Why the Montreal Canadiens need to change their defensive system

It’s been a rough start to the season in Montreal. While wins are never guaranteed, especially in a division like the Atlantic, the number of goals given up and the underlying defensive numbers in Montreal have become a cause for concern.

Montreal starts Friday last in goals against, 27^th in shots against, 31^st in even strength expected goals against and second-last in slot shots against, according to Sportlogiq, to start the year.

Kent Hughes and Martin St. Louis have tried to keep focus on the long term and doing what is right for the development of Montreal’s young prospects. And as fans of other rebuilding teams from the past can attest, there will be pain on that route.

While Montreal is in its growth phase, there may come a time to steady the ship and provide better results in the short term to stem frustration from their young players, similar to what we've heard this season from Connor Bedard in Chicago.

“When you lose, you’re not going to be happy, so I feel like that’s kind of common sense on any team that didn’t get after the hottest start,” Bedard said last week. “We’re competitive people, we’re frustrated when we lose."

With that in mind let’s look at the defensive zone structure the Canadiens could potentially change to stop the bleeding.

First, let's go over the types of defensive zone systems that teams play in the NHL:

Zone Coverage: Players return to the defensive zone into a “quadrant” and are responsible for defending an “area” of the ice. No matter where the puck goes in the zone, players defend their assigned area.

Man on Man: When returning to the defensive zone players pick up a skater on the opposing team and are responsible for defending that “man” in the defensive zone.

Hybrid: Players return to the defensive zone to a “quadrant” and are responsible for defending an “area” of the ice on the initial entry, but when the puck goes to the top of the zone they attach to the closest player and switch into man-on-man coverage.

Currently the Canadiens are playing the hybrid structure. When executed to its best, the idea is it can be the hardest system in the NHL to generate offence against. This holds up by the fact it's been used by four out of the past five Stanley Cup champions.

The hybrid is meant to be the perfect mix of structure and pressure. When the puck is low in the zone, you have multiple opportunities to kill the play and outnumber the opponent. When the puck goes high, you can maintain your pressure and simplify your system by attaching to an individual player.

The concept makes sense: train young players such as Lane Hutson, Cole Caufield and Kirby Dach to play the system you hope you're using to win a Stanley Cup some time in the future. It makes sense to challenge your players and have them gain valuable reps in an effective system.

However, so far this season, the Canadiens have been exposed by these two weaknesses of the hybrid system.

Pressuring away from the net: At almost any level of hockey, 85 per cent of goals go in from the slot. For reference, compare the goal against locations from my son Nicholas’ 14U team to the Montreal Canadiens. Whether you’re playing Bantam hockey in Florida or NHL hockey in the mecca of Montreal, the slot matters.

Top teams and players look to expose the hybrid system by drawing players out of the slot when the defence attaches man-on-man.

Here is an example versus Washington where the Capitals use “Long Puck Movement" to spread the zone and get the Canadiens chasing out of the slot. This opens an opportunity on the inside.

Another way teams have exposed the Habs to gain access to the slot is through player motion and activating their defencemen in the offensive zone. Teams will look to take advantage of the fact that the hybrid system is a mix of zone and man-on-man and try to catch Montreal in between those two coverages. These are the “sorts” or “switches” that can lead to confusion and have been the biggest issue for the Canadiens so far, including Tuesday night against Calgary.

On the first goal, Joel Armia is late to coverage, causing David Savard to “switch” or “check off” to protect the most imminent dangerous shot. This means Savard leaves his man (the active defenceman) and five Canadiens players are in the slot with no one covering the eventual goal scorer, Connor Zary.

On the game-tying goal late in the third period, Jake Evans is pressuring the puck away from the slot. When he checks off to take the higher player in the zone, it leaves Matt Coronato enough time to walk the half wall seam and get an uncontested shot in the slot to force the game to overtime. The Montreal players got caught in “he’s not my guy” head space and allowed too much time and space for players to attack the slot.

Man-on-Man, 1v1 battles: The hardest part about playing any system involving man-on-man coverage is that “my man needs to be better than your man.”  This is where it completely makes sense for the Canadiens to put their young players through the litmus test. 

But it also means that on Saturday night Suzuki, Dach and the Habs have to go head-to-head against John Tavares, Mitch Marner and William Nylander (and Auston Matthews had he been healthy) after chasing Jack Hughes, Nico Hischier and Timo Meier around the ice on Thursday in New Jersey.

Ask Alex Newhook how much fun it is playing one-on-one against Hughes. On the Devils' first goal, Hughes deked Newhook in open ice, which forced Kaiden Guhle to check off his man, Jesper Bratt, and deal with the NHL all-star coming down the barrel. Hughes quickly slid the puck to the suddenly open Bratt, and the Devils were able to take a 1-0 lead.

On this next example Hutson is forced to play man-on-man against a Seattle forward. In a zone coverage Hutson would be assisted by the centre and even the strong side winger in trying to eliminate this play. But Montreal is unable to kill the play, Seattle maintains possession and scores.

And finally, in this next face-off sort, 5-foot-10 Alex Newhook battles one-on-one against 6-foot-6 Colton Parayko at Montreal's net. As a winger, Newhook’s man was the active Parayko off the draw; he was responsible for covering him at the point, and was responsible covering him when he’s at the net as the defence crashes the slot. 

The hybrid system forces the undersized forward to wrestle with the giant defenceman, whereas in a zone system that responsibility would have been checked off to a Montreal blueliner once Parayko got below the hash marks.

Why should Montreal switch to a zone defensive system?

This comes down to one answer: to better protect the slot. That’s where the goals are going in, that’s where they have struggled to minimize shots coming from, and that’s the most important area of the ice.

A zone system would keep more Canadiens players closer to the net and their centres and defencemen closer to the slot. Generally speaking, defencemen and centres are the better defenders on a hockey team, so ensuring those players spend the majority of their time in the most dangerous area of the ice would bring value.

This would hopefully also help Montreal's young defence corps, who were all born after Y2K besides Savard and Mike Matheson. It would also provide layers for their young forwards and not force them to compete one-on-one against such Eastern Conference beasts as Matthews, Nikita Kucherov and Sidney Crosby so often.

Montreal's opponent Saturday night, the rival Maple Leafs, have actually switched away from the hybrid system they played under Sheldon Keefe, and moved towards the zone system Craig Berube used to win the Stanley Cup in 2019. Early this season the Leafs are sixth in goals against per game after finishing 21^st last season.

While Anthony Stolarz has had a massive impact on this stat, the Leafs are letting their more veteran defence (Simon Benoit is their youngest regular at 26 years old) stay closer to the net and handle the wars around the cage.

The Edmonton Oilers also made this change last season from a hybrid to a zone defensive system after a slow start led to a coaching change. While they ended up losing in the Stanley Cup Final against Florida's hybrid defence, the Oilers were able to have success with their change.

When asked about Montreal's defensive system recently, St. Louis responded “Could I play something that’s easier right now? Maybe. There’s no system that’s bulletproof. But I find that we’re trying to play in a way where I think the league is going to. There are several teams that play this way, but they do it better than we do. So, we’ll need to keep improving on it.”

I understand St. Louis' point and it’s probably the right philosophy for where the organization is at today. 

But if the Canadiens get to the point where they feel they need to protect the slot and young players a little more, they can look down the road towards their Hockey Night in Canada rivals for some ideas.