2 Biggest reasons for our current slump

Choose 2 factors to explain slump

  • Fatigue

    Votes: 7 28.0%
  • Defensive lapses at wrong moment

    Votes: 4 16.0%
  • Quality of opponent

    Votes: 1 4.0%
  • Opponent taking MTL seriously

    Votes: 7 28.0%
  • Lack of PP opportunities

    Votes: 2 8.0%
  • Lack of depth/injuries

    Votes: 11 44.0%
  • Secondary scoring drying up

    Votes: 11 44.0%
  • Offense barely generating offensive zone time

    Votes: 3 12.0%
  • Goaltending

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Other (please comment)

    Votes: 1 4.0%

  • Total voters
    25
Every team have winning streaks. Mtl didn't have since last 4 years (pandemic year). Teams like Bruins, Canes, Bolts, Panthers, Golden K, LA Kings, Oilers, Avs, Stars, etc have winning streaks all the time or every year.
Habs fans need patience. Once our deadwood will be gone and replaced by better players we will be in da mix (as long as our coaching staff is competent). But our young players have the right stuff or not? How many years before Hage, Rein, Fowler, Tuch, Roy and Beck become regular roster and change the team? In the mean time, what our team will look like?
 
How about plain old laws of probability?

Every single team goes through slumps. Habs weren't going to float through 2025 as red hot as they were a month ago. The real question is how soon they can pull out of this slump.

As for specific issues, lots of defensive lapses, shooting accuracy has sucked, and we're missing Heineman and now Guhle.
 
Around new year, team was playing really strong hockey, but for a few weeks already, there had been some lapses in the defensive zone and less coherent overall play. They kept winning in spite of this for a while, but it's catching up now and the team is playing like the beginning of season team more and more by the day. Lane Hutson is definitely going through growing pains and some fatigue, making a lot more mistakes than before. It appears normal in the process of being relied upon more that he will need some time to adjust. Jake Evans couldn't keep scoring like he did.


The good news is that they are not yet completely out of it and before the last 3 games, they at least looked like they could compete to win games regularly. They have an opportunity to shape up and remain in the race still.
 
it's simple, secondary scoring. we are right back where we were before with only our top line producing. other 3 lines are crap
 
No PP time to have Laine score.

Secondary scoring drying up. Laine struggling but Kirby and Newhook aren't helping him. Other lines aren't doing much.
 
Habs fans need patience. Once our deadwood will be gone and replaced by better players we will be in da mix (as long as our coaching staff is competent). But our young players have the right stuff or not? How many years before Hage, Rein, Fowler, Tuch, Roy and Beck become regular roster and change the team? In the mean time, what our team will look like?
It's very easy to say that deadwood should be replaced by better players. Harder to do.

The question about the young prospects also applies to the young(ish) players on the roster.
  • How far can the Habs go with Dach and Newhook, one pace for about 30 and 20 points respectively, making up the second line with 15min a night?
  • How far can the Habs go with depth players like Armia, Gallagher, and Anderson who are notoriously unreliable in terms of consistent production?
We only succeed when our depth players step up.

I have a theory that improving our depth will raise our ceiling but the workhorse stars will raise our floor. We have not-great depth (also they're too slow imo) and insufficient stars at the moment.

I think our "star" players have delivered the goods so an actually healthy Laine + better Slafkovsky + matured Hutson + DemiGod will ensure a higher standard of play night-in, night-out.

I'm plenty patient this year, even before they squandered the first 30% of the season, the playoffs were not a realistic target. Better to see the season through and add some speed and jam to the bottom6 through the UFA churn that will come. Hopefully at least one of Gallagher and Anderson won't be a Hab next year either.
 
We had a good stretch, but this team is still young and several pieces are missing. The stratch lasted long enough that everyone started to believe, but the reality is that we are still not ready.
 

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