Canadiens weekly notebook: The quarter mark, Sean Monahan’s cliff dive, coaching details

LOS ANGELES — Following the 4-0 loss to the Los Angeles Kings on Saturday afternoon, the Montreal Canadiens had crossed the quarter mark of their season with a 9-10-2 record after 21 games.

Coach Martin St. Louis was asked after the game if he could give an assessment of where the Canadiens stood with a quarter of the season played, and he was unable to give one. He had just finished coaching a difficult game and felt he couldn’t give a proper response, so he punted and asked to answer the question on Monday, following a day off for the team Sunday.

It was a good punt because assessing the Canadiens’ first quarter of the season is not a simple answer. In fact, it could easily be split into two answers, because what was true on Halloween for this team is vastly different from what is true now.

On Oct. 31, following a 3-2 shootout loss in Las Vegas to the Golden Knights that St. Louis described as the best game the Canadiens have played since he took over as coach, they had a 5-2-2 record, eighth in the NHL in terms of points percentage. Since Oct. 31, the Canadiens have a 4-8-0 record, 30th in the NHL in points percentage.

This is what St. Louis focused on when he finally answered the question Monday.

“I’m happy with where we’re at,” he said after practice in El Segundo. “We’re almost at .500 after 21 games, with all the injuries and everything. No, I’m happy with how we’re progressing.”

Except one look at how the team was performing on Oct. 31 suggested a regression was coming, and invariably, it did.

The Canadiens allowed just seven goals at five-on-five through their first nine games, but have allowed 28 in their 12 games since.

Basically, what’s changed for the Canadiens is they are no longer getting unsustainably excellent goaltending, and a drop in that department to more of a league-average performance cratered the Canadiens’ artificially propped-up goal advantage at five-on-five. There are obviously other factors, which is what complicates the answer in evaluating the first quarter of the Canadiens season, but the reality is probably somewhere in between how things were going prior to Halloween and how they’ve gone since.

“I feel like we’re staying the course,” St. Louis said. “You know, it’s funny, you get better at something and then you slip somewhere else. It’s constantly trying to improve. You have to be careful and very specific, like this is what we’re going to work on today. I feel we’ve done a good job of that, and I feel our team is a better team than we were 20 games ago. And that’s the goal.”

From a big-picture perspective, perhaps St. Louis will one day be proven right. But as things stand right now, that is a debatable assessment, to say the least.

Sean Monahan takes ownership of dry spell

Christian Dvorak said Friday afternoon in San Jose that he is probably playing his best hockey in a Canadiens uniform right now. That’s probably true. The problem, however, is that Sean Monahan is currently playing his worst hockey in a Canadiens uniform.

And he took full ownership of it Monday.

“I think we’ve had ups and downs, and at the point we’re at right now, we’ve got to be a lot better,” Monahan said when asked about the play of his line with Tanner Pearson and Josh Anderson. “That starts with me being the centreman and trying to drive the line, I take a lot of pride in doing that. So I’ve got to be better and find ways to produce and make things happen every time I’m out on the ice.”

The offensive dry spell is obvious with no points in six straight games after getting 13 points in his first 15, but it goes beyond that. This is not only about points. The Canadiens have not scored a goal at five-on-five with Monahan on the ice since Nov. 4 in St. Louis, a span of 10 games over which they have been outscored 8-0 in those minutes. The four games of this current road trip, including the game in Boston last Saturday, have been particularly dreadful for Monahan. At five-on-five in those four games, the Canadiens have been outshot 38-5 with Monahan on the ice, shot attempts are 77-19 and high-danger scoring chances are 22-2.

“When you’re not producing and not playing your best game, it gets frustrating,” Monahan said. “I’ve been through it many times and you’ve just got to work your way out of it. That’s getting touches, doing the little things and things usually start falling into place.”

St. Louis, however, is not overly concerned. When initially asked about Monahan’s struggles Monday, St. Louis took a long, deep breath. This was not a subject he seemingly wanted to get into publicly, because this is a veteran presence he leans on a lot and respects. But St. Louis also couldn’t deny the obvious.

“Maybe it’s slipped a little bit, but it will come back,” he said when asked about Monahan’s game away from the puck. “He’s a proven player in this league, and when he’s playing with confidence, obviously he can produce. So maybe right now for him, it’s to keep doing what he’s doing and trying to find that confidence. He’s a big player for us.”

A teachable detail for Justin Barron

After the morning skate in Anaheim last Wednesday, St. Louis took Justin Barron aside and had a conversation with his young defenceman.

St. Louis was animated in the moments before the start of this video, and Barron was an attentive listener. It’s worth noting that Stéphane Robidas, Barron’s defence coach, is right there, seemingly listening as well.

The next day, after practice in San Jose, we asked Barron what that chat was all about.

“It was just a detail in the D-zone,” he said. “There was a play in the Boston game, I don’t really remember specifically, but the puck was kind of on the wall, I go to play the guy and I think he moved it either down low or to the point, and then it’s just a matter of me taking an extra step, taking a step into the guy and for me to stay on the defensive side so he doesn’t beat me back to the net.”

This is the play Barron is talking about.

Note the score in the game, because this play happened with the Bruins up 4-1 in the third period. The issue St. Louis has with the play is that Barron just left Brad Marchand after he got rid of the puck along the boards instead of putting a body on him. Marchand’s trajectory to the front of the net would have been disrupted, at least somewhat, had Barron done that.

“It was more so just talking about the technique,” Barron said. “I think it was Marchand, and guys like that are so skilled you can’t run at them, but at the same time, you have to play them physical. Sometimes you have to contain them when there’s space, but once they get rid of the puck it’s a matter of trying to push them out of the play.”

St. Louis and his coaching staff have had a heavy focus on Barron’s defensive play, because if he can round out that area of his game, he could become a very solid defenceman for the Canadiens. Barron has played nine games on the top pair with Mike Matheson, getting some difficult matchups along the way, and has generally not looked the least bit out of place defensively.

“JB has improved a lot in his defensive assignment,” St. Louis said. “We’ve always known that he’s got great offensive instincts, but I think for me his consistency starts with his defensive play.”

Sam Montembeault congratulates Jake Allen after a win in Buffalo, the last time a Canadiens goalie started consecutive games. (Bill Wippert / NHLI via Getty Images)

The goalie rotation and the goalie coach

With Sam Montembeault getting the start in Columbus on Wednesday, it means the Canadiens will have not had the same goalie start consecutive games since Jake Allen started on Oct. 21 against Washington and on Oct. 23 in Buffalo. That game against the Blue Jackets will be the 17th in a row in which the Canadiens had a different starting goalie than the previous game.

This is the result of having a three-goalie system, something that doesn’t appear to have an imminent expiry date. But one person this system puts a greater strain on is goaltending coach Éric Raymond. When the team is at home and has access to the second sheet of ice at their practice facility, Raymond will take each goalie over there for some personalized coaching.

So, does Raymond do something different with each goalie, tailoring the workout to their specific needs? The goalies don’t actually know.

“I think he does the same thing. To be honest, I’m not going to sit here and tell you, because I don’t know. I assume so,” Cayden Primeau said last week. “Sometimes I think it’s based off of who we’re playing and their tendencies, but maybe it’s that he’s watching the game and one of the goalies didn’t look as clean doing something on the ice and he wants to clean it up. So, I’m not sure.”

We checked with Raymond, and without getting into specifics, he confirmed that he does in fact tailor those workouts to each goalie to some extent. Primeau was correct that some of the exercises are based on the upcoming opponents, and with much more planning necessary to get the three goalies their starts, their upcoming opponents are known a little further ahead of time than before.

Normally with two goalies, practice is relatively simple for Raymond: Get his session in with both goalies prior to practice, and then basically watch them go through practice once it starts. Now, there is an added layer of work for Raymond.

When asked about it, Raymond simply smiled.

(Top photo of Sean Monahan in St. Louis: Dilip Vishwanat / Getty Images)