Anticipation
The holidays and the NHL trade deadline are all about anticipation
Note: This is part two of a post I started one month ago. I originally planned to send it sooner, but I noticed some trends I wanted to follow, and then of course everything got busy with both youth and high school hockey as well as the holidays. So I updated and rewrote the whole thing.
Ketchup
Anticipation is both a human emotion and a cultural trait. If you are of a certain age, thinking about the word anticipation recalls the jingle from Carly Simon’s song “Anticipation” for Heinz ketchup. I had forgotten this version of the commercial, which is ridiculous, even by 1970s standards.
The Holidays
The year-end holidays are also all about anticipation. Kids anticipate a haul of gifts. Families and friends anticipate celebrations. And of course, retailers anticipate everyone getting caught up in the holiday spirit and loading up on stuff. The anticipation is always high, but somehow, by Christmas and then New Year’s Day, time seems to have flown by.
It isn’t like this year’s holiday season felt somehow extended. On Halloween at 8 p.m., having just run out of candy at home, I saw the clerks at my neighborhood CVS busy swapping out Halloween candy for Christmas-themed red, white, and green candy. Many stores, including Home Depot and Lowe's, were quick to get their holiday stuff out on display right after Halloween. Even buildings in New York were lighted and decorated earlier this year. Only a few waited until Thanksgiving.
On To The Next Holiday
What was weird, however, was the weekend before Christmas, seeing that some stores had already moved on from the holidays. I figured they would be trying to squeeze out every last drop of holiday cheer, especially with last minute shoppers rushing to buy gifts. In our local Target, the cat-themed men’s Christmas pajamas, which were not to my taste, were no longer prominently displayed at the entrance of the store. The holiday stuff was confined to another, less prominent area. And yes, by Christmas Eve, the holiday candy in CVS had been swapped out for Valentine’s Day chocolates.
New Year’s Eve is also about anticipation. Many cities and communities celebrate with parties and fireworks. Television heightens the anticipation of the annual countdown. It is a chance to celebrate the start of a new year. As the clock strikes midnight, we all have that moment of anticipation, hoping that the next year will be better than the last.
Anticipation And The Habs
Re-reading the preseason predictions for the Canadiens, the expectations were that the team would be near the bottom of the league, vying for a top lottery pick again. A few experts predicted that the team's defense, which was loaded with young defensemen, would be its weakest link. They felt that the forwards overall would be decent, benefiting from veteran players who had been injured.
My gut feeling was and still is that the team will finish slightly above or below 500. I base that primarily on coaching, and I think the defense will be better than expected. Watching Chris Nilan’s The Raw Knuckles podcast interviews with Jordan Harris and Arber Xhekaj, you get a sense of how well they are adapting to the NHL and that they have that desire to continuously learn, which is a key trait both Jeff Gorton and Kent Hughes have cited in their media interviews.
You Don’t Always Need Advanced Analytics
The Canadiens have not been good all season. Yes, they have been exciting, but not good. One well known columnist, in a fit of joy after an overtime win, speculated that the team may be a buyer instead of a seller at the trade deadline. Fat chance. The issues exposed during the losing streak have been lurking for a good part of the season.
As of today, the Canadiens are 15-20-3. Of those 15 wins, only 8 have been in regulation and half of them have been since November 1st. The Habs were either chasing or coughing up a lead where they earned at least a point in 10 of the team's overtime games, or 26% of the total. That is not sustainable, successful hockey.
One Effective Line
The team has been playing with one effective line. The top three scorers on the team are Nick Suzuki, Cole Caufield, and Kirby Dach, who mostly play together. The team’s fourth leading scorer, Sean Monahan, has missed the last 15 games.
Many commentators do not like the plus-minus statistic, calling it misleading. However, it can show an interesting snapshot of a group’s performance. Take note of how Josh Anderson, Jonathan Drouin, and Christian Dvorak have three of the top four worst plus/minus ratings over the last month.
You don’t need deep analysis to know that the rest of the forwards are not pulling their weight. The team is like an empty sandwich with a top line and a fourth line but nothing in between. Even if you move Kirby Dach to second line center, he has no effective wingers. Besides Dach, other than Sean Monahan, no other player has worked well with Nick Suzuki and Cole Caufield.
Attention To Detail
Anyone with enough experience playing or watching ice hockey knows that hockey is an attention-to-detail sport. You cannot be lazy and successful. Player "buy in" is consistently heard around successful teams.
In December, the Habs played the Lightning twice, losing both games. The game commentators spoke of commitment and attention to detail by the Lightning players, and it was a cornerstone of how the team built a winning program. Watching Steven Stamkos and Nikita Kucherov consistently backcheck explains why the Lightning have played in the last three Stanley Cup finals, winning two of them.
On the Other Hand
In many of the Canadiens’ games this season, commitment has not been universal among the players. It is easy to pick out the mistakes of the younger players, but those are expected and should be corrected.
The more pernicious issue is the sometimes-poor performance of the veterans. They are the ones who should know better and are supposed to lead by example. Below are two Christian Dvorak examples. I am not picking on him per se, but those are two plays that stuck out to me during the last few weeks. Given the 32 goals the team has surrendered since its last win in Arizona, I could point out plenty of examples.
Play #1
On December 28th, against the Lightening, surrounded by Canadiens Brayden Point actually scored on this play. Notice in the video or the screenshots below Christian Dvorak losing the puck battle, despite initially being in a good position.
Play #2
Consider this play in the Canadiens’ game in Arizona on rookie Matias Maccelli’s goal. Watching the play, Dvorak did not mark Maccelli at the start of the breakout, and was left in his dust on Nick Lawson Crouse’s bounce pass after a long first pass across the red line by Jakob Chychrun.
Sure, the Canadiens won the game overtime after jumping out to a 2–1 lead. But it took a herculean effort by Samuel Montembeault to make it to overtime with the Habs outshot by the Coyotes 39 to 26.
Fanticipation
With the Canadiens mired in a losing streak as the calendar has turned and Canada playing well at the World Junior Ice Hockey Championships (WJC), predictably, fans have shifted back into anticipation mode. Social media is filled with fantasies about the trade deadline, drooling over the team’s prospects, and dreams over the team’s potential draft position. Press credentialed Blain Potvin, busy with his coverage of the WJC, and the rest of The Hockey Writers crew are on top of the ins and outs of the trade rumors and keeping a close eye on prospects and potential draftees.
The Knowns
There is always a lot of noise whipping around the Habsphere. At this point, we know exactly two things from the Canadiens’ senior management. Jeff Gorton said during his late September appearance on The Raw Knuckles Podcast, it was clear the team needed an offensive defenseman who can run the power play and eat a lot of minutes. Kent Hughes said in both English and French media interviews that the team would ideally like to have three first-round picks in the upcoming draft.
Some believe that Lane Hutson fits that offensive defenseman role. I'm sure he can quarterback a powerplay after watching him play, but eating a lot of minutes gives me slight pause at 5'9" and 155 lbs, according to his Boston University stats. As a comparison, Quinn Hughes of Vancouver is 5’10”, 180 lbs and Cale Makar of Colorado is 5’11”, 187 lbs. Even Cole Caufield at 5’7” weighs 174lbs. For Hutson, how he fills out will be the key to see where he eventually fits into the lineup.
What is also known is that, happily, Joshua Roy is a Canadiens prospect. His performance at the WJC is rightfully garnering attention. If you believe Mike Johnson’s comments after Canada’s semi-final win over the United States, he’ll be a great fit for Martin St. Louis (MSL).
Is That Third First Round Pick Realistic?
With the hockey media constantly blathering on how this is a generational draft, the most optimistic assume there is a playoff positioned GM willing to trade first round picks. Last year there were first round picks thrown around for rental players, particularly the Florida Panthers, which did not exactly work out. Will a GM make the same mistake this year? You can never discount dumb or desperate.
Do the Habs Have the Assets?
There are three obvious veterans on the roster that could fetch a trade return.
Josh Anderson: the prototypical power forward that the hockey media lauds during almost every game telecast. Maybe he’s worth a package that comes with a first round pick.
Joel Edmundson: a big defenseman and as we have learned repeatedly in the media, the team’s DJ. He has a balky back and historically plays better in a zone defensive system. It is worth noting some in the New York Ranger universe is a clamoring for a left-handed defenseman. The Rangers have an extra first round pick in the draft which came from Dallas in the Nils Lundkvist trade. But is he worth it?
Sean Monahan: Monahan is one of those players like Corey Perry that I used to wish was on the Canadiens. He is perfect for MSL’s system. Surprisingly Monahan is younger than Josh Anderson. He would be a rental and given his fragility, he’ll be worth something, but I am not sure a first.
The less obvious trade potentials
Christian Dvorak: He has a 52.4% face-off win percentage. Maybe a team will look past his meh play for a third line center, signed through 2024-25.
Calgary’s 2025 First Round Pick. A conditional pick. It was the inducement in the Sean Monahan trade. Maybe that is as asset that can be added to a deal.
Yeah, But What Do You Think?
The Canadiens’ schedule the last few weeks has been tough, and injuries are piling up. It is obvious the Canadiens are going to be sellers. The question remains who they will be able to move and for what return.
The team is last in their division and 27th in the league. Tankathon.com currently predicts the Habs’ number one draft pick odds at 7.5% for their own pick and 5.0% for Florida’s draft pick that was part of last season’s Ben Chiarot trade. We’ll see how it all turns out.