is forcing the Canadiens to chase everyone else in the standings, and frustration appears to be boiling over.
Indiscipline burned the team hard in Dallas. Two early penalties sent a lethal Stars powerplay to work with Cody Eakin making the Habs pay on the first one and Tyler Seguin doing what he does best on the second one.
Michel Therrien had a chance to stem the bleeding by throwing his best faceoff man on the ice for a defensive zone draw with eight seconds left in the second period. Manny Malholtra was 40% on the night at that point, but he's been the go-to guy in that situation all year long, and the one time Therrien decides not to use him, they get scored on.
Sure, the Habs tried to mount a late rally. Sven Andrighetto became the first Canadien to score in his first NHL game since Max Pacioretty did it in 2008. Andrighetto found himself in the lineup after Lars Eller suffered an upper body injury Friday. It was a nice passing play he completed with help from Jiri Sekac and Tomas Plekanec--a newly formed trio, while Pacioretty skated with Galchenyuk and Gallagher, and David Desharnais continued on with P.A Parenteau and Brandon Prust. Too little too late.
A night previous, the Canadiens did manage to claw their way past the two goal deficit the Blackhawks served them early in the game. They scored three unanswered goals (they even managed one of them in the first period and another on the powerplay) before surrendering the final two of the game.
Was there a bad break or two in there? Absolutely. Would it have mattered as much had they not come out flat as usual? Probably not.
Where do you point the finger at this juncture? The team habitually fails to take the lead in the first period. Are they feeling it out while the other team cruises through them? Are they well-prepared enough by the coaching staff? This is a very odd trend for a team with a winning record. We couldn't devote so much attention to it as an early season trend, but after 29 games, the Canadiens have led after the first period a grand total of two times.
Don't worry, the Habs are batting .1000 when leading after one. Heck, they're 10-1 when leading after two.
The Canadiens will reverse their fortunes, but if they don't start scoring first in games, they run a serious risk of burning themselves out completely before they even get to the playoffs. Right now, they're safely in position, albeit, they're the only team in the current playoff picture with a negative goal differential.
The team's defensive play is lacking. That's not all because of what happens in their own zone. P.K. Subban summed it up very well in his post-game interview with NHL.com on Saturday:
We got to get in on our forecheck. We got to make it tough on the defense. We got to make it tougher on the other team. We're making it too easy for them to come out of their zone right now and into the neutral zone
Good defense starts in the offensive zone, and Subban's right, the team isn't doing enough to create good scoring chances, rock the other team back on their heels forcing a disconnect in their breakout. The Habs aren't making it easy enough on themselves to apply strong back-pressure to allow the defenders to stand up at the defensive blueline instead of having to back away from it.
Speaking of defense, Mike Weaver was pounded out of the game by Ryan Garbutt on Saturday, but the Canadiens have yet to make any call-ups to fill his position.
Next up--Vancouver, and it's sure to be an extremely emotional night with Jean Beliveau being honored at the Bell Centre. It's the first of five straight games at home before the Canadiens hit the road for five straight over the Christmas Holidays. Time to see how quick they can put this train back on the rails.