MONTREAL -- To steal from legendary rocker John Fogerty, this Canadiens’ season feels like déjà vu, all over again.
Montreal’s disturbingly poor start in 2021-2022 first triggered a feeling for me of ‘been there, done that’ in Los Angeles on Oct. 30. That defeat at the hands of the Kings was all too familiar: it wasn’t the fact that that they had lost, it was the way they had lost.
It marked the fourth time in the team’s first nine games where, once they fell behind by a couple of goals, there was no sign they could come back. The day after dropping that game 5-2, they played better at Anaheim -- but still lost 4-2.
Maybe the California sun helped jumpstart a memory of a similar start to a season where I felt the team was nowhere close to turning a corner.
A little bit of research uncovered that it was actually the 2017-2018 season that, at least for me, also gave the sense that it was getting late early. The statistical comparison between the Canadiens first ten games in 2017-2018 and 2021-2022 isn’t really relevant, but it’s interesting, nevertheless.
2017-2018 (first ten games)
- Record: 2-7-1
- Goals For: 1.8/game
- Goals Against: four/game
- PP percentage: 12.2 per cent
- PK percentage: 78.8 per cent
2021-2022 (first ten games)
- Record: -2-8
- Goals For: 1.9/game
- Goals Against: 3.4/game
- PP percentage: 11.1 per cent
- PK percentage: 65 per cent
I referenced California earlier. A little further research has clarified a few lingering memories of a game in Anaheim four years ago. On Oct. 17, 2017, Montreal trailed 3-0 after one period to the Ducks. They outshot Anaheim 30-10 in the second period and cut the deficit to 3-2 but still lost the game.
I clearly remember thinking after that loss to Anaheim that the Canadiens were simply not good enough to be a playoff team. I felt the same following the loss in L.A. this year and the team has done little since then to give the impression they can turn things around.
Clearly, what happened four years ago (or in any other previous season for that matter) isn’t a harbinger of what’s to come this year. That was then, this is now. But what has to be of major concern to the Canadiens is the tendency to sag once they get behind. That has resulted in some lopsided, demoralizing defeats and makes you wonder if the players believe they have what it takes to come back when they are down by a goal or two.
Apart from the Habs’ first win of the season against Detroit, it’s difficult to remember the team finding the necessary level of intensity when they have trailed; no sustained forecheck from the forwards; no timely power play goal or even a big shorthanded goal that could swing the momentum in Montreal’s favour.
Carey Price, Joel Edmundson and Cole Caufield will eventually rejoin the team. The likes of Tyler Toffoli, Brendan Gallagher, Jeff Petry will start to produce; all are too good not to improve. But if the Canadiens continue to be resigned to defeat once the scoreboard isn’t in their favour, that won’t really matter. From the head coach on down, they all say they have to play as a team. Saying that is one thing, doing it is another.
One final reference to the 2017-18 Montreal Canadiens: they finished at 29-40-13 and 71 points, finishing 28th in a 31 team league. This year’s edition of the Canadiens is too good not to surpass those modest numbers. Aren’t they?
