Fundamentally Flawed?

You know, usually I am one to preach more calm than panic. And, you know what, having a team you watch play a sport win or lose probably shouldn't elicit such violent reaction anyway. But 7 games into a season, I wanted to suggest that perhaps those that have been calling for the most drastic action after losses may in fact have a point.

I've heard keep calm and carry on many times over since that opening shutout. While I don't disagree (I still highly recommend having the results of contests you can't control occupy the right strata in your life), I am starting to find that throwaway line as naive as the "fire the coach" that comes out after a line is broken up.

You see, the problem with the "don't worry, it's early" approach to things is that it assumes that a) this is a beginning and b) that we haven't seen enough. Of course, we know this isn't true. The Canadiens didn't shoot up from the ground in September, nor did this edition of the team. The group is largely the same one that we watched a few months ago and most of the core elements are the same as the team that we have been watching now for 2+ years.

And while it's true that this team has been a winner (at least in the sense it's won more than it's lost), we also know that at critical times it has shown itself to be lacking.

So if your concern is solely rooted in whether this team will ever win a game again this season. Then by all means, please subscribe to the "keep calm" mantra. They will simply because every team encounters teams that play worse than them sometimes, not matter how flawed an approach.

But, if like me, your primary concern is whether the team actually has a chance to win the singularly important game that can only happen in June (and win enough in order to get there) then perhaps we should be more concerned with some of the demonstrable traits of past teams found lacking showing up in this one.

Let me explain.

I think the team has a pretty fundamental flaw relative to its rivals and I see it and feel it as I watch our opponents' approaches to games as they contrast with that of our Habs.

Some would say it's that the team can't score, but I don't think that's subtle enough. What I am starting to think it is, is that the team cannot devise a way to play when they are behind. It goes beyond scoring (though that's obviously the chief symptom), it goes to choosing where to attack knowing when to change, holding onto any momentum, even clearing a zone.

And let's not get into a silly argument about the word "cannot". I don't mean in absolute terms, I mean that relative to their rivals and especially relative to those teams we can recognise as true contenders, they fall well short.

I wrote about this last year (To Watch Beyond Goal 1?), but I've since beefed up the piece with some research with depth to it.

Take this set for example:

Record after trailing first



This is the combined record of the Habs since the true new beginning of the summer of 2009 when they got new personnel all over the ice and a new coach. This is not to say they were a good comeback team before that point (they weren't really), but just to identify a logical point where I can stop compiling.

27th in a 30 team league (CBJ is better if you look) and not exactly in the best company down there, though at least those teams got their draft picks. The telling thing really is the gap between the Canadiens and the better teams in the league over this time.

Washington over the same period actually achieved what most would consider a record above 0.500 from trailing first and several key teams got points from more than half of those contests (Detroit, San Jose, Pittsburgh). The other teams that we might consider elite from this span like Vancouver and Chicago are right near the top of this pile as well.

The Habs by contrast got points in only about a third of the contest in which they fell behind first to put themselves in the company of the lottery crew.

If you want some encouragement, you will notice that at least unlike the Bruins, the Habs have made a habit of scoring first more often than not over this two-plus year period. So perhaps their record when scoring first (setting the table themselves) makes up for their other shortcoming.


Record after scoring first



To this I'd say, the team has done well. It's good to score first more often than not, and it's very good to win more than 70% of those games in which you do that. But as we can see from the list, the team is not exactly setting NHL records with the early leads. They have been the 11thish best team over the span and in a group of teams around the same level.

We know from having had to eat a lot of fingernails in recent springs that the team hasn't offset one shortcoming with an enormous strength.


In wanting to create some composite of this, I landed on a simple quotient.

Difference in winning percentage Scoring and Trailing 1st



It's probably not that useful, but it does seem to highlight a few points.

For one thing, St. Louis is weird.

For another, 2 generally seems to be a number that you'd rather be under than over in this case. Boston and Vancouver hover at that level, but being well to one side of 2.00 like the Habs are seems to mean something entirely different from being on the other side if you take association to mean anything.


One way to win, lots of ways to lose

Last night marked the fourth time this season that the team has scored first. It was the third loss from ahead. If you combine this misfortune with what I think is amounting to a pretty hefty trend showing plenty of writer's block within the comeback thinktank then I do think there's proper reason for a sensible amount of concern.

Time will tell certainly, and when I wrote my piece last season, the team answered with "Nothing but comebacks" January.

Still, when I am looking for the evidence that come April I won't be rocking back and forth hoping for a goal I have a good feeling will never come to preserve a season, I would take comfort in getting a glimpse of that evidence this month.

I don't recommend you fans change anything about your routine or your belief in the team, but I do hope that those who do this for their living (any coach, ahem) has a little look into this phenomenon. If they can spare the time.

First Goal All Important?

Before the playoffs, I read an article that said the team that would score the first goal would go on to win the entire series nearly 80% of the time. Now that three games in this series have been won by the team that scored first, the clever clever media are jumping all over the "all-important" first goal.

As usual with these half-baked stories, the analysis ends at the immediate past. The crux of any conclusion being that last week the team in the Boston Montreal series that scored first won.

Terribly scientific. 3 games sampled, what more could one ask for?

The first elephant in the room is that both these teams just played a whole season's worth of hockey during which they demonstrated many tendencies and displayed many habits and trends. One might think a glance at what happened in the season might be in order. But wouldn't that be good reporting?

Let's do that, shall we?


Boston and Montreal are both quality with the lead

This season Boston posted an outstanding 30-6-6 record when they had the lead. Top-notch defense and good chippy offense all season, you'd expect that to happen. But how about Montreal: 32-6-6, even better. Converting 44 first goals into 70 points in the regular season.


Boston did not roll over an die in the regular season

To go with their impressive record when scoring first, the Bruins also had a quality comeback record. 16-19-5 for the season. This was top 5 in the league by raw comeback wins and also by percentages. Only Washington with 23 comeback wins from 47 first goal deficits was better.

Montreal on the whole was not as good at coming back. Their record for 2010-11 was 12-24-2. The team didn't completely give up when scored on first, but they didn't do quite as well as the elite teams in the league. That is, if you consider the entire season.

As we know things over the season change significantly. 6 months is a long time and besides streaks and slumps, there can be significant changes in personnel. For the Habs, one of the big changes came at the end of December with Wisniewski coming in to replace Markov who had missed all but 7 games to that point. Gorges was also out, so Subban was placed with Hal Gill.

Round about that time, frustration was also mounting with Habs fans that if the team didn't score first, they'd be down and out (often being shutout, actually). It wasn't good. LIW posted this article that illustrated the issue.

Long story short. the Habs got better, they learned to come back. In fact from December 31st on (a 44-game span) the team went behind a total of 23 times. but instead of losing the vast majority, the Habs pulled out 9 wins and 2 OTLs from those first goal deficits (20 points in the standings).

This was a turning point in this regard, as one can see that prior to the turn of the year, the Habs record was 3-12-1 when allowing the first goal.

In fairness, we must see if the Bruins also turned the same trick. interestingly, they did. In their last 44 games, the Bruins actually allowed the first goal 21 times and posted 22 points (10-9-2) from those games.


Well so what?
The finding here is that while both the Bruins and Canadiens were formidable shut-down teams, it turns out that both teams were also pretty excellent comeback teams, particularly in the new year (or only in the New Year in the Habs case). The finding is something that plays out before our eyes. When the Canadiens were winning in Game 1, the Bruins weren't down and out and for a good stretch looked like the better team, fully capable of closing the gap and wining. Ditto for the result on Monday night, when the Habs came within inches of tying and taking the momentum from their superior second half of the game into a comeback bid overtime.

All that to say, it's not as simple as who scores first. It's not enough to score first. The first goal is but one goal, and unless backed up by another goal or shutout goaltending (which usually takes some pretty exceptional saves) then it is but one goal.

Boston won the other day because they scored 3 goals, not because they scored first. Montreal won in Boston because first Carey price, then some good luck made their 2 and 3 goals stand up.

Scoring first is important, but let's not make it more than it is. After all, we already have faceoffs for that.

I'll go further. The goal that seals the first comeback victory in this series will be more important that any first goal to date.

To Watch Beyond Goal 1?

Last night the Habs allowed the Thrashers the first goal.

Then for the 4th time this season, they simply couldn't do anything to answer that.

Should we be surprised? I'd say no.

If you want to look for a weakness on this Canadiens team, beyond the PP and their "second" centre that is, the proven inability to be beaten by a first goal might be it.

This season, the record is clear enough:

2-7-0 now after being scored on first.
That includes 4 shutouts against, and 6 occasions where they never even tied the game up again.

Even the two games they won were quirky in that they scored rather quickly to negate that early lead. Vs. Phoenix, they answered within 5 minutes and had the lead within 8 minutes. In Buffalo, they answered the first goal within the minute, and the same for the second.

This season, at least, this is a team that plays like champions with a lead, but rather like chumps when chasing.


There's a history here too.

In the playoffs last spring, the Canadiens let the opponents score first 8 times. They lost 7 of those games in very similar fashion to the above scenarios, again being shutout 4 times over.

Last regular season, the team was ranked 23rd among the 30 in win percentage when trailing after the first period (It isn't exactly the same thing as being scored on first necessarily, but for someone who just wants to make a quick point without doing lots of work, it's a good approximation for now). A piddly 0.256 percentage, once again indicating their propensity to find brick walls to run into.


Rivals

As all the talk these days seems to be intent on declaring the Habs true contenders based on their November run, this must be a factor to consider, a serious chink in the armor.

Good teams, well the best teams, win from in front and win from behind (again, I'll use trailing after the first to illustrate): Washington, Philadelphia, Chicago are all above 0.400 when needing to come back after 20 minutes. Washington is above 0.600.


Being beaten

All athletes will tell you there are different types of competitor. Among them these that can be beaten with an early flourish and those you can never turn your back on. My own experience is that the resilient ones, the ones you can never count out are the opponents you have to worry about. Those that win from in front when everything goes right but give up when they trail are easy enough to build a strategy for. There's no strategy to put down the ones that keep getting up.

Yesterday, I was listening to some radio guys go on about the Canadiens resilience and their apparent ability to bounce back from anything. This was evidenced by good games after bad they proposed. I think this is at serious odds with the in-game findings that show an almost total requirement for that first goal. With it, they are league contenders, without it, they are peers of the Islanders.

I only hope that the coaches and the team take these frequent shutouts as lessons for future use. To find, I suppose, ways not to fall into the typical defensive traps that leading teams create to make the appearance of offensive generation. Heck, they could learn those lessons from their own wins.


Yes, losses happen and we mustn't fret. Trends in losses, however, are worth paying attention to. If the Habs don't buck this trend, they may have enough trouble making the playoffs, let alone contending in them.

At least, I suppose, we could all save on a lot of hours watching the games if first goals continue to spell out results.

First Goal Heroes

Last night exhibited one of the continuing themes of the second round of this year's playoffs:

Game-winning goals by players who had yet to score.

In Boston, it was Blake Wheeler. In Chicago, it was Dustin Byfuglien (who chimed in with a hat trick).

While Recchi and Satan are certainly turning back the clocks, the first goal wonders are also making the deep group of forwards a tough proposition for the Flyers defence.

In Game 1, Marc Savard scored the gamewinner, his first of the playoffs.
In Game 2, CBC announced Lucic's first goal of the playoffs (a gamewinner) was solid confirmation of why a team would want him in the lineup.
In Game 3, Blake Wheeler scored his first of the playoffs (and what must seem like the season to fans of Bruins 09).


Chicago has also been tapping the depth for goals.

Versteeg scored his first on a gamewinner in Game 2.
In Game 3, the Hawks took the lead on the back of Byfuglien and his first, second and third goals.
Seabrook also broke the duck in Game 2, turning in a 3-point effort after a less visble first round on the stats page.


Finally, even San Jose is tapping the first goalscorer.

In Game 2, Jumbo Joe Thornton (who nobody was surprised to see go a round and a game without a goal) surprised just about everyone by scoring not only a playoff goal, but an important one.


Montreal needs to tap into something for more offense. Anything really.

I don't see any reason to ignore the wave that's sweeping through the entire league. Gamewinners step up:

Benoit Pouliot, 19 shots, 0 goals
Roman Hamrlik, 6 shots, 0 goals
Glen Metropolit, 7 shots, 0 goals
Sergei Kostitsyn, 5 shots, 0 goals
Hal Gill, 8 shots, 0 goals
Josh Gorges, 3 shots, 0 goals
Mathieu Darche, 5 shots, 0 goals
Tom Pyatt, 13 shots, 0 goals
Ben Maxwell, 0 shots, 0 goals
Ryan O'Byrne, 6 shots, 0 goals

and why not?

Jaroslav Halak, 0 shots, 0 goals


There's 57 regular season goals locked in this underground pocket waiting to be tapped. Can't let Boston have all the fun...