The Montreal Canadiens have played five games in eight nights, and it has been a good stretch in terms of both results and development.
General manager Kent Hughes has much to be pleased with as his blue line of the future is taking shape.
The Winnipeg Jets were in town on Saturday night with the Canadiens stealing that one in a shootout, 4-3. It is only two losses in eight games this season for Montreal.
Wilde Horses
One aspect of the rebuild that is easy to appreciate is Martin St. Louis’ desire to improve playing a creative and enjoyable brand of hockey.
Often when a head coach knows that he is outmanned for talent, he will try to take the game out of the game. Jacques Martin would make sure the final shots were 18-15 with five players defending throughout.
That makes the coach look good to keep it competitive, but it doesn’t help the player learn how to play the brand of hockey that wins cups and playoff series.
The right way to play hockey these days is, five players can attack and five players can defend. It’s “total” hockey in 2023, and it’s infinitely more exciting than the dead puck era when the league’s scoring champion didn’t even have a point-per-game season.
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The freedom that Justin Barron is being given seems to be turning him into the player that the Canadiens were hoping for. Barron is joining the rush — in fact, in the first period, when he scored, he led the rush. That’s three goals for Barron, and all were with offensive freedom and creativity, and essentially from good coaching.
Barron is playing much smarter in the defensive zone as well. He is slowing the game down, and making better decisions to clear the zone. It was a slow start for Barron as a Canadiens player, but rearguards need a very long leash. They can take time to show their best selves. It feels in the last two weeks like Barron is arriving.
In the third period, there was more “total” hockey as Kaiden Guhle led a rush. He carried it to between the dots, then fed Joel Armia for an open look. It was his first of the season in his first game for a 3-3 tie.
Sean Monahan is close to a point-per-game player for the Canadiens — just like he was when he was healthy for the Calgary Flames. Monahan added his fourth goal of the season in the second period as he is becoming a staple on the power play with Nick Suzuki and Cole Caufield.
Monahan takes position in front of the net where he manages to angle out checkers and make himself available, mostly to Suzuki but also Mike Matheson. That’s exactly what he did on the 3-2 goal.
The return of Christian Dvorak to the centre position when he is healthy should lead to Monahan also playing 5-on-5 with the top line. That would allow Alex Newhook to go back to the wing. The top six of the Canadiens can be quite a lot more effective when everyone is healthy.
4:14 Call of the Wilde!
Wilde Goats
Juraj Slafkovsky must start shooting the puck. When they drafted him first, they believed that he had a quality shot. They believed he could score at the NHL level.
As Wayne Gretzky said, “You don’t score on 100 per cent of the shots you don’t take,” and Slafkovsky refuses to take shots.
In his rookie season, Slafkovsky had 42 shots in 39 games before getting injured. Essentially, a shot per game. This season, he has eight shots in eight games.
To have success in the NHL as a scorer, a player will have a shooting percentage of 10 per cent as a minimum standard. That means you need 240 shots, or three per game, to have a 25-goal season. If a player gets only one shot per game, all other things reverting to the mean average, that’s an eight-goal season.
In the first period, Slafkovsky was on the power play, and the Jets were clearly playing him to pass. He had a clean lane to the net, but simply refused to take the puck to the goal to take a shot. He saucer passed the puck back instead, through the Jets player cheating to cover the Habs defenceman. The pass was still a foot off the ice and it left the offensive zone.
This is likely a confidence issue. It could also be a hockey instinct issue, but not likely. He knows to go to the net, but he just couldn’t make his mind go there successfully. He wasn’t ready.
Slafkovsky is getting more touches. He is winning far more puck battles. He is improving as a player, and, of course, he is extremely young still. Guaranteed, though, Gretzky would note that Slafkovsky is not going to score on an impossible saucer pass that goes to centre ice.
Three shots per game is the goal. For now, winning puck battles and getting touches are the first two phases of development, and that is coming along. However, at some point, he’s got to take some shots. He’s a forward trying to score goals. Simple concept to success.
Wilde Cards
The Buffalo Sabres are a good example for the Canadiens of how not to complete a rebuild. The Sabres are full of young talent, but, somehow, they forgot to have a goalie ready for the last two seasons. The Sabres should be in the playoffs this year. They should have been in the playoffs last season as well. They have some outstanding talent all over the ice, except the crease.
They were waiting for Devon Levi this season, but it is too much too soon. A GM can’t ask a goalie to go straight from college to the NHL — not as a reliable number one. The road to being comfortable in the NHL is a long one for goalies with 24 a respectable arrival age. Some work in the AHL and then an NHL back-up role for a goalie like Levi is a fair expectation.
However, the Sabres didn’t just over-rely on Levi. The other two Eric Comrie and Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen are also not experienced. There isn’t a .900 save percentage in the entire organization.
Adding to the Sabres’ woes, Comrie and Levi are both injured. Luukkonen and his .881 will try to keep the ship righted. However, a word to the wise, you have to score five goals in an average 30-shot game to win when your goalie is an .881. The Sabres are good, but they’re not that good.
Enter Jake Allen.
The Canadiens have a goaltending issue they need to sort out. Allen is the Sabres’ best option in the NHL presently. Buffalo needs to find a veteran. They’re not interested in seeing if Samuel Montembeault can string together a second straight quality season, and they obviously don’t need another uncertainty in Cayden Primeau. Allen has been through the wars.
If the Sabres don’t get a goalie soon, it’s another year of underachievement and frustration for long-suffering fans. Buffalo’s plight is also a warning to the Canadiens rebuild attempt: the goalie comes last, but don’t completely forget to have a good one ready.
The next move is yours, Buffalo. Seasons slip away fast.
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia – Canada’s Gabriela Dabrowski and New Zealand’s Erin Routliffe remain undefeated in women’s doubles at the WTA Finals.
The 2023 U.S. Open champions, seeded second at the event, secured a 1-6, 7-6 (1), (11-9) super-tiebreak win over fourth-seeded Italians Sara Errani and Jasmine Paolini in round-robin play on Tuesday.
The season-ending tournament features the WTA Tour’s top eight women’s doubles teams.
Dabrowski and Routliffe lost the first set in 22 minutes but levelled the match by breaking Errani’s serve three times in the second, including at 6-5. They clinched victory with Routliffe saving a match point on her serve and Dabrowski ending Errani’s final serve-and-volley attempt.
Dabrowski and Routliffe will next face fifth-seeded Americans Caroline Dolehide and Desirae Krawczyk on Thursday, where a win would secure a spot in the semifinals.
The final is scheduled for Saturday.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published on Nov. 5, 2024.
EDMONTON – Jake Allen made 31 saves for his second shutout of the season and 26th of his career as the New Jersey Devils closed out their Western Canadian road trip with a 3-0 victory over the Edmonton Oilers on Monday.
Jesper Bratt had a goal and an assist and Stefan Noesen and Timo Meier also scored for the Devils (8-5-2) who have won three of their last four on the heels on a four-game losing skid.
The Oilers (6-6-1) had their modest two-game winning streak snapped.
Calvin Pickard made 13 stops between the pipes for Edmonton.
TAKEAWAYS
Devils: In addition to his goal, Bratt picked up his 12th assist of the young season to give him nine points in his last eight games and now 15 points overall. Nico Hischier remains in the team lead, picking up an assist of his own to give him 16 points for the campaign. He has a point in all but four games this season.
Oilers: Forward Leon Draisaitl was held pointless after recording six points in his previous two games and nine points in his previous four. Draisaitl usually has strong showings against the Devils, coming into the contest with an eight-game point streak against New Jersey and 11 goals in 17 games.
KEY MOMENT
New Jersey took a 2-0 lead on the power play with 3:26 remaining in the second period as Hischier made a nice feed into the slot to Bratt, who wired his third of the season past Pickard.
KEY RETURN?
Oilers star forward and captain Connor McDavid took part in the optional morning skate for the Oilers, leading to hopes that he may be back sooner rather than later. McDavid has been expected to be out for two to three weeks with an ankle injury suffered during the first shift of last Monday’s loss in Columbus.
OILERS DEAL FOR D-MAN
The Oilers have acquired defenceman Ronnie Attard from the Philadelphia Flyers in exchange for defenceman Ben Gleason.
The 6-foot-3 Attard has spent the past three season in the Flyers organization seeing action in 29 career games. The 25-year-old right-shot defender and Western Michigan University grad was originally selected by Philadelphia in the third round of the 2019 NHL Entry Draft. Attard will report to the Oilers’ AHL affiliate in Bakersfield.
UP NEXT
Devils: Host the Montreal Canadiens on Thursday.
Oilers: Host the Vegas Golden Knights on Wednesday.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 4, 2024.
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Patrick Mahomes threw for 291 yards and three touchdowns, and Kareem Hunt pounded into the end zone from two yards out in overtime to give the unbeaten Kansas City Chiefs a 30-24 win over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on Monday night.
DeAndre Hopkins had two touchdown receptions for the Chiefs (8-0), who drove through the rain for two fourth-quarter scores to take a 24-17 lead with 4:17 left. But then Kansas City watched as Baker Mayfield led the Bucs the other way in the final minute, hitting Ryan Miller in the end zone with 27 seconds to go in regulation time.
Tampa Bay (4-5) elected to kick the extra point and force overtime, rather than go for a two-point conversion and the win. And it cost the Buccaneers when Mayfield called tails and the coin flip was heads. Mahomes and the Chiefs took the ball, he was 5-for-5 passing on their drive in overtime, and Hunt finished his 106-yard rushing day with the deciding TD plunge.
Travis Kelce had 14 catches for 100 yards with girlfriend Taylor Swift watching from a suite, and Hopkins finished with eight catches for 86 yards as the Chiefs ran their winning streak to 14 dating to last season. They became the sixth Super Bowl champion to start 8-0 the following season.
Mayfield finished with 200 yards and two TDs passing for the Bucs, who have lost four of their last five.
It was a memorable first half for two players who had been waiting to play in Arrowhead Stadium.
The Bucs’ Rachaad White grew up about 10 minutes away in a tough part of Kansas City, but his family could never afford a ticket for him to see a game. He wound up on a circuitous path through Division II Nebraska-Kearney and a California junior college to Arizona State, where he eventually became of a third-round pick of Tampa Bay in the 2022 draft.
Two year later, White finally got into Arrowhead — and the end zone. He punctuated his seven-yard scoring run in the second quarter, which gave the Bucs a 7-3 lead, by nearly tossing the football into the second deck.
Then it was Hopkins’ turn in his first home game since arriving in Kansas City from a trade with the Titans.
The three-time All-Pro, who already had caught four passes, reeled in a third-down heave from Mahomes amid triple coverage for a 35-yard gain inside the Tampa Bay five-yard line. Three plays later, Mahomes found him in the back of the end zone, and Hopkins celebrated his first TD with the Chiefs with a dance from “Remember the Titans.”
Tampa Bay tried to seize control with consecutive scoring drives to start the second half. The first ended with a TD pass to Cade Otton, the latest tight end to shred the Chiefs, and Chase McLaughlin’s 47-yard field goal gave the Bucs a 17-10 lead.
The Chiefs answered in the fourth quarter. Mahomes marched them through the rain 70 yards for a tying touchdown pass, which he delivered to Samaje Perine while landing awkwardly and tweaking his left ankle, and then threw a laser to Hopkins on third-and-goal from the Buccaneers’ five-yard line to give Kansas City the lead.
Tampa Bay promptly went three-and-out, but its defence got the ball right back, and this time Mayfield calmly led his team down field. His capped the drive with a touchdown throw to Miller — his first career TD catch — with 27 seconds to go, and Tampa Bay elected to play for overtime.
UP NEXT
Buccaneers: Host the San Francisco 49ers on Sunday.
