For those of us who watched Saturday night's game against the Maple Leafs, the writing is clearly on the wall. Montreal may make the playoffs, but even if they do, they will not survive the first round.
The problems are manifold. Some are the fault of the general manager, some of the coach, some of Providence, and some are the fault of the players.
Bob Gainey deserves a large share of the blame for bad timing. Last year, Montreal was in an excellent position to deal for game-breakers who would put the team over the top. The team had excellent chemistry and was mysteriously free of injuries. Gainey opted instead to trade a veteran goaltender in favor of an untested rookie, and stopped at that. The iron was hot, and Gainey sat on his ass. Some may defend Gainey and say that perhaps another part of a deal fell through, or that the price was too high for players like Hossa or Richards. Those people need to remember that this a results-oriented business. If Bob Gainey cannot be relied upon to deliver a timely deal that makes the team a Cup favorite, or even recognize the prudent time to do so, then perhaps Montreal should consider hiring someone else as general manager.
Guy Carbonneau's tenure as coach has been an enigma, one that is slowly starting to come into focus. And the picture is not pretty. Guy Carbonneau seems to have a habit of getting the very worst out of his players when they should be giving their very best. You could consider Michael Ryder's miserable season last year, one in which he was playing for a new contract, was an aberration. Typically, players in the last year of a contract perform extremely well. But there's always an exception to the rule. So be it. One could also consider that Sergei Samsonov, a highly-touted free-agent signing, just had a bad year when he came to Montreal and scored all of 26 points. One could then look at Alexei Kovalev and consider that his lackluster season, playing in the final year of a contract, has been an aberration as well.
My point is that all of these sub-par performances are not aberrations at all. They are instead a disturbing trend. When searching for causal relationships, one has to look at common factors. The most obvious common factor linking Samsonov, Ryder, and Kovalev, is the coach, Guy Carbonneau. I submit that as coach, he has been unable to motivate players who should otherwise excel.
Carbonneau's sins go far beyond his inability to motivate his best players. He has shown a total lack of ability in line management, preferring instead to mix them up at the first sign of a slump. He has actively prevented players from developing any long-lasting chemistry. There is a fine balance in line-juggling. Some combinations that should make sense just don't work out, no matter how long the players stay together. That's true, but to expect success when players have no idea whom they they will be playing with from one day to another is foolish.
Carey Price is an interesting one to call. He has been perhaps the most analyzed member of the Canadiens organization recently, and his problems are renowned. My understanding is that he has three major flaws in his game.
The first is his positioning. On Saturday night he was obviously playing far too deep in his net. This is typical of a timid goalie, and is something Price will have to work on.
Price's second problem is his weak glove hand. Teams are exploiting it more and more, and Price must fix it soon.
Price's first two problems are his own fault, but the third comes from bad coaching. Roland Melanson, Montreal's goaltending coach, has a habit of turning out goalies whose scouting report always contains the caveat "goes down too early." Granted, practically half of the NHL's goalies have that same problem. But Price did not come to Melanson that way. Price plays (or played) a hybrid style that emphasizes his large frame, where he stays up for more shots. Melanson and Price seem to be at odds on technique. Some games, one can see Price playing on his feet, while in others, he goes down for every single shot. Saturday night was one of the latter, and Price looked terrible. An NHL Network commentator said that Price is playing small these days, using the butterfly excessively. In order to be succesful, Price needs to start playing HIS game, not Roland Melanson's. I don't know what goes on behind closed doors, but it seems Melanson needs to have more of a give-and-take relationship with Price, not a dominant, "do what I say" one.
Montreal seems to have caught injury bug in a bad way. They've fought through as well as could be hoped for, but it's starting to catch up to them,. Latendresse, Lang, and Tanguay are out, and Koivu, Price, Komisarek, and Higgins have had their seasons interrupted. Mama said there'd be seasons like this. But dammit, Bob Gainey should have realized that he had a rare opportunity last year with his freakishly healthy team. Spilt milk now.
Finally, the players do share much of the blame for what happens on the ice. Two immediate problems are that the defense has been extremely poor, and everyone is making passes into each other's skates. When they are passing well, it seems the Habs are always making one pass too many.
I'll go out on a very thin limb here and say that I hope Montreal does NOT make the playoffs this year. I love the Canadiens. I want the best for them. But right now, I feel a case of tough love coming on. I want them to fail and LEARN from their failures. Bob Gainey, Guy Carbonneau, and the entire team have to come to terms with their weaknesses and work on them. It is that sort of soul-crushing failure that forces a person to re-evaluate his decisions. It seems like that's the only way Bob Gainey will learn when and how to make a trade, or that Guy Carbonneau will discover good coaching, or that Melanson will see that his way is not always the best way, or that the players will re-tool their game.
No comments:
Post a Comment