The Montreal Canadiens are staring down a 7-game losing streak and the potential of a written-off season before October even expires. The Canadiens have one win in their eight total games played this year and are currently sitting in 30th overall in the league. That’s only one spot better than the winless Coyotes. BREAKING NEWS: … that’s not very good.
I’m sure Canadiens players and fans alike are thinking ‘hey, it’s early. Lots of time to make up for a few losses.’ Well, I wouldn’t go that far. If it was a couple tight losses than yeah, maybe. The problem I see with Montreal is their overall futility on the ice. They a sucking in a variety of areas.
Take for instance their bright, shiny star Carey Price. The Canadiens have resorted Mr. Price to a below average goaltender. Price is currently boasting a not-so-enviable .881 save percentage and 3.94 goals-against average. Carey Price is a not a sub-.900 goalie. Not even close.
Statistically, the Canadiens are absolutely terrible thus far. I can’t emphasize this enough – they are woeful. They rank dreadfully low in most of the telling stat categories.
Their powerplay is converting at an abysmal 9.4%, good for 28th in the league. Further to this embarrassment, they are the league’s last-ranked team for overall goals-for at 1.50. Last place. Dead friggin’ last. There are European Football clubs that score on average more than the Canadiens. Good grief.
As exampled by reducing Carey Price to the effectiveness of a damaged shooter tutor, the Canadiens are no better defensively. Their penalty-kill is 28th in the league while they are giving up an average of 4.13 goals per game. Now, I understand I’m no scholar, nor am I handsome for that matter, but if you’re averaging 1.5 goals per game while allowing an average of 4+ goals per game, that right there is a recipe for disaster. This is not just a losing streak, this is a code red emergency.
The ONLY thing the Canadiens seem to be doing correctly at all is putting pucks on net. And by only thing, I really do mean only thing. Despite ranking 2nd in the league in shots-for, they still can’t buy a goal as described above. Meaning they either have a bunch of Pee-Wee players whiffing pucks at the opposition or they are statistically scoring at an insanely low conversion rate. There’s a chance this regulates itself, but that’s not a foregone conclusion.
Add all these factors up and you have one helluva stinky hockey team. Sure it’s early in the season, but there is a grocery list of items the Canadiens need to turn around and turn around in a hurry. I don’t see any of this happening and would bank on massive management changes before anything positive starts to happen on the ice.
