The Canadiens are drafting before the Avs, but the Habs don’t require as much work going forward as the Avs. Therefore, we talk about Montreal as the latter team.
Montreal’s major problem this year was losing Carey Price the entire team. The Habs are built around having the best goaltender in the league, and when Price went down, there was going to be trouble. It’s why you don’t build your team around just one player. Think about the other MVP quality players in this league – Jamie Benn, Sidney Crosby, Braden Holtby, Patrick Kane – the reason their teams are successful is because they aren’t all about that one player – Dallas has Tyler Seguin, Jason Spezza and John Klingberg, the Penguins have Evgeni Malkin and now the HBK line, Chicago has Toews, Crawford, Keith and Panarin, and the Caps have Backstrom, Ovi, Kuznetsov (in the regular season) and John Carlson.
They need a somewhat rebuild around Patches (captain Max Pacioretty) and PK Subban. These two get along well despite the media rumors (Montreal is a hockey city. There’s going to be a ton of unreliable rumors circulating. Unless one of them physically comes out and says something against the other, they are perfectly fine playing together. From here on out, Carey Price needs to be a bonus, not the foundation. The Habs are the most successful team in hockey, ever. They won’t take losing for very long.
1. Depth
The Habs have a top ten pick, and they need to spend it on a defenseman. They lack depth at defense, and what they have there is aging out of their peaks, and starting to play less well – see Emelin, Alexei and Markov, Andrei. The defense needs to be better, so in case the best goaltender in the world is unavailable, the Habs can support any lesser player in his position. Even Henrik Lundqvist might’ve struggled this year with the Habs defense. Somebody like Jake Bean could come in and provide a PK Subban like player for the third pairing, instantly boosting both the Habs defense and the Habs offense.
That’s another spot where the Habs are weak – they need more depth on the wings. They have Galchenyuk, Plekanec, Danault, and Desharnais going forward, perfectly fine for center depth, but they need more players on the wings. They didn’t get as many goals as the team probably would have liked throughout the year, and two players getting 30 and nobody else hitting 20 is not nearly enough offensive power. They wanted Alex Semin to be the guy who came in and was just a pure goal scorer, but it didn’t work out. They will need to find that guy.
2. Calling up a Goaltender
Mike Condon played fifty games for the Habs this year. Through those games, he posted a .903 and 2.71. Not nearly the numbers that the Habs require to be a good team. Again, having the offense be better could take some pressure off, as well as improving the defense, but I still don’t think Condon is the backup to Carey Price, because now Price has a history of injuries, and there may come another year where a truly talented backup is needed. I don’t think Condon is bad, I just believe he needs more time to develop and this could be done as the regular starter of the Habs AHL affiliate. I think the Habs have better goaltenders in their system, including Zachary Fucale and Charlie Lindgren, who behind the same defense in his one game, posted a 2.00 and a .929, far better numbers that should have been given another shot.
The team as a whole needs to get some fresh blood, Lindgren or Fucale could help with that.
3. A New Head Coach
I don’t think Michel Therrien is the solution for the Habs problems. I think the system needs to be re-done, and we saw that when Price went down the entire team is too predicated on his existence. The Habs need a coach that can come in and sort of sort out problems like Peter DeBoer did in San Jose – and his example proves that something like this is possible. I do think that San Jose is the model for the Habs, especially if they reach the SCF. The Habs need to figure out how to get the depth of the Sharks, but aside from that the two teams are comparable. They were playoff contenders who couldn’t get it done, who had one down year because of injuries and increased play from other teams, but should be able to bounce back strong. The Habs need a coach in the mold of DeBoer, who can look at their system and say – this works if we just do this one thing – in San Jose it was making Marleau happier and putting him at center for the playoffs, and focusing on defense and letting each of those six do their thing.
The Habs have a Brett Burns of their own in PK Subban, and he needs to be given a longer leash like DeBoer gave Burns (now a Vezina candidate). They have a new captain who needs support, and some controversy about it (the Joes pulled it off). They have aging veterans who need one last shot at the cup. What I’m saying is, the Montreal Canadiens need to find a way to clone Peter DeBoer. And they need to do it fast, so that this clone can learn French.
4. A Healthy Carey Price
Throughout this piece I have spoken about how the Habs shouldn’t be reliant upon Carey Price. They can no longer afford that luxury, and they need to be able to support their guy. He shouldn’t have to be a Vezina and Hart winner every year for the team to make the playoffs, and making him do so is too much pressure, and he will eventually explode like Patrick Roy and move on to the newly moved (to Phoenix) Arizona franchise.
But that luxury should at least be available. No matter what, a healthy Carey Price makes this team better. He makes any team better. A Sharks team with Carey Price is already in the Cup Finals. A Penguins team with Carey Price has no controversy. Well, not every team. Crawford still has two more cups than Price.
Having Price will make the Habs better, but there shouldn’t be as much pressure moving forward if the Habs want to win. Allowing Price to enter the game when he wasn’t 100% cost them another injury, and that won’t change if the Habs don’t change themselves.
This is a team that doesn’t need to mature. It doesn’t need a five year rebuild plan. It needs a systems check and a depth overhaul a new coach could provide, and they need to realize what they have in Carey Price and not abuse him. The simple answer for the Habs is that Michel Therrien isn’t getting the job done, and probably never will. The hard answer is that the entire way they play hockey needs a reboot, and that some areas of the team are in need of more focus.