The finale ends this weekend on a strong road trip. After wins against the Panthers, Lightning and Golden Knights, it was supposed to be easier against the Blackhawks in Chicago. However, sports don’t always go as planned.
Montreal had to make sure not to disappoint. Playoff spots aren’t won by teams that don’t beat the teams they’re supposed to beat, but that’s what happened in a 4-2 Hawks win.
Wild horses
The Canadians had a large advantage on shots. Many aspects of their game were strong, but they lacked finishing, and that was the difference. The 40 shots resulted in just two goals.
The expected goals split was in Montreal’s favor, so there’s not much to complain about, but not much either, considering the heat map meant nothing in the final result.
Cole Caufield scored in the first period with a magnificent scoring goal. Caufield took the puck from the side of the net, then kept going until he suddenly found himself all alone in front of the net, then he fired a perfect shot up high for his 20th of the season. That’s a 43-goal campaign at the current rate.
In the third period, Emil Heineman once again showed his scoring talent. A puck came off the back shooter high in the air, and Heineman smartly waited until it reached waist high where he hit it perfectly out of the air for his tenth of the season.
One of the nice surprises of the season was not only Heineman’s ability to score goals, but also his all-around game. Looks like he’s an NHL player and there’s no doubt about that for years to come. There is always a place for a 20-goal scorer who plays a 200-foot game in the league. This seems sustainable for Heineman.
Wild goats
Winning puck battles isn’t just about size and strength. Perhaps it’s just as much a question of balance. There is also an element of intelligence attached to it. The Canadiens are a perfect team to watch puck battles and know who wins them to understand the science of it.
Fans have only had 40 games to see Lane Hutson, but they already know that size doesn’t matter when it comes to his battles with the puck. He tilts his body. He distributes his weight. He makes clever adjustments. He wins puck battles. Ask giant Tage Thompson of the Buffalo Sabres, who has nine inches and 60 pounds on Hutson, yet lost to Hutson in an open-ice puck battle.
Caufield is another player who, if it was just about size, wouldn’t be winning puck battles, but he wins more than he loses. Once again, it’s a question of balance, positioning and also intelligence.
There are of course larger players who use this size to win puck battles. Joel Armia puts a lot of strength into puck battles, and he wins almost all of them. He is an absolute horse who wins his head-to-head confrontations.
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This brings us to Juraj Slafkovsky who hasn’t figured out how to use his size to win puck battles. He’s a giant, and if it was just a matter of size, he’d leave the corner with the puck every time.
However, that has yet to happen in the third year of his NHL career. Slafkovsky primarily uses his stick to win puck battles. NHL scouts also call him a long stick because his body is far removed from the battle.
Armia knows that when you’re big and strong, you get up close, close to the puck, sometimes right on top of it, trapping it in your skates, and then you start making it a physical confrontation. Armia deliberately uses his strength and balance to win the battle in close quarters.
This is what Slavkovsky still sorely lacks. Being six feet three inches tall and 225 pounds doesn’t matter when you’re just using your stick. Winning a one-on-one matchup is a complex science in which the stick plays only a small role.
When the Canadiens drafted Mike McCarron in the first round in 2013, they felt he could use his six-foot-six frame to win puck battles and become a second-line NHL center. When the Canadiens passed on him, the biggest problem wasn’t that he didn’t skate well enough, but that he could never possess the puck. He never used his huge frame successfully.
Among the masses, Slafkovsky’s evaluation these days primarily starts with his goal total, but it really should start with his inability to win the puck. If he just made it a habit, he might find Nick Suzuki and Caufield to be the effective “F1s” this lineup needs.
He is 20 years old. Time is on his side, but it’s also time for him to make progress on this front.
Wilde Cards
No one will probably ever know if there was a quid pro quo between the Canadiens and St. Petersburg SKA, but something happened and Ivan Demidov couldn’t be happier about it.
Demidov owner/head coach Roman Rotenberg had the Russian on the fourth line or not playing, but after a visit from general manager Kent Hughes two weeks ago, Demidov suddenly climbed the depth chart. In his match on Friday, Demidov was on the front row.
It turns out that if you play 18 minutes instead of five with the best players rather than the plumbers, you do better.
Demidov is now on fire in the KHL. He scored twice and added an assist in a 6-3 win. Both goals were spectacular for different reasons.
On the first goal, Demidov took possession on his own blue line. He then completely stripped the right-back. He then weaved through the offensive zone, delaying until he found himself one-on-one with the goalie who he deflected and then covered his shot.
The second goal was on a rebound. The puck went high and Demidov smartly waited for it to go under the crossbar before hitting it. He also hit the puck to increase the chances of his attempt remaining on goal. Great goal-scoring instincts shown.
Demidov added an equally high-quality assist. He faked a shot and sold it to the goalie, then passed it without looking to a wide-open teammate. Once again, a creative player at his best.
In his last five games, Demidov has nine points, six goals and three assists. He’s back on track for one of the best plus-one draft seasons ever in the KHL. The best is Matvei Michkov with 41 points in 48 games.
Despite numerous five-minute games, Demidov now has 29 points in 39 games this season. He’s closing in on the best points per game total in league history for a player who was just drafted.
As a bonus, Demidov is a much better defensive player than Michkov. Michkov has a lot to learn defensively. Just ask Flyers head coach John Tortorella in Philadelphia, who benched his young star because he won’t play with energy on defense.
If Demidov gets ice time from here on out, then the KHL has worked for him. It’s a 68-game season this year, then the playoffs begin at the end of March. His team is at the top of the standings, so he could play until mid-April and beyond. A season of 75 high-competition games in the KHL prepares Demidov well for his arrival in Montreal.
The Canadiens have the best missing player in the NHL on the way next season. Hockey pundits will say for years how staggering it is that he fell five spots in the draft. Demidov will likely be the first Canadiens player since Mats Naslund in 1986 to collect 100 points in a season.
Brian Wilde, a Montreal-based sports writer, brings you Call of the Wilde on globalnews.ca after every Canadiens game.