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In Hainsight: Saturday Night Wasn't Alright |
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Follow me @KarineHains for all updates about the Montreal Canadiens and women's hockey
With so many players dealing with injuries, the Canadiens have been running on fumes of late. The absence of your sniper won’t be made up for by the play of your 4th line every night and if the Laval line was dominant against Detroit on Thursday, it had a much harder night at the office yesterday.
In fact, the only line that shone against Ottawa was Kirby Dach’s one. The young center is having a breakout season and playing his best hockey of the year right now and it’s not coincidence that Martin St-Louis flanked him with Hoffman and Dadonov, two players who have proved in the past that they can produce offensively and that the Canadiens would like to see shine again, if only to garner a bit of interest on the trade market. The chances of that happening are slim at best, but with marquee trade targets Sean Monahan and Joel Edmundson both injured, there’s no-one else to showcase really.
The Canadiens put up a good fight in the first, but the wheels came off the wagon in the 2nd and the Habs couldn’t recover from the 3 goals the Senators scored in that middle frame. Montreal went nearly 15 minutes without a shot in the 3rd with a 3-goal deficit to overcome, that’s hardly the kind of effort you need. So from that standpoint, Saturday night wasn’t alright.
There really wasn’t much to get excited about for Habs fans in this one, aside from the fact that Owen Beck was playing his first NHL career game, and even then, some will need to realize that Beck project as a good third-line shutdown center in the NHL, not a top-6 forward and revise their expectations. Taking this into account, Beck had the kind of debut that could be expected he saw 9 minutes 48 seconds of ice time across 14 shifts and won 1 of his 3 faceoffs. After the game, the Canadiens sent him back to his junior team where he’ll get ready for the playoffs having gotten a taste of what the NHL looks like in the regular season.
To be honest, the most enjoyable part of last night’s game was probably when Beck’s family was interviewed and his dad explained how he found out that his son would be playing in his first NHL game: “Owen called me and told me he was going to have to bail on our dinner plans as he was going to be playing in his first NHL game in Ottawa instead…” Dave Beck was overcome with emotion and fighting back tears as he answered Kyle Bukauskas’ question and it was a stark contrast with the lack of emotion showed by the Habs on the ice.
The Canadiens now have one last game remaining on Tuesday night against those same Sens before a 10-day break which they desperately need to get some healthy bodies back. Hopefully, they’ll put on a better show in Montreal than they did in Ottawa, but if they don’t, those draft lottery odds will keep on improving and the fans will have to make do with that.
Montreal Canadiens Blogger • 
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