Canadiens' depth leads to Florida sweep, gets team back in the mix

TAMPA, Fla. — Depth was supposed to stand this Montreal Canadiens team up before it was knee-capped by Patrik Laine’s pre-season injury. This was a team built to rely on the sum of its parts, not one to be carried by a bona fide superstar or a line of potent scorers, and its ability to do that took a devastating hit when Toronto’s Cedric Pare crashed into the big Finn on that fateful night in September.

Laine’s return to action on Dec. 3 didn’t just bring an elite sniper back into the Canadiens’ fold, it activated what was supposed to be this team’s biggest strength from the start.

Hence an 8-4-0 record with Laine in the lineup.

He has done his part, no doubt, firing eight power-play goals into the net over those 12 games. But Laine’s mere presence has forced the opposition to divide its attention to what’s now a highly-diversified Canadiens attack, and that’s not particularly easy to do.

Ask the Tampa Bay Lightning, who fell 5-2 to the Canadiens on Sunday.

They have elite players in Nikita Kucherov, Brayden Point, Brandon Hagel, Anthony Cirelli and Victor Hedman, and they match up better than well against Laine, Nick Suzuki, Cole Caufield, Juraj Slafkovsky and Lane Hutson.

But the rest of the Lightning had no answer for Montreal’s bottom two lines, who combined for four goals and a 65 per cent share of the shot attempts at five-on-five.

“They’re doing their job, playing well defensively and getting rewarded for it,” said Suzuki. “Obviously, Tampa’s pretty top-heavy, and that makes it harder for them to defend those guys. They scored some big goals to help us win and they’ve been really good.”

They have been since the start of the season, really.

But it’s not a coincidence that Evans’ line, with Emil Heineman and Joel Armia, has been turning good play into consistent offence since December started. Nor is it a surprise to see Christian Dvorak and Brendan Gallagher finish with goals on plays linemate Josh Anderson started in Sunday’s game.  

“I feel we’re starting to really feel guys are in the right place now,” said Canadiens coach Martin St. Louis, “and we’re coming in waves.”

The trade of Justin Barron to Nashville for Alex Carrier two weeks ago might be enabling that on a different level than even the Canadiens would’ve hoped for when Laine was acquired in the summer. 

Put Carrier’s individual performance aside—and it’s been impressive, with him adding two assists on Sunday to give him four points in five games in a Canadiens uniform—his mere presence has created a similar effect on defence to the one Laine’s had on the offence.

“It’s allowed Guhles (Kaiden Guhle) to stay on the left side, and I think it’s solidified our pairs,” said St. Louis. “We really like Jacko (Arber Xhekaj) with Savy (David Savard), and on all the pairs, we have an older guy and a younger guy. I think everybody’s very comfortable, and they’re doing the job, and I think it’s brought us some consistency throughout those pairs because there’s less movement and there’s more continuity. So far, I really like what I see, and he’s been a big part of our success lately.”

It's success, as St. Louis noted, that wouldn’t be possible without the buy-in every player has had to the team game. 

As he said, individuals are playing unselfishly, they’re sacrificing for the benefit of the team, and they’re being compensated on the individual front just the same.

But that’s the byproduct of everyone occupying the chair they were meant to be occupying when this team was assembled.

“Everyone’s in their role, everyone’s very aware of what their responsibilities are,” said Mike Matheson, “and it’s bringing us success.”

It even brought the Canadiens success in a place where success has been beyond elusive for them.

For the first time since 2009, that depth the Canadiens currently possess pushed them to back-to-back wins on their annual post-Christmas trip to Florida. They had lost four consecutive post-holiday games against the Panthers before Saturday’s 4-0 rout of the reigning Stanley Cup champions, just as they had lost four consecutive post-holiday games against the Lightning before notching a season-high 36 shots in Sunday’s win.

Jon Cooper didn’t have Jake Guentzel at his disposal, he had to play backup goaltender Jonas Johansson and he didn’t like the way his team kept playing with fire and getting burned.

But the Lightning coach commended the Canadiens for “their will and want to play a steady, consistent game.”

“The right team was rewarded,” Cooper added.

The operative word he used was “team.” 

The Canadiens wouldn’t have been rewarded if only one, or two, or even three of their top players elevated to the height of their abilities, because that’s not how the Canadiens are built to win.

They’ve won five of their last six thanks to their depth, and it’s brought them to where they expected to be when they were projecting how things might go for them ahead of training camp.

The Canadiens aren’t currently occupying a playoff spot—with two months sans Laine minimizing the effectiveness of their depth and leading them to poor-to-middling results—but they are in the mix.