Canadiens can learn something from how top-scoring Capitals generate offence
Montreal would’ve had their first three-game winning streak of the season had they turned all their offensive-zone pressure into a couple more goals. The Capitals know how to do that, and it’s high-time the Canadiens learned that lesson, writes Eric Engels.
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MONTREAL — Canadiens-Capitals, Part Deux was different.
Montreal coach Martin St. Louis said his team puked all over itself in the 6-3 loss it suffered in Washington back on Halloween, but he didn’t feel they did that in Saturday’s 4-2 loss to the Capitals at the Bell Centre on Saturday.
Even if the Canadiens were up 2-0 after 16 minutes of play, it was hard to disagree with him.
They went into the third period of that first game tied 3-3 and virtually handed the Capitals three goals. In this one, they forced the Capitals into making mistakes and generated four breakaways through the first 10 minutes of the third.
Still, the result being just the same by the end of it was equally frustrating. And it had to be hard for St. Louis — a Hall of Famer who scored 433 goals in the NHL — to watch his team fail to convert on such golden opportunities.
We doubt he’ll enjoy it more when he re-watches the whole game ahead of Sunday’s practice.
But if St. Louis focuses on how the Capitals manufactured most of their offence throughout the game, it’ll only confirm to him what the Canadiens need to do to solve some of the offensive anemia they’ve had of late.
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The Canadiens played three good games this week and failed to capitalize on their best chances to separate, making them three closer games than they had to be.
Hey, they won two of them.
But the Canadiens would’ve had their first three-game winning streak of the season had they turned all their offensive-zone pressure into a couple more goals.
The Capitals know how to do that. They’re the highest-scoring team in the NHL, and there’s nothing complicated about why they are.
They get the puck in deep, get to work on the forecheck, bank the puck back up to the point and simultaneously crash the net as it’s released quickly by their defencemen.
If the Canadiens did that more often, they’d be better than 23rd in the NHL in goals per game.
St. Louis knows, and the video from Saturday’s game will only help him reinforce the point to his team.
“There’s a lot of similarities, systematically, between the way Wash plays and the way we play,” he said before pointing out the difference in execution.
“I think they’re able to send pucks to the net from up top quicker than we can,” St. Louis said. “And it’s something we’ve been talking about and working on. Hopefully, we can improve there, because it helps.”
It helps turn pressure into goals.
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The Canadiens poured it on over their first two shifts of the game, spending those minutes hemming the Capitals in while seamlessly moving the puck through each position and opening lanes to get the puck to the net.
But they also didn’t land a single shot on net over that time.
They didn’t notch one until the fourth minute of the game was nearly over, and that’s not a recipe for success.
Lane Hutson, who is Montreal’s youngest defenceman, agreed.
“We can’t be too greedy about the plays we want to make,” he said. “We’ve got to be a little simple and put some pucks on net and get rebounds, and then go again and look for more plays.”
It’s what the Canadiens should’ve done over a five-minute sequence in the second period because it would’ve broken the Capitals.
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At 7:24 of the frame, Jake Evans, Emil Heineman and Joel Armia jumped on and began a wave of five straight shifts of Canadiens dominance.
The puck may have come to their side of centre ice once between then and when Evans drew a power play at 12:29, but they didn’t put it on net once over that time either.
If the Canadiens had, it may not have mattered as much that Jayden Struble failed to beat Logan Thompson on his short-side shot on the breakaway at 1:38 of the third, or that Josh Anderson couldn’t beat him through the five-hole on his breakaway at 4:07 of the third, or that Nick Suzuki couldn’t beat him with his forehand-backhand deke at 9:38, or that Brendan Gallagher hit him in the right pad on his breakaway just 50 seconds before Tom Wilson scored the goal that made it 3-2 Capitals.
Four minutes and 38 seconds earlier, it was Wilson crashing the net to tie the game. That was two periods after he crashed it and nearly scored off his face with the Capitals down 1-0.
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Jakob Chychrun’s point shot hit Wilson so hard it sent him rushing to the Capitals’ room for repairs. It also blew his cheek up so much it looked like he had stuffed a bag of marshmallows in there prior to returning.
But none of that stopped Wilson from continuing to go to the net.
Too much stops the Canadiens from going there as often as they should, and that was certainly the case all week. It’s why they generated just nine high-danger attempts in a 2-1 win over the New York Islanders, why they only had seven in a 3-2 win over the Nashville Predators, and why they only had eight against the Capitals.
And those numbers, via naturalstattrick.com, were tracked in all situations, and not just at five-on-five.
The Capitals had 20 high-danger chances against the Canadiens Saturday, and a lot of them came off tips or rebounds from the 12 of 31 shots on net that started from the points.
There’s a recipe in there for the Canadiens to follow if they’re willing. It’s something they can take from this game because they’re certainly not going to learn much from reviewing those breakaways.
Those chances rarely come as frequently. Suzuki, Hutson and St. Louis all said they couldn’t recall ever seeing as many of them in a single game they took part in.
But the Canadiens are generating a lot more offensive-zone time of late, and taking advantage of it could help them avoid an outcome like the one they suffered Saturday.
At least they didn’t puke all over themselves this time around.
