Call of the Wilde: Montreal Canadiens lose their way and beat St. Louis Blues – Montreal

With just two wins in their first seven games, the Montreal Canadiens were approaching crunch time on Saturday night. It wasn’t supposed to be this way, but inexperience and injuries are the main plot points of the season.

At the Bell Centre, the Canadiens needed a win against the St. Louis Blues, and they played with a lead to get it, 5-2.

Wild horses

This one will bring a huge sigh of relief to upper management and owners. They need Kirby Dach to find his game. There is no immediate solution in the lineup if Dach cannot recover after major knee surgery.

If Dach is not viable on either of the first two lines, the rebuild will mean a huge step backwards. No one knows how quickly a player can recover from ACL and MCL surgery. In fact, no one even knows if a player can recover 100 percent at all.

There are no guarantees that the knee will feel the same. That the player can also skate. That the strength comes back completely. Modern medicine is now more on the player’s side, but there are no guarantees.

When Dach started the season unable to break free with speed and carry the puck up the ice, the concerns on the seventh floor must have been intense. That’s why this one felt good all the way to Geoff Molson’s office.

Dach looked like his old self for the first time. He scored his first goal in 583 days when he fired home a rebound in front of the net. His second point was even better. On the power play, he took a hard pass from Mike Matheson and one-timed it to Alex Newhook, who counted.

Dach sat on the end of his bench with a satisfied look after his second point. Martin St. Louis walked the length of the bench and gave him a hearty pat on the back. The gesture increases the meaning of the moment.

This was a big game. Dach took his first steps back to his old self. Breathe a sigh of relief.

Another big positive is that the goals keep coming for Cole Caufield. He ripped a shot in the third period for his seventh goal in eight games. The last 40-goal scorer for the Canadiens was Vincent Damphousse in 1994. You have to like the pace Caufield is keeping to break the 30-year drought.

Wild Goats

The Canadiens’ coverage is terrible at times defensively. There are so many occasions when no one has a husband.

On the second Blues goal, after Logan Mailloux failed to dump the puck and Matheson fell and lost a lead, the Canadiens still had not conceded a goal. However, play continued in Montreal’s zone and fouls increased. Four players were in front of the net, but no one grabbed a man when the Blues finally scored.

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The Canadiens don’t seem to know their assignments defensively, or they can’t complete their assignments.

The only certainty is that a Blues player can’t stand alone in front of the net while Caufield, Nick Suzuki, Matheson and Mailloux just stare at him as he takes a bite for an easy goal. Defenders are not allowed to follow the puck. They need to check on someone.

When the Canadiens pulled off that improbable run to the Stanley Cup Final, you could count on one hand the strange rushes they gave up throughout the series. In this group you will no longer have digits on all your limbs at the second break.

They want to create attacks, but that should not be at the expense of basic defense. When a Montreal defender has gone deep, an attacker must take up defensive space if there is a bad outcome. This simple mistake is made again and again.

They worked much harder on this one. They had a much bigger lead. They were hungry. However, they are not always coherent. Let’s stick to experience. This is not an indictment on the head coach if he struggles to play good defense.

This is the youngest hockey team in the NHL. A blue lining peaks at age 29. These babies still have a lot to learn. Even the attackers who miss their assignments face the same problems. It’s part ‘don’t know’ and part ‘forgot’. It comes with experience and time.

They will get it. They have the pedigree. They all excelled in college or junior year. Most are first round draft picks or second round picks. It’s going to get better. It’ll just take some time. These guys have the goods. They’ve always had the goods.

Wild cards

It becomes clear that reports of rapid reconstruction were greatly exaggerated. When defensemen reach their peak at age 29 and most of Montreal’s blue line doesn’t even have a hundred games of experience, there’s still a long way to go.

It’s likely the Canadiens will have a lot more time for forwards to join the mix while the big young talent on defense learns their craft. One or even two top-15 picks could be on the horizon in June, with Montreal owning Calgary’s first-round pick.

Moreover, the first rounds of last summer certainly seem to be at the beginning of this 2024-2025 campaign. Ivan Demidov was just selected by ESPN as the best player not in the NHL. He has already torn it up this year in the Russian KHL.

Demidov leads the KHL in points per 60 minutes with 4.61. That’s almost double the next best. That doesn’t mean he leads the league in scoring, far from it. It means he barely gets a shift and when he does he collects a point.

Demidov occasionally only gets five minutes of ice per game from his head coach, who seems to have another agenda besides winning. Despite only getting five minutes, Demidov has 16 points in 20 games. That is four points less than the lead in the league.

His head coach indicated he would get more ice time if he were better defensively. Demidov is a plus-16. That is the first among attackers in the competition. I’m not sure how much better Roman Rotenberg needs him to be on defense. Rotenberg is actually a Russian oligarch first and foremost. Maybe he should go back to that and leave the hockey coaching to hockey people.

The best total points per game in KHL history the season after he was drafted is held by Matvei Michkov with 41 points in 49 games. Demidov disputes that number. If his head coach ever finds his marbles, Demidov could become the first point-per-game player in league history to finish the season after being drafted.

Montreal’s other first rounder, Michael Hage, also excels. Hage plays for the Wolverines at Michigan University. It is a club that does not have much talent this year. Hage is their leading point-getter, which is quite an accomplishment for a player in his draft plus one season.

Hage has seven points from six games. All his goals are absolute beauty, as he has the ability to weave through traffic and create moments of glory. In fact, both Canadiens June picks have superior puck skills than anyone on the roster currently if they continue to develop at this rate.

Demidov is the Canadiens’ first prospect who looks like they will have point-per-game stats and even reach the century mark in a good season. Hage looks much better than a 21st overall pick, which is a 50-50 proposition in the draft that a player even makes the league; let alone excelling at it.

So while it has been frustrating for Canadiens fans to see the start of the season, the management team continues to build excellent talent.

4:55
Call of the Wild

4:59
Call of the Wilde: hockey season returns!

Montreal sportswriter Brian Wilde brings you Call of the Wilde on globalnews.ca after every Canadiens game.