[Name of player] was injured in a [xx to xx] loss for the Canadian against [name of opponent].
Anyone who has at all followed the Habs’ activities for two years and watched Tuesday night’s match had an obvious feeling of déjà vu.
The Habs offered an embarrassing performance, marked in particular by incredible indiscipline, and left the Bell Center after losing 5 to 2 against the Minnesota Wild. The worst news, however, fell once the final siren was heard: Kirby Dach will no longer play this season.
His 2023-2024 season will therefore have been summed up in 27 appearances spread over some 26 minutes of play. Not even two small matches. His morale is relatively good in the circumstances, we are told, and he will remain with the club throughout the season.
Unsurprisingly, the CH head coach confirmed that he was “very disappointed”. “It’s flat for the player, it’s flat for the team. But the season continues,” he whispered.
It is indeed very, very flat for Dach, who presented himself at training camp with the presence of a center player capable of piloting an offensive trio with authority. Which he did during the preseason schedule, then for three and a half periods when it really mattered. In his fifth season in the NHL, this is the third injury that has forced him to be absent for a long period of time – his most serious to date, in fact.
Erasing his name from the Canadian’s attack also leads to a series of consequences within the club. Suddenly, the seemingly lasting offensive support that Nick Suzuki’s trio finally seemed to benefit from has just evaporated. Opposing teams will therefore be able to concentrate more on their coverage of the captain and his sidekick Cole Caufield.
On the power play, Josh Anderson took Dach’s place. Once we see that they are both right-handed and strong, the list of points in common stops short. It’s an instant step backwards for a squad that already wasn’t exactly a success story.
Martin St-Louis recalled that other players could accept increased responsibilities. Newhook, Sean Monahan, Christian Dvorak when he returns in November. “It’ll help to have options to fill out those lines. » This in the hope of taking pressure off the Suzuki unit.
“We don’t play until Saturday,” recalled the coach. We have time to try to find the right solution. »
This news, in the most cynical way possible, had the only advantage of making the match that the Habs had just played take second place.
Even after the worst defeats, Martin St-Louis hardly scratches his players. This time, however, he delivered a clear verdict: “Unacceptable. »
“You can’t take penalties like that in the offensive zone. You can’t,” he insisted.
“We’ve all played enough hockey to know that it’s the penalties that hurt,” added Brendan Gallagher. We have to be smarter than that. We got away with it in the first two games; This evening, we got burned. It’s up to us to learn and correct this. »
It’s not like indiscipline is new to this group. Last season, the first complete under the governance of St-Louis, the Habs were fifth among the most punished clubs in the league. Above all, he finished in 30th place for the differential between penalties received and those he had caused (-47). After three games in 2023-2024, he is already at -8!
But it’s not just that. Cohesion was at level zero on Tuesday. “We weren’t able to finish our plays or complete our passes. The whole team lacked synchronism,” summarized David Savard.
Add to that a complete ineffectiveness on the power play (0 for 5 Tuesday, 1 for 11 this season), and the result looks an awful lot like a bad movie in which the Habs have often played over the past year.
“It’s a match to forget,” concluded Savard. We will turn the page and try to see what we can do better. »
Since there are 79 games remaining, we must necessarily give this team the benefit of the doubt. Let us emphasize, however, that in terms of what she can do better, she is spoiled for choice.
It’s not over, and it doesn’t look like the best beginning. We are of course talking about injuries to the Canadian. After Kirby Dach on Saturday, it was the turn of another key element in the team’s revival, Kaiden Guhle, to fall in battle. It’s an upper body injury, the team revealed after the game. RDS released images of his last presence, where he underwent a relatively innocuous contact with Mats Zuccarello. Difficult to say if it was during this sequence that he was injured. Guhle, remember, missed 38 games with injuries last year.
You know that classic scene of Charlie Brown falling on his back while trying to kick a football? It was basically Johnathan Kovacevic in Tuesday’s match. The poor defender had at least four chances to take quality shots in the paying areas. It ended in a loss of the puck and two times where he was unable to shoot. And the time he was able to get his shot off, he was frustrated by Marc-André Fleury, who gave him his most spectacular save of the evening. Kovacevic has three points in three preparatory games, but his durability in the NHL will obviously not depend on his offensive contribution.
History stutters, one might say. The Canadian chose his moment to allow two goals during the same power play, which happened midway through the first period, when Brandon Duhaime and Connor Dewar scored 25 seconds apart while Ryan Hartman was in the penalty box . The last time the Habs allowed two goals during a power play? April 11, 2009, at the Bell Centre, against the Penguins. The Penguins goaltender that night? Marc-André Fleury, of course. One of the two scorers, Maxime Talbot, was in the locker room Tuesday after the match, to greet his former teammate. Another member of the Penguins from that 2009 game was Bill Guerin, general manager of the Wild. Crossed during an intermission, Guerin seemed amused when the story page was mentioned to him. “Of course I wasn’t one of the scorers,” said the man who had spent a grand total of 57 seconds on the ice shorthanded throughout the season.
He accomplished 100% of the work on his goal. A blocked shot in his zone, a counter-attack, a precise shot. The best individual action from the Canadian in this match.
Aborted games. Lost pucks. And two penalties in the opposing zone which led to two Wild goals. Nothing was working for him.
This is the number of victories the Canadian has won in his last 16 meetings against the Minnesota Wild. This unfortunate streak, which began on December 3, 2014, saw Flannel being dominated 62-23 in total goals scored.
