Revving up Round 2: Strengths and Weaknesses for Canadiens and Bruins

I have done a little analysis and want to take a bit of time to share and perhaps preview the next series. But before that, a taster of a preview: the strengths and weaknesses I perceive in both outfits.


Canadiens strengths


1. Depth of scoring
Right now, one of the Canadiens strengths is depth of scoring talent. Each line rolled out by Therrien has a one-time 20+ goalscorer on it, every line has a guy who has scored an important playoff goal, and even at one time has led his team in a tough situation. The epitome of the strength is in line three where the Canadiens captain skates opposite the current hot duo of Lars Eller and Rene Bourque. This is a fast trio that showed it doesn't need possession to make a dent. It was a nightmare for Tampa, and will be seen as a worry by Boston. If Gachenyuk recovers, this argument is only bolstered.

Bruins Show True Selves in Loss

Seems as though if you have a bag of skin for a neck, there's a lot of room for sour grapes.

Claude Julien last night, after the hard fought loss was quick to lay blame as so many a puzzled coach has done before at the foot of the referees. Oh, but it wasn't really their fault, because how are they really to deal with all the diving?

Game #58Montreal Comes Back, Manages To Get A Valuable Point

Details

Date: 15/02/2012
Opponent: Bruins
Location: Montreal

Loss: 3-4

Habs Goalie: Price (L)
Opposition Goalie: Thomas (W)

Habs goalscorers: Darche, Pacioretty, Cole
Opposition goalscorers: Ference, Pouliot, Bergeron, (Seguin - SO)

Play of the game

The Bruins had never lost when trailing after two, and we know what we can be like in third periods. So, it was extra special when Cole capitalized on a Chara mistake to walk in alone on Thomas. He made a nice move in close and put one upstairs on the Tea-Partyer. Embarrassing Chara, after Plekanec smacked him in the face with the puck, was certainly a highlight for me.

Dome hockey team

The 6 players we're playing in a no changes, do or die contest in the dome

Forwards

Erik Cole - Game Puck
Cole refused to give up, that much you could see on his face. Even though we were down to one of the best team's in the league, by two goals, he still played his heart out. He was in on Max's goal and then scored the tying goal on a very nice play. On a night like tonight, when he is that fired-up it was a mistake not to use him in the shoot-out.

Mathieu Darche
Where has this play come from? A month ago I felt that Mat was playing in his final few NHL games and now he is a resident in the dome. Like others, it could be argued that he is playing for himself, for his NHL-survival, but I don't buy that. Here is a proud Montrealer who seems to be willing to do whatever it takes for his home team to succeed. His goal was fantastic and just gives more reason as to why he should be playing as much as he does.

Max Pacioretty
Max, Max, Max, you have to lift the puck in the shoot-out. This is Tim Thomas here, no goal is a given. He had the keeper beat, but didn't bury it like he should have (I hope he looks at the way Cole finished his backhand goal tonight). Aside from the disappointment in the shoot-out Max was good. He scored his 24th and continues to be one of the main reasons that the Habs are sticking around in this race.

Defencemen

Alexei Emelin
This guy is afraid of no one. Guys like Thornton and Marchand make a living acting like idiots and scaring other NHL'ers. Alex, however, can see through these tools and beats them the only way he knows how - with solid, clean hits. With him on our side I think that Boston now has something to worry about and hopefully pre-occupy themselves with. Teams like that don't like to be shown-up in any aspect of the game, so let's hope that Emelin can continue to act as a distraction in future contests.

PK Subban
PK was another player that got under the Bruins' skin. He played a strong game in both ends and was definitely a force going forward. His play and pass on Darche's short-handed marker was superb. With Emelin, these two are forming the base of our Bruin tormenting for years to come.

Goaltender

Carey Price
Carey was fantastic towards the end of the third and in OT. He was OK the rest of the way and was his usual, sieve-like self in the shoot-out. Without him we don't get the point, but I feel that a little work on breakaways would lead to a few more wins rather than OT losses. Other players have figured out how to beat Price, can't our coaches and he himself work that out too and do what it takes to address it?

Comments

We needed a bounce-back game after the Hurricane loss and I felt that a visit from the hated Bruins would suit us. We played a strong game throughout, I thought, but got into trouble with a few careless mistakes. Their first goal was Gill at his worst and their second exposed the AHL talent hidden inside Campoli. Their third goal was a PP-marker scored after Cole, with the puck, ran into Thomas. Calls like that add up and eventually even the best PK will get scored upon. So, it is simple to say that it would have been 3-0 for us without two bad plays and a bad call. But, the reality is that players like Gill and Campoli play every night and they make many more mistakes than two per game. Mistakes will happen and, so will goals. That is why offence and goaltending are the keys to our wins. When Price is on and we score 2+ we are a great team, but when it all doesn't line up we get 2011-2012.

We knew at the All-Star break that we would lose games, we probably even thought that this one against Boston would be a loss, so by no means is anything over yet. A win against the 'Canes would have been nice, but in the end it is still 9 of a possible 12 points in our last 6 games. We have 24 games left and teams like Toronto, Florida and Ottawa that are generally better at being bad than good, also have a lot of games to go. The slope got a little steeper this week, but it is still surmountable. How about two wins this weekend though, just to make things a little easier.

Game #1-2 Habs & Bruins Summaries

More stats.


Montreal Canadiens

It was what it was, but this is how teams that believe in their goalie behave after getting an early lead. Guys who put all their belief in average shooting percentages won't like these Habs again this year. Still some players (like Cammalleri) come out looking pretty darn good.


Boston Bruins

Kaberle! How not to direct good shots at the net...

Two Steps Forward, Three Steps Back

In the wake of announcements made by Gary Bettman about the seriousness that the NHL is going to start ascribing to head hits, this week the NHL Wheel of Justice assessed Dany Heatley 2 games for a deliberate (if not very injurious) elbow to the head of Steve Ott, Lecavalier was handed a game misconduct for a deliberate high-stick to PK Subban’s head, and even Bruin Brad Marchand is getting a suspension for an unpenalized play. Given that the GMs have just finished a meeting specifically addressing concussions and head hits (among other things), it’s worth asking whether the league has done enough to address what a lot of hockey minds seem to think is a key issue facing the game today?

Ken Dryden, Habs legend and one of the more intelligent players to ever grace the game, had a very smart piece in the Globe and Mail last Friday where he compares today’s perceptions of head hits to yesteryear’s perceptions of the health risks of smoking (i.e. none) and asks the question: "How could we be so stupid?" This is a valid point, and 20 or 30 years from now I think many doctors and family members will be asking the same question. It is all too easy to think of our players as gladiators and heroes, and that head trauma is just part of earning their stripes; part of the the job.

This certainly seems to be the outlook of the NHL executive committee, with very little about head hits and concussions coming of this week’s GM meeting. What we got was a very public 5-point "action plan" from Gary Bettman after the first day, which seemingly calmed sponsors by making it sound like the league is really going to do something. My feelings are obviously a little mixed on the subject. I certainly hate their data on the source of concussions – especially the category labelled "accidental hits." According to their classifications, the Chara hit would have been "accidental" simply because it wasn’t ruled as intentional (i.e. suspension-worthy) by the executive, and I don’t think this provides a very meaningful representation of the data.

One point I was very happy with, and that was the new protocol for determining what constituted a potential concussion threat and how the teams are expected to react. Clear rules are set for what scenario requires an intervention by the team doctor, and the player is removed to “a quiet place free from distraction” for examination with a validated acute concussion assessment tool. These are good steps, most of all because they are clear, logical, and will probably improve the prognosis for players with concussions dramatically. In fact, the only way that this could be better is if doctors had an obligation to share data from tests (maybe at season’s end) for use in evaluating how various rule or equipment changes affect concussion rates.

The rest of the list I’m less excited about. The first item is for Brendan Shanahan to lead an investigation into whether equipment size can be reduced without compromising safety. I think that the answer is a resounding “yes.” Equipment size has grown rather dramatically over the past three decades, mostly in the name of player safety. However, I wonder whether this has backfired somewhat; protection against higher forces seems to have encouraged harder hits, and likely leads to less forgiving impacts between players. It is important to remember that no equipment can protect a player completely from injury, however, and that changes made at a cultural level might be more effective in reducing concussions.

The second, related, item is the naming of Joe Nieuwendyk, Rob Blake, Steve Yzerman and Brendan Shanahan to a committee investigating concussions and concussion-related issues. I have tremendous respect for all of these men as hockey players, but have less faith their ability to ask smart, testable questions about why concussions have been on the rise, and supervise the data collection and analysis required for this job. I’m biased, being a scientist, but I’d like to see people who do this kind of analysis for a living doing this work.

Which brings me to the next point, which is the hiring of an independent safety consulting team to tour the 30 NHL arenas to ensure they conform to the highest safety standards. My question is: how is this not a routine procedure for the league? The same could be said for the last point, which is penalizing teams as a whole for repeated offences by multiple players, though I can’t find anything saying 1) how many offences it takes to become a “repeat offender, or 2) how many “repeated offenders” would qualify as enough for a fine or other punishment.

What I hate most about this is that, unlike the new head injury protocol, it doesn’t seem to be clear, logical, or structured. It requires on-the-fly judgement calls that will lead to inconsistent rulings from referees and the disciplinary committee, which is why so many of us refer to them as the "Wheel of Justice." Inconsistency and judgement calls are ruining the punitive structure of the league both on the ice and in suspensions (although our friend Down Goes Brown seems to have the suspensions figured out). Decades of psychology research have shown that if punishment is not consistent, it doesn’t change behaviour, and that’s what we’re seeing on the ice.

My dad and I were talking about this last night, and came up with a good example: in the old days (for me this means the 1980s), 3 steps and leaving your feet meant a whistle and 2 minutes for charging. Now, charging is a rather abstract concept because, as Colin Campbell freely admits in his emails (remember those?), referees are more or less expected to be inconsistent by making calls based on the score, the number of previous penalties and the flow of the game. Bad judgement by the referee on some stickplay between Subban and Lacavalier in front of the net last night led to frustration and the eventual 2-handed blow to Subban’s face that saw Vinny ejected. It never should have gone that far, even if it meant 2 minutes for PK and none for Lacavalier.

I think overall the league has taken some steps in the right direction by introducing independent safety consultants, clear criteria for high-risk hits, and protocols for how deal with these hits. However, we’ve been taking a lot of steps in the wrong direction over the last couple years in terms of man-games lost to injury. Until the punitive structures are made more severe and consistent, I think we’ll continue to watch that stat rise.