2 Biggest reasons for our current slump

[Victoire HuGo]

Team is 2-4-1 in last 7 games

Choose 2 factors you think explains current slump

Discuss

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[Catanddogguitarrr]

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?

 

[HuGort]

Team is 2-4-1 in last 7 games

Choose 2 factors you think explains current slump

Discuss

Hockey usually a game of momentum. With parity in game today doesn't take much to swing from one way to other. Leafs loss was harsh. Way it transpired. Seemed like Wifi riled them and they shoved it down his throat. Caught team flat

 

[Lshap]

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.

 

[Sam de Mtl]

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.

 

[HabsForHire]

it's simple, secondary scoring. we are right back where we were before with only our top line producing. other 3 lines are crap

 

[the]

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 either.

 

[ReHabs]

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.

 

[Gillings]

Inexperience as a TEAM.

and Fatigue.

 

[Paddyjack]

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.

 

[Sasha Orlov]

It’s not a slump, this is the real team

We had a hot streak

 

[Benstheman]

Habs are not as bad as they were the first 25 games and they are not as good as they were during their wining streak.

Now with Guhle out, our already defensively challenged team will be exposed big time. Also, Guhle was pretty good transitioning the play from D to forwards.

 

[Guy Larose]

They were playing playoff type hockey, playing hard, applying pressure, and hitting everything in their way. Now they are playing ringuette.

 

[OneSharpMarble]

Teams watch game tapes and they adjust, the habs aren't experienced or talented enough to continue to succeed in other ways when teams stop what was working for the habs.

 

[austin316]

Team is on the rise and improving, no doubt about that. But we are still missing two top 6 players (one of those being a #2C), size throughout our forward group, and another top 4 RD, as well as a number one goalie. Our lineup is not currently built to win.

This offseason should dramatically improve our team with all the draft capital and I imagine KH will be a buyer this summer.

Exciting time to be a fan of this team.

 

[rickthegoon]

As a guy who did not watch the last 4 games, first thing I noticed last night is that the guys looked tired and slower than during the winning streak.
There were no puck battles to win or lose; we simply were late to the plays all night.
That is what I found stood out the most compared to 2 weeks ago.

 

[The Gr8 Dane]

We have one line

 

[MasterD]

We're just not that good yet.

Demidov will help tremendously. Dach is still in his recovery year from his knee. Same with Laine.

 

[Gaylord Q Tinkledink]

Other, so not good enough

 

[mitchmagic]

We knew the streak had to come to an end and we'd be hit with adversity. Question is... how does the team and coaching staff deal with this adversity? Can we get back to solid hockey or was the previous streak just a fluke?

I think we have a solid locker room but I don't necessarily trust the coaching staff to right the ship.

 

[eklund the clown]

Pretty well whats being said.We have one line basically that the other team has to concentrate on and thats about it.Laine doesn't do much but score on the PP.We don't generate near enough quality scoring chances.Half of the games we have like 10 shots on goal after 2 periods.No chance of winning games.Goalies are no longer stealing games for us either

 

[EXPOS123]

Simple...the clock has struck midnight for the scrubs that played over their head

Armia, Gallagher, Anderson, Evans all had nice spurts here and there but are all now reverting back to their useless means.

I would throw in DVO, but he’s been useless since the beginning so no difference.

 

[Leon Lucius Black]

It is a lot of those factors.

- A lot of defensive lapses, when the team was winning they were playing almost mistake free hockey. Unfortunately a lot more mistakes are happening now and a lot of the time the puck is ended up in the back of our net.
- Goaltending has cooled off, the losses aren't mainly due to goaltending, but the goalies have been up and down and haven't stolen any games like they did during the hot stretch.
- Lack of secondary scoring, Evans/Armia have cooled off ever since Heineman got hurt. The Dach/Dvorak lines are creating nothing offensively.
- Fatigue seems to be hitting a lot of guys, mainly the key guys who are playing lots of ice time. Hutson hasn't been as good lately and more than likely fatigue is setting in on him given he's playing huge minutes and there are a lot more games than college.

 

[Natey]

How is "No Heineman" not the #1 choice?

 

[Catanddogguitarrr]

They were playing playoff type hockey, playing hard, applying pressure, and hitting everything in their way. Now they are playing ringuette.

I always try to see what type of system MSL was applying. In the winning stretch Habs were first on the puck and very energetic. They were puck possession team and were fast to backcheck and take back the puck. But that system was very demanding. So after a while comes the fatigue. I remember a year ago in november LA Kings won an easy game for them. Folks here wrote they were always at the right place at the right time. They won and it looked they were on automatic pilot. Maybe they had a good system of play, maybe they had a roster filled with players who were able to apply a system without being exhausted.

I think our bottom 6 sucks and the second line could be better. The first line is ok. I would like to see a second line with Heineman, Dach and Demidov. Third line with a new center better than Dvorak (trade or ufa). Put Anderson and Newhook on the wings. 4th line with Evans on center with Beck on wing taking some center duty and Gallagher. If there is any possibility Anderson can be traded, let's do it. And Gallagher buyout the year after.

And I don't know where Laine fit exactly. If I was the coach I would place him on PK like Anderson did and it would improve his defensive play a little bit. Sometimes he could score on a breakaway.

Lol, on an humoristic note our third line with Dvorak is a turd line, hahaha !!