Five things to watch for in Canadiens’ exhibition debut vs. Maple Leafs – Sportsnet.ca

Game day. Boy, does it feel good to put those two words together.

Can you believe we made it here? Me neither.

It’s been 138 days since the novel coronavirus suddenly halted the NHL season — and any sense of normalcy we were clinging to. Our lives were paused, the games too, and the thought of going back to the way things were still seems as intangible now as it did then.

But in a matter of hours the puck will drop. Significant goals will be scored, meaningful saves will be made, and we will move forward for better — and hopefully not for worse.

This will be exhibition like we’ve never seen it before, played in an altered venue, with no fans in attendance and with the Stanley Cup Playoffs but a few sleeps away.

“You normally get six exhibition games and a long season to get ready,” Montreal Canadiens assistant captain Paul Byron pointed out on Monday.

But his team, which was gifted this opportunity to be one of 24 competing for the Cup, has just one game to prepare for the monumental challenge of playing the Pittsburgh Penguins in a three-to-five game series.

If you want a sense for how unique this is, it’ll be the Canadiens playing host to the Toronto Maple Leafs at Scotiabank Arena.

Game on!

In the meantime, here are five things to watch for that will help Montreal coach Claude Julien get a handle on where his team stands ahead of the play-in.

Back to basics

Is there anything more important to the Canadiens than seeing their system executed the way it’s been designed?

Not according to Julien.

“Obviously, we’re looking to hopefully bring the stuff that we’ve been working on for the last two weeks to the game and to the table and, you know, I want to see us try and execute those kind of things,” he said on Monday. “Pay attention to the details here because, like anything else, I don’t expect perfection. Every team is going to be a little rusty when you haven’t played in four months. We’ve tried to have some scrimmages to help us along the way, but [Tuesday] will be the biggest test going.

“I’m hoping that we can, you know, bring those kind of things that we’ve really tried to work on. That’s going to help us be a better team [in] the game tomorrow and [for] what’s going to happen as we move forward here. We’ll be looking for that as a coaching staff and encouraging guys to do certain things if they slide away from that or slip from that part of it. We’re just going to try and keep the guys on top of our game here and on top of the things, like I said, that we’ve been practicing.”

That means we’re looking for clean zone exits and entries, completed passes and scoring chances generated and denied.

Those are the standard things every coach wants to see from their team, but there are more specific things Julien will look for from the Canadiens.

They run a system that depends on swarming the puck in the defensive zone. One that focuses on disrupting offensive flow as quickly as possible and recovering loose pucks to break out through the middle of the ice in order to take advantage of the speed that’s coursing through their lineup.

They want to see the defencemen between dots, they want their forward tracking back through the middle and applying the necessary back-pressure to allow their defencemen to step up, and they want to rely on their neutral zone transition to create offence at five-on-five.

The Leafs may play a different breed of hockey than the Penguins, but both teams have similar lineup compositions in that they have superstar talent up the middle and on the wings and an offensive-minded defence core.

“Toronto’s a lot like Pittsburgh,” said Julien. “They’ve got a lot of depth, a lot of skill up front. They play a pretty fast type of game. They’re going to attack as hard as they can. When you talk about preparation, you’re right in saying that this is probably a good matchup for us in order to prepare for Pittsburgh and that’s why I said there’s a rivalry involved in that I think it’s a good matchup for us to work on the things we want to work on before we do play Pittsburgh. So there’s a lot of good things that should come out of it.”

Byron said the Canadiens are looking for “execution and intensity.”

“It’s going to be a little cluster in the first period,” he posited. “But I think as the game goes on, guys can get more comfortable with positioning and their timing. We’ve had some great practices lately, so for us it’s about matching the intensity level of playoff hockey, trying to push hard that first game and, you know, we’ll see what happens. It’s going to be pretty rare but every team’s in the same boat right now, so I think it’s a pretty level playing field and the team that can get to the highest level as quick as possible has got the advantage.”

Blueline resolutions

If Julien had a true sense for what he intends to do on the third pairing of his defence, we’d be done with the match-game by now.

Granted, circumstances beyond his control — like Brett Kulak and Xavier Ouellet testing positive for coronavirus and missing the first 10 days of Phase 3 training camp — were at play here, but we’ve seen various combinations. And the sense is that a decision in this department is still looming for Game 1 against Pittsburgh.

On Monday, it was Ouellet paired up with Victor Mete.

But, as Julien pointed out after practice, another defenceman will also be auditioning for the spot next to Mete.

“The good part about [Tuesday] is that we’re going to be able to dress an extra two players and, in our case, I’m saying an extra forward and an extra defenceman,” Julien said. “So we’re going to look at different things here that we want to look at in our preparation for playoffs.”

One would expect Cale Fleury — the 20-year-old righty who won a spot over Ouellet in September and went on to play 41 of Montreal’s 71 games — to be the other defenceman in the lineup on Tuesday.

But Christian Folin, Noah Juulsen and Gustav Oloffson are the other blueliners in the mix.

Is the second line fine?

The line of Jonathan Drouin, Nick Suzuki and Joel Armia was put together at the beginning of Phase 3 and remains intact ahead of Phase 4. Now it’s time to see what they can do together in a game.

Here are three players who spent a total of 42:10 on the ice together at five-on-five this season. Sure, Suzuki and Armia actually spent almost 255 minutes together at five-on-five, and Drouin and Armia spent close to 155 minutes together at five-on-five, but they’ve hardly played together as a trio.

Given all that, this exhibition game takes on greater magnitude for them than it does just about anyone else on the Canadiens.

Julien said last week that they are “three players who are extremely intelligent, who are capable of making plays and doing a bit of everything.”

It starts with Suzuki, who plays a cerebral two-way game. He may only be 20 years old and less than a full season into his NHL career, but that Julien sees him as a viable option to match up against either of the opposition’s two best centres says much about the maturity of the player.

Suzuki will have Drouin’s blazing speed, his creative playmaking and his skilled stick-work to his left. And Armia’s packing a six-foot-four, 215-pound frame that he uses exceptionally well to protect the puck.

The big Finn can shoot it, too.

“If we play like we practice, we’re around the puck and we’re creating little plays,” Drouin said last week. “Army’s obviously got that long reach, he’s very good in the corners. Suzy’s got great vision anywhere on the ice … We can play together, I think we like playing with each other. It’s just bringing more speed to the game. I think what we’ve got to add to our line is more odd-man speed and make sure we’re beating guys one-on-one when we have the chance with our legs.”

They had better be doing it right off the hop.

The Canadiens need this line to alleviate the pressure that will be on Phillip Danault’s line with Tomas Tatar and Brendan Gallagher. They’re best suited to produce that secondary scoring all successful playoff teams get. And if they can get on the board against Toronto, that will be a significant boost to their confidence as a line.

Special teams tuning

Assuming penalties get called — and we figure there will be more of them than we’re used to seeing in the playoffs, based on two factors (because the games at the beginning of every season are called more tightly and we see this more like the beginning of a new season than we do the continuation of one, and because the officials will be able to hear much more of what’s going on around them without fan noise distracting them) — the Maple Leafs present a perfect opportunity for the Canadiens to get their special teams up to par.

There can be no greater test to Montreal’s penalty kill than having to face a power-play unit of Auston Matthews, Tyson Barrie, John Tavares, William Nylander and Mitch Marner. Considering the Canadiens are preparing to face a Pittsburgh unit of Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Jake Guentzel, Patric Hornqvist and Kris Letang, that’s just what the doctor ordered.

The strategy is fairly evident.

“If you give them time and space, with guys like that – the Crosbys, Malkins, Letang, you know, those guys, Hornqvist does a great job in front of that net as well — if you give those guys time, they’re going to make you pay for it. But if you’re overly aggressive and reckless, they’re going to make you pay for that as well,” Julien said last week. “So we have to be smart in our decision making. When the puck is loose or it’s on the wall and they’ve got their backs to us, we have an opportunity to be more aggressive.

“If they have full control, you’ve got to be careful because, like I said, if we’re too aggressive and reckless, they’ll make you pay for it. Too passive, they’ll do the same thing.”

Meanwhile, if the Canadiens can get something going with a revamped power play, it would be particularly reassuring.

They struggled for much of the season with the man-advantage, finishing just 17.7 per cent of their chances. So they want to use this game to put that in the past.

Unit 1 has Shea Weber up top, Drouin and Tatar on the flanks, Gallagher in front, and the whole thing is set to run through Suzuki.

Unit 2 has Jeff Petry at the point, Armia and Jordan Weal on the boards, Jesperi Kotkaniemi in the middle, and it runs through Max Domi’s hands.

Is the Price right?

Let’s be honest, this is everyone’s first real game in four months, so everything you see must be taken with a grain of salt.

But Carey Price — much like his Maple Leafs counterpart, Frederik Andersen — is going to be under the microscope in a way he never quite has been in exhibition. The fans will dissect everything they see from him, and if he shows any blemishes, they’ll be quick to dismiss whatever marginal chances the Canadiens have been given to beat Pittsburgh.

The Canadiens will be hoping Price is mostly sharp, but they’ll also be hoping that he has an opportunity to shake off some rust. They won’t care if he lets in a bad goal or two, or even if he wins the game. So long as he’s ready for Game 1, that’s all that really matters to them.

But it sure would do their confidence — and, more importantly, Price’s confidence — a world of good if he stood on his head and pitched a shutout.

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