Loss to Kings shows Canadiens can't afford to take Dach off top line

MONTREAL — Go back to St. Louis, where Martin St. Louis admitted he was only mildly concerned too much time away from centre could hinder Kirby Dach’s development at the position.

That was on Oct. 31, a couple of days after the coach first put Dach on the wing of a line centred by Nick Suzuki and completed by Cole Caufield in a 7-4 win over the Blues. At the time, St. Louis said he’d be willing to live with that possibility so long as he had five centres healthy and available to him.

Fast forward to Saturday’s 4-2 loss to the Los Angeles Kings, when St. Louis had only four centres at his disposal (Sean Monahan was hurt), and you could argue coming out of it that the Montreal Canadiens can’t afford to have Dach back in the middle instead of on that line. And it’s got nothing to do with the way the Dach played his first two periods off Suzuki’s wing and back at centre since lining up between Monahan and Jonathan Drouin in a 3-2 win over the Buffalo Sabres on Oct. 27.

On a night where nobody else in reverse-retro Canadiens jersey appeared to start in rhythm — the team travelled home from a long trip out west on Tuesday, sat idle for nearly four full days, and then looked like it was still on Pacific Time through 40 minutes on Saturday — Dach was the team’s most effective centre, winning four of five faceoffs and steering his line to a 50 per cent share of the shot attempts at 5-on-5.

The problem was what happened to Suzuki’s line, with Josh Anderson lining up on the right wing in Dach’s place.

It was a mess at both ends of the ice against the Kings, giving up the game’s first goal and 11 shot attempts while generating only three through just over seven minutes of 5-on-5 play.

Miniscule sample, we know, but a telling one, despite some of the positive experience Anderson had on the line over the last couple of years — and despite the progress Anderson has recently made within St. Louis’ concepts.

He was the subject of the coach’s praise earlier on Saturday, and with good reason. The player has been asked to control his speed more, to look for different ways of creating offence rather than always driving hard on the rush for one-and-done scoring chances, to find more of a balance between playing his own game and fitting his game into the team’s puck-possession style, and he’s made progress on all fronts.

“That’s what I see because you’ve still seen the speed of Anderson over the last month,” St. Louis said of the high-flying winger. “We know he has that, we’re not taking that away. But why is he able to use his speed and touch the puck at the right time? Because he understands more about what we’re trying to do as a group.”

But even though Anderson is beginning to process the game better, he doesn’t process it as well as Dach does. He was already behind Suzuki and Caufield in this area and is only further behind (due to the exponential progress of both players) than he was when he last lined up with them.

The other problem is nobody else on the Canadiens fills those quotients as well as Dach does, either.

That’s why, from down 2-0 to start the third period of Saturday’s game, it was a no-brainer to take Dach out of the middle and put him back on a line with Suzuki and Caufield.

“Marty’s got a pretty good feel for the game,” Dach told reporters afterwards, “so he knows when to shake things up.”

It was good St. Louis didn’t wait, because Montreal’s offence runs through Suzuki and Caufield and it was running into the Kings’ 1-3-1 trap before Dach was placed with those two.

They produced a quality scoring chance on the opening shift of the third and finally got some momentum on the Canadiens’ side, which was taken advantage of by the team to gain a 23-12 lead in 5-on-5 shot attempts and a 78 per cent expected goals share. Their line inevitably scored, went 8-7 in the first category and was 57 per cent in the second.

Those results may not leave Dach further away from the position the Canadiens still believe he belongs in — since he was first placed on the wing, executive vice president of hockey operations Jeff Gorton, GM Kent Hughes, St. Louis, Suzuki and even Dach himself have all said they still see him as a centre — but maybe it should.

St. Louis told reporters after the game not to read too deeply into the changes he made for the third period, but he also said he’d evaluate things further before the Canadiens welcome the Calgary Flames to the Bell Centre for a game Monday.

What the coach might conclude in that process is that he still sees Dach as the best fit on the top line for the same reason he initially saw him as a promising one.

“He’s got size,” St. Louis said on Halloween, “but he’s got poise, too.”

Every comment he’s made since regarding the effectiveness of the Caufield-Suzuki-Dach trio has emphasized how all three players think the game at an elite level.

Mike Hoffman, who returned to the lineup after an eight-game absence and scored, could be tested again with Suzuki and Caufield if Dach goes back to centre against Calgary. He doesn’t think the game as well as Dach, and he didn’t effectively mesh with both players over the short stint he spent with them earlier this season, but his confidence has spiked of late with seven points in his last eight games and he could get a look.

But Hoffman looked brilliant closing out Saturday’s game next to Christian Dvorak and Evgenii Dadonov.

St. Louis said from the home of the Blues that he could be tempted to eventually try Juraj Slafkovsky with Suzuki and Caufield and said on Friday he feels Slafkovsky is progressing to the point where he’s touching the puck more in games — a justification he used for the Canadiens keeping Slafkovsky in Montreal rather than sending him to play with Team Slovakia at the upcoming world junior championship.

But the coach has methodically brought this 18-year-old player along, not wanting to heap too much pressure on him, and playing him with the team’s most dynamic duo, which takes on top assignments at home and faces the toughest matchups on the road, doesn’t seem like a sustainable option with the Canadiens playing seven of their final 10 games in 2022 on the road.

The best one could hinder Dach’s development at centre, but that’s something St. Louis should be willing to live with for a bit — especially after seeing on Saturday how Dach didn’t seem too affected by a long stint away from the position. Even if Monahan doesn’t heal up his foot injury before the new year, keeping Dach with Suzuki and Caufield makes the most sense.

Breaking up a line that’s produced 43 per cent of the team’s goals at 5-on-5 and propelled it to a 10-8-1 record since being assembled could be even riskier from a development standpoint.

Dach’s confidence rising as it has is paramount to his, and the team’s growth will be best served in periods that don’t resemble anything like the first two the Canadiens played against the Kings.