The exhausted Montreal Canadiens failed to improve on their second-worst win record tonight in St. Louis. With more than half of the club injured, the Blues beat the Canadiens 4-1, their sixth consecutive loss.
Wilde Horses
The Canadiens needed seven minutes in the first period to fire their first shot. They had six in the first 20 minutes. And that was a good period.
In the second frame, it was 12 and a half minutes before Montreal finally fired for the first time. It was a weak 35 foot Nick Suzuki doll. Montreal had 12 shots after two periods.
It looked like this segment was going to be empty. They didn’t make a significant play in the first 40 minutes, but then Montreal scored their first goal in six periods.
Alexander Romanov slid from the spot about 15 feet to score on a 30-foot wrist shot. Ryan Poehling set him up for assistance. It wasn’t the biggest goal in the world, but it was the first since Tuesday, so I sure felt it.
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Wild goats
Cole Caufield needs to shoot a lot more than he has done so far. It was obvious to any observer that Caufield couldn’t get as many shots in the NHL as he did in college hockey, but the drop has been significant.
Caufield was able to make nearly six distance shots per game, on average, in Wisconsin. It’s part of the reason he scored at near goal-per-game rate and won the Hobey Baker Trophy for best college hockey player.
Caufield scored 30 times on 165 shots in his final season for the Badgers in 31 games. That’s a clip of 18 as a percentage of shots. No NHL player achieves 18 percent shooting over an extended period of time. The goal is too good.
However, for Caufield to fall so significantly does not make sense. Caufield has one goal for 40 shots this season in the NHL. That is a percentage of about two. Historically, shooting percentages don’t drop from 18 to two, from college to the pros. That is an unheard of fall.
As Caufield finds the net, you can expect goals to come, because he has an excellent shot. If his percentage were even respectable, around ten percent, Caufield would have four goals this season.
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There is a secondary problem for Caufield so far this season and it is a drop in his shots per game, which has gone from six to two. That means he is not around the net and is not in shooting positions. It means that it is on the outside and it is being neutralized. That is the problem that Caufield has to correct.
However, one contrast to this is that Caufield needs help correcting it. You can’t make six shots a game when your head coach only plays it for ten minutes. Caufield also can’t correct this when Dominique Ducharme doesn’t use him in the power play regularly. Ultimately, Caufield cannot correct this problem when his linemates are minor league players, and he is on the fourth row of a club that is scoring at a rate of just two per game.
Caufield will need help in his “professional development”. It has long been argued that the Canadiens are terrible at the professional development aspect of creating a winning team. This is example ‘A’.
However, it would be best not to get nervous about this lousy rookie season for Caufield. Your shooting percentage will move from two to ten percent. He has too good a shot for that not to happen. Your shots per game will go up from two to four when playing with better players, on a better team, getting some ice time and some power play time.
If Caufield played 82 games in a season with good players and powerful playing time, hitting four shots per game with a shooting percentage of ten, his goal total would be 32. I’m not sure anyone can see that total right now. . . But you should certainly look forward to it when your surroundings are better. Caufield will eventually find something significantly better than this start to his NHL career.
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Wilde’s Letters
If the Montreal Canadiens are having a hard time winning games these days, it may be because they are not really the Montreal Canadiens. There are 11 regulars who are out of the lineup right now. It’s a phenomenal number.
Jake Evans became the latest addition to the list, joining Christian Dvorak, Tyler Toffoli, Josh Anderson, Paul Byron, Jeff Petry, Joel Edmundson, Shea Weber, Brendan Gallagher, Sami Niku, and Carey Price.
Those aren’t exactly minor players in this organization. They are the most important players. Only one of their top four defenders is in the lineup: Ben Chiarot. Of last year’s group of forwards who made it to the Stanley Cup final, out of the first three rows, only Nick Suzuki is playing right now. A boy.
On Saturday afternoon, the Canadiens announced that Toffoli will be out for eight weeks as he had his hand done earlier this week. Toffoli was second on the team in points when he fell from injury.
Brian Wilde, a Montreal-based sports writer, brings you Call of the Wilde on globalnews.ca after every Canadiens game.
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