The Detroit Red Wings will face off against the Montreal Canadiens tomorrow (7 PM EDT on Bally Sports Detroit Plus/TSN2/RDS/97.1 FM), and, in an ideal world, the 4-3-and-1 Red Wings—who dropped a 6-1 decision to Montreal exactly one week ago–will absolutely pounce on the 2-and-8 Canadiens.
The Habs are in trouble. Having most recently dropped a 4-2 decision to the Anaheim Ducks on Sunday, and they instituted a Montreal-wide panic by demoting Cole Caufield to the AHL on Monday in an effort to get the still-Calder Trophy-favorite rookie’s confidence back. Montreal coach Dominique Ducharme explained the move to NHL.com’s Sean Farrell:
The 20-year-old forward has one assist in 10 games this season. His 22 shots are tied for second on the Canadiens with Joel Armia, behind Josh Anderson‘s 27.
“He was touching the puck like he was a little bit on his heels, not as confident and dynamic with the puck,” Canadiens coach Dominique Ducharme said. “He had a few good looks at the net, but just squeezing the stick a bit. So just to have him have good ice time, just gaining confidence, scoring a few goals, finding his game.”
The Canadiens are 2-8-0 and host the Detroit Red Wings on Tuesday (7 p.m. ET; TSN2, RDS, BSDET+, ESPN+, NHL LIVE).
Ducharme said Boston Bruins forwards Brad Marchand and David Pastrnak are examples of those who went through similar experiences.
“We really think highly of him,” Ducharme said. “You look back and you see guys like Marchand, Pastrnak and those guys early in their career that needed to go through those kinds of things and came back and became really good players. And that’s what we believe in Cole for the future. I think down the line it’s going to help him out.”
Ducharme isn’t wrong–Caufield is undoubtedly still a 30-goal-scorer in the making, and he just happens to have been playing on a team with zero confidence (except for the night that they played the Red Wings), so there’s no harm in sending Caufield down, save the fact that it is Montreal, and, like Toronto, the fan base and media over-analyze everything (in two languages).
The Habs have more problems than simply needing to demote Caufield to the AHL, however; they’ve lost Mathieu Perreault, who scored a hat trick against the Wings last Tuesday, to an eye injury; Cedric Paquette was also suspended for 2 games for smearing Trevor Zegras into the boards in Anaheim.
As the Montreal Gazette’s Stu Cowan suggests, sending Caufield down to the AHL is necessary for a sinking ship:
The Canadiens made the right decision Monday when they sent Cole Caufield down to the AHL’s Laval Rocket.
Nothing is going right for the Canadiens, who have a 2-8 record, their worst start to a season since 1941-42, when they were 1-8-1.
Following Sunday’s 4-2 loss to the Anaheim Ducks, the Canadiens were 30th in the overall NHL standings, ahead of only the Chicago Blackhawks (0-7-2) and Arizona Coyotes (0-8-1). They ranked 30th in goal differential (minus-15), 29th on the power play (11.1 per cent), 30th in penalty-killing (65 per cent), 31st in average shots per game (27) and 32nd in faceoffs (43.8 per cent).
The Canadiens simply aren’t a good team and it’s already pretty certain they won’t make the playoffs. The last time there was a full 82-game NHL season in 2018-19, it took 98 points to make it in the Eastern Conference. In order to reach 98 points this season, the Canadiens would need 94 points in their last 72 games — a record equivalent to 45-23-4.
Cowan also took note of the other absences in the Habs’ Monday practice lineup…
Paquette took part in Monday’s practice at the Bell Sports Complex in Brossard, but forward Brendan Gallagher and defenceman Jeff Petry did not. After practice, head coach Dominique Ducharme said Gallagher, who missed Sunday’s game with an injury, and Petry could both miss Tuesday’s game. They will be game-day decisions.
Mathieu Perreault, who missed Sunday’s game with an eye injury, will be sidelined for 2-3 weeks.
Earlier on Monday, the Canadiens sent forward Cole Caufield down to the AHL’s Laval Rocket and called up forward Michael Pezzetta.
With Paquette and Perreault now sidelined, head coach Dominique Ducharme moved Jonathan Drouin to centre at practice Monday on a line with Mike Hoffman and Josh Anderson. Jake Evans moved up to the first line on left wing with Nick Suzuki at centre and Tyler Toffoli on right wing.
So Montreal lined up as follows for practice on Monday, per Cowan:
Here’s how the forward lines and defence pairings looked at Monday’s practice:
Evans – Suzuki – Toffoli
Hoffman – Drouin – Anderson
Lehkonen – Dvorak – Armia
Pezzetta – Brooks – PaquetteChiarot – Romanov
Kulak – Savard
Norlinder – Wideman/Niku
As for the new guy in town, the Canadiens’ website explained how Michael Pezzetta might help the team:
Pezzetta will likely make his NHL debut on Tuesday night when the Canadiens open a five-game homestand against the Detroit Red Wings at the Bell Centre. The 23-year-old winger was a training camp standout and excelled in the preseason, and the Habs’ brass clearly took notice.
While he was ultimately assigned to Laval to begin the year, Pezzetta didn’t get down on himself, focusing instead on being a valuable asset for the Rocket on a consistent basis.
“My mindset was just to bring the momentum that I had from camp and bring that down into my game there,” mentioned Pezzetta, who has six points (3 goals, 3 assists) in eight games this season. “I thought I did a good job of that, kept my identity, and made sure I played the same way and showed that I can chip in in different areas of the game.”
If you’re curious about the Habs’ Monday practice chats with the media, here are Jonathan Drouin, Pezzetta and coach Ducharme’s media availabilities:
As for tomorrow night’s game, Field Level Media sets up the Wings-Habs affair as follows:
The Montreal Canadiens will try for a repeat of one of their few season highlights when they host the Detroit Red Wings on Tuesday night.
The Canadiens routed Detroit 6-1 on Oct. 23, a game also held in Montreal. That one-sided result was the Canadiens’ first victory of the season, and it stands as one of just two wins for the Habs in their nightmarish 2-8-0 start.
A four-game West Coast trip saw three more losses added to the Canadiens’ tally, including a 4-2 setback to the Anaheim Ducks on Sunday. The game was tied heading into the final 10 minutes before the Ducks scored twice to seal the victory.
It seemed as though Montreal forward Nick Suzuki was starting to heat up with four assists in his previous three games, but Suzuki said Sunday was “probably one of my worst games,” and the frustration over his team’s start is evident.
“We’ve definitely dug ourselves a hole. … We haven’t done a great job of being consistent every single night,” Suzuki said. “That’s got to change. I feel like we’ve been talking about it a lot, but on the ice, something has got to change, and we have to be better.”
Facing the Red Wings has often been the cure for what has ailed the Canadiens in recent years. Dating to the 2013-14 season, Montreal is 20-7-1 in its last 28 games against Detroit.
That 20-7-and-1 mark is scary, no matter how you slice it, and if you want to revisit Sunday’s Habs loss to Anaheim before we move forward, I can suggest the Associated Press’s recap, NHL.com’s recap (with stats available), and you may watch the Sportsnet highlight clip from yesterday’s game if you wish:
For the Red Wings, last week’s 6-1 loss to Montreal was a wake-up call, and Monday was not an ideal day from a personnel standpoint.
As already posted here, the Wings practiced without Dylan Larkin on Monday, Tyler Bertuzzi is unavailable until Thursday due to his COVID vaccination status, and Adam Erne got back on the ice after blocking a couple of shots in Friday’s OT loss to Florida.
The Red Wings spoke with the media on Monday, again, as previously noted, with Filip Zadina and coach Blashill fielding questions…
Coach Blashill told MLive’s Ansar Khan that the Wings are concerned about having given up too many goals of late…
“I think we’ve given up too many goals,” coach Jeff Blashill said. “Over the last couple of years, we’ve looked at our underlying numbers defensively. They’ve been better than they are as we sit here today. Sometimes that’s just the way the games are. The games can get a little bit wild. The other night I thought we gave up too many easy goals against. We can’t give up easy goals against and expect to win on a consistent basis.”
Blashill said Saturday’s 5-4 loss in Toronto was one of his team’s more porous games defensively in a while. They traded too many chances. Breakdowns led to open players in prime scoring areas.
“We got to make sure we tighten up,” Blashill said. “We can’t give up as many chances as we gave up.”
The Red Wings rank 30th out of 32 teams in goals-against per game (3.44), after finishing 20th last season (3.00).
The Red Wings (4-3-2) visit Montreal Tuesday (7 p.m., Bally Sports Detroit Plus), returning to the site of their worst performance of the season just 10 days before in a 6-1 loss to a team that was 0-5-0. The Canadiens (2-8-0) continue to struggle, coming off a 1-3-0 West Coast trip.
“Our guys aren’t watching them play on a consistent basis, or watching their record, or anything like that,” Blashill said. “What they have fresh in their minds is we got our butts kicked in here last time. So, we better come ready to play with a great sense of urgency. In this building, momentum matters. So, you better do a good job of not giving up easy chances, because every time you give up a chance, that momentum builds in this building. You better make sure that when you do give up a chance, it’s not a second and a third and a fourth right away. You have to find ways to quell that momentum. The best way to do that is to play in their end as much as possible and make them defend.”
The Free Press’s Helene St. James framed Blashill and Zadina‘s remarks as follows…
The Wings (4-3-2) had, on the whole, a good October. They played competitively, showed fortitude when they trailed, and rolled four lines and three defense pairings. Blashill described the offense (3.22 goals-per-game average) as “not bad” and the power play (15.2%) as “hasn’t been great, but hasn’t been bad.” His biggest concern is that, “I think we’ve given up too many goals.”
Of the 31 goals surrendered, nine have come during the 34 times the Wings have been shorthanded.
“I actually think our PK has been pretty good,” Blashill said. “We’re improving in our structure on our PK forecheck. My gut (feeling) is generally if you can stay with it even when the goals go in on the PK, if the process is good and you can stay with it, it will even out. I believe that will happen with our PK. Certainly the number of times you give teams power plays, you’re playing with fire. It’s something we’ve talked about since the beginning of the season, is staying out of the box.”
The flip side is making the most of man advantages. Filip Zadina leads the team with two power-play goals after converting against the Maple Leafs, when he connected on a pass by rookie defenseman Moritz Seider for a second time this season.
“It was great to score the goal,” Zadina said. “It gave me more confidence going forward.”
Zadina always draws a little more scrutiny when he plays in Montreal, because when the Canadians didn’t pick him at No. 3 in the 2018 draft, he vowed to “fill the nets” of those who passed on him. He has one goal in five career meetings, and says at this point, he views it as another game. He is trying to take more shots on net, and has looked more dangerous on power plays because he has been set up numerous times by Seider’s slick puck work.
“He’s passing the puck well,” Zadina said. “He sees the options where he can make a pass. He sees the right timing for the pass and it’s easy for us to put the puck on net and create chances.”
And Blashill made sure to point out that the Bell Centre is its own animal, as Detroit Hockey Now’s Bob Duff noted:
“In this building ,they could be 8-0 or 0-8. It doesn’t matter,” Blashill said. “In this building momentum matters. You had better do a good job of not giving up easy chances…Every time you give up a chance the momentum builds in this building.”
If you give up a second, third or fourth chance, you suddenly feel like you are being overrun. Montreal fans can help the Canadiens. Players all know that.
“You have to find ways to quell that momentum,” Blashill said. “The best way to do that is to play in their end as much as possible Make them defend.”
Blashill’s group will have to play Montreal again without Tyler Bertuzzi. He can’t play any games in Canada because he is the NHL’s lone non-vaccinated player. Canada’s regulations prohibits non-vaccinated people to cross the border. The Red Wings are 0-2 playing without Bertuzzi. He will rejoin the team Wednesday in Boston. He has been skating on his own in Detroit.
Dylan Larkin didn’t practice Monday. Blashill called it a maintenance day.
Rookie Joe Veleno will be in Detroit’s lineup, his second game since being called up to replace Bertuzzi. Blashill thought he started slowly against Toronto. “(But) I thought by the end of the night he looked pretty good,” Blashill said.
I’ll have more on Veleno in a couple of minutes…
And if you’re looking for a sidebar story, St. James hinted at it, and the Detroit News’s Ted Kulfan took it on:
Filip Zadina made headlines in 2018 when the Wings selected him sixth overall in the NHL Entry Draft. He vowed to “fill their nets” with pucks,” referring to Montreal and Ottawa, two teams that passed on him.
Three years later, only a small segment of Canadiens fans remember his boast. Zadina has moved on as well.
“I said what I said when I was drafted,” Zadina said. “I’m going into this game like every game, same mindset. Just do my best, help the team and try to win a game. And score some goals.”
Zadina scored his second goal of the season Saturday, a power-play goal one-timer off a feed from Moritz Seider. Zadina hopes that will trigger a streak.
“It was great to score the goal, it gave me a bit more confidence moving forward,” Zadina said. “I’m trying to shoot the puck more on net than I did last season. Good things happen when you shoot at the puck, rebound, and create chances for the next shift. So I’m trying to shoot the puck.”
