The exercises continue on the ice rink. During one of them, Alex Newhook steals a puck from Arber Xhekaj in the defensive zone, runs on a breakaway and shoots between the goalie’s pads.
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The Newfoundlander had a modest triumph despite his goal and we quickly understood why. Martin St-Louis immediately turns towards Xhekaj and the players supposed to attack, who have just conceded a goal. Arms outstretched, gaze amazed. “How?” “, he seems to say, according to our fine lip-reading skills.
“It was poor communication. I moved to the edge of the boards as a forward, but Nick [Suzuki] and I misunderstood each other,” Xhekaj told us.
Today’s training may have conflicted with the schedule The demons of the southSt-Louis was far from laughing like Suzanne Lapointe used to do. The head coach was more in teaching mode. There are many projects, quite a few more than the time to tackle them in a tough schedule of 20 matches in 36 days between now and the finish line.
Obviously, the Habs’ 6-1-3 record in their last 10 games, and the three points in the last two, do not fool St-Louis. His team needs to tighten up its defensive game, he is the first to be aware of it. This was his state of mind at the first training at home after three games in California.
In the three games of the trip, we gave away too many goals. The games in San Jose and Anaheim, we were stubborn in the neutral zone. It’s not necessarily a structure, it’s more an attitude, a mentality. We were less stubborn against Los Angeles. We had a very difficult first period, but we got back on track.
Head Coach Martin St-Louis
Then he insisted. “It can’t be a trend to be stubborn in the neutral zone this time of year. »
His definition of being “stubborn”? This propensity of its players to attempt attacks with a low success rate when the opponent does not offer a surplus.
“Every player likes to play with the puck, get to the blue line, make east-west plays. But sometimes, these games are not there because the other team has three or four players,” he explained. In another answer, he will mention “turnovers in the offensive zone”; we can think here of those committed by Brendan Gallagher and Noah Dobson on Saturday, which led to the Kings’ first goal.
The result is a team whose indicators are all red, except for goals scored and allowed.
What saved CH during this sequence was its success rate on its shots, at 14.71%.
Montembeault and long-range shots
A good shooting efficiency rate allows a team to survive this type of sequence. It also happens that masked men come to the rescue.
However, this is not the case for the Canadian these days, especially not after a trip to California during which he allowed 15 goals in 3 games.
Samuel Montembeault had a particularly complicated outing Friday in Anaheim. Evening during which the shots from afar gave him all the misery in the world. Two of them beat him, not to mention the disallowed goal at the start of the match, in which he didn’t look very good.
Montembeault agreed that long-range shots are “what we look at the most.” “Since my return from Laval, in advanced statistics, what gives me the most misery in matches is veiled shots,” he detailed. We work a lot on this. It’s getting your eyes on the puck quickly, fighting to find it in traffic. »
Data from NHL Edge, the NHL’s advanced statistics service, confirms his claims. On long range shots, in the site’s terminology, Montembeault shows an efficiency rate of .917, well below the overall average of .967 for other goalkeepers. Otherwise, what constitutes routine stops for the most part pose problems for Quebecers.
Montembeault admitted to having experienced “more stressful times”. “At the start of the season, my hands didn’t come out because I was thinking too much. At that time, you remain more frozen. We’re trying to work on that. »
St-Louis, never very talkative about its goalkeepers, did not deviate from its usual. “When I was in poverty, one thing that got me through was working,” he explained.
– Was Montembeault able to do it? colleague Alexandre Gascon relaunched it.
– I don’t know, it’s more a question for him.
The locker room door being then closed, we will have to content ourselves with leaving the question unresolved.
Dobeš against the Leafs, changes on defense
PHOTO JEFF CHIU, ARCHIVES ASSOCIATED PRESS
Jakub Dobes
In the meantime, it is Jakub Dobeš who will return to action first. St-Louis has indeed confirmed that it will defend the Habs net this Tuesday against the Toronto Maple Leafs. This will be the first of two games in 24 hours, since the Habs will face the Senators in Ottawa the next day. We presume that it will then be Montembeault’s turn, but nothing has been announced to this effect. Up front, Oliver Kapanen missed today’s training, but St-Louis has assured that he will be at his post on Tuesday. In defense, for the day’s exercises, Noah Dobson reconnected with Mike Matheson, while Lane Hutson returned to the right flank, alongside Kaiden Guhle.
