Montreal’s Playoffs Push Turning Into a Nightmare! Canadiens Struggles Raise Questions About Team’s Future

It’s time to call a spade a spade. The Montreal Canadiens are not playing well and haven’t been for several weeks. From Dec. 3-Jan. 21, the Habs went an impressive 16-6-1. Since then, they’ve fallen back down to earth and out of the playoff race with a 1-5-1- record.

One by one, the Canadiens have started failing challenges their schedule has presented, when they had previously risen to the occasion, at least since the start of December. It’s like they’re a completely different team. In reality, that’s only part of the problem.

It’s easy to pinpoint the factors that initially put them on the path the success. For example, the debut of forward Patrik Laine, the acquisition of defenseman Alexandre Carrier and the promotion of goalie Jakub Dobes. How about the factors that have caused them to fall off course?

More Respect, Fewer Backups Faced

Even if the Canadiens fall deeper out of the race, at least Habs fans know what this team is capable of come next season. The problem is other teams now know too. They’re less likely to take them for granted now, and they haven’t based simply on the quality of goaltending the Habs have faced over the last little while.

At the start of the Canadiens’ playoff push on Dec. 3, the Canadiens faced six backups up until the new year, a span of 13 games. Since then, over their last 17 games, they’ve faced only four backups and on three of those occasions the opposition had been playing on back-to-back nights: Charlie Lindgren of the Washington Capitals on Jan. 10 (to start, before he got replaced mid-game due to injury), Jonathan Quick of the New York Rangers on Jan. 19 and Marc-Andre Fleury of the Minnesota Wild on Jan. 30.

The fact the Canadiens are just 2-2 in those games, including an outlying loss to the near-last-place Chicago Blackhawks on Jan. 3, is a justifiable source of frustration. In fact, the Habs’ only win over their last seven games was against the actual-last-place San Jose Sharks. So, while the Habs are playing fewer backups, they’re not even winning consistently against the ones they do face, putting them at risk of falling back to Square One.

Emil Heineman Injury

On the surface, losing Emil Heineman to injury shouldn’t have been that big of a deal. Granted, it was a relatively serious car accident, so a big deal in that regard. However, Heineman is a fourth-liner, albeit one who had been putting together an impressive rookie season with 10 goals and 17 points in 41 games.

As a result, the loss of Heineman significantly impacted the team, perhaps more than initially anticipated, for a few reasons. There’s the obvious fact he was contributing offense despite his limited ice time. However, however limited his ice time had been (11:09), the Canadiens initially replaced him with Michael Pezzetta (5:37), who has routinely been benched early on in games, putting the Habs at an even greater disadvantage.

Over a few games, it’s possible for a team to pull together. Over the course of the 3-4 weeks Heineman was expected out? That’s too much to ask for a bubble team for all intents and purposes, which eventually prompted the Canadiens to call up Owen Beck (9:09) and Rafael Harvey-Pinard (8:54). However, even if they each represent arguably present better options, the Habs are obviously struggling to get back to how things were.

Even with Heineman’s projected return date approaching, he’s obviously not the only one about whom they need to worry. He had been just one of all their cylinders that had been firing at once. And head coach Martin St. Louis has had to resort to juggling his lines to find something that works to little avail. Just take a look at how their lines shook out over the last three games, when they were on their West Coast road trip.

For some context, things had aligned just right for the Canadiens to beat Fleury and the Wild at home on Jan. 30 before they hit the road. Not only were they playing the Wild backup, but they were at home facing an opponent who had played the night before and were without their top scorer in Kirill Kaprizov. Obviously they still got shut out 4-0. On the first leg of their trip, they faced the Anaheim Ducks who were similarly without top-scorer Troy Terry. They still lost, understandably prompting St. Louis to make significant lineup changes.

Against the San Jose Sharks, Jake Evans and Joel Armia, who had formed the fourth line with Heineman, started playing with top-six forward Patrik Laine. Typical second-liners Kirby Dach and Alex Newhook moved down to play with Josh Anderson. On defense, St. Louis also reunited Mike Matheson and Lane Hutson, which has been his top pairing this season. And while it worked out in principle with a win, the Canadiens also didn’t play their best game against a lesser opponent, resulting in even more changes on defense against the Kings.

It must be very difficult for the Canadiens themselves to find chemistry with new teammates every game, but from St. Louis’ perspective it probably seems impossible. It’s a die-if-you-do, die-if-you-don’t situation, because you can’t determine if lines and pairing that aren’t working will suddenly start to gel if they’re given more time together. And little is working now, to be clear. So, if you’re St. Louis, do you take the risk and keep them intact or try something different? At least for the last few games, the forward lines have largely stayed the same. He doesn’t have the same luxury on defense, though.

Kaiden Guhle Injury

The injury to Kaiden Guhle has only compounded the Canadiens’ recent difficulties, with the defenseman obviously playing a larger role than Heineman (21:14), as one of the players the Habs rely on the most. Out indefinitely, Guhle cannot effectively be replaced internally, putting management under the gun ahead of the trade deadline.

General manager Kent Hughes has a tough decision to make. He can try to acquire another top-four defenseman or perhaps acknowledge giving up assets to acquire someone new runs counter to the preseason goal of simply being in the mix, as the rebuild continues.

Some may argue that the Canadiens can’t simply keep treading water and they need to make big moves to develop into a playoff team. However, they’ve already made big moves, acquiring Laine and Carrier. The results were both positive and immediate. However, they each represent players in their primes with term left. Sacrificing futures for help right now simply to try to make the playoffs now would be a mistake when it’s clear what’s hampering the Habs is a lack of organizational depth. Going for “it” now by “renting” a player would simply sacrifice more depth for short-term gain, which isn’t even guaranteed.

Based on how they’ve called up prospect Logan Mailloux, a top prospect they demoted earlier in the season so that he could develop further in the American Hockey League, to replace Guhle on the roster, the signs point one way. The Canadiens have decided to use this unfortunate series of events to assess the play of their young players instead.

There should be no shame in that, based on the improvement the Canadiens have shown thus far, not to mention their capacity for strong play while completely healthy. Now six points out of a wild-card spot, when, at the start of December, before their run, they were eight with a game in hand, it’s not necessarily time to call it, but it is time to take a step back and look at things objectively. For the Habs to stand a chance, they need to be healthy. They’re not, and this simply put cannot be considered a playoff team in the meantime.

What fans are seeing is cold, hard proof to that effect, albeit in the face of heightened expectations. However that the Canadiens prompted the rise in expectations through sustained on-ice success on their own instead of fan impatience is what should matter most, because it’s proof this can be a playoff team. That’s not just a good start. It’s a continuation. This is all a natural step in the process. The next one will be even better.