The Montreal Canadiens vs Los Angeles Kings game was a stinker where head coach Martin St Louis made some bold lineup changes including boosting Ivan Demidov to the top line. Josh Gosse chats about all of it on this episode of Habs Digest.
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0:00 Montreal Canadiens vs Los Angeles Kings
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Unchanged
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Arber Xhekaj,Zach Bolduc,Alex Newhook,Jake Evans,Brendan Gallagher,Mike Matheson,David Reinbacher,Juraj Slafkovsky,Josh Anderson,Cole Caufield,Nick Suzuki,Kirby Dach,Alex CarrierKent Hughes,Martin St Louis,Sam Montembeault,Kaiden Guhle,Owen Beck,Filip Mesar,Jayden Struble,Adam Engstrom,Sean Farrell,Lane Hutson,Ivan Demidov,Patrik Laine,Jakub Dobes
40 Comments
Do you think Demi will stay on the top line next game? Let us know 👇👇👇
first of all, i would separate hutson and demidov on 1st pp… they try way too much, just put matheson or dobson there so at least they shoot… i dont know i felt like hutson/demi on blue line on PP are loosing way too much pucks, but overall very poor performance from montreal
Slaf had a horrible game, but so did Hutson and most of the team. These things happen, especially since they're so young. These kids are still learning. I'm confident Slaf will bounce back, he doesn't have a bad season so far.
In the longer term, though, Demidov is a generational talent and his place is definitely on a first trio. It will happen sooner or later.
There are several problems.
1. The referees call fouls that shouldn’t even have been called. Then they lose their drive and things go downhill. On the other hand, they don’t call anything….
2. I’ve seen for a long time that the issue is they try to pass all the way to an empty goal instead of shooting from every possible position.
3. Slaf seems to me like he’s just hanging around sometimes. And those blind backhand passes of his… Terrible.
4. I saw Anderson play well maybe for the first time this season.
Everybody had a stinker and made turn overs last night. Nobody was able to make passes as the Kings active sticks were consistently intercepting passes. One thing I have noticed is when the Habs do not come out hitting (physical) they do not win. Keep the faith and Go Habs Go!
It's all on the goalie, the players have no confidence in him and you ignorant morons who know shit start blaming everyone else ,shut your big mouth we need honest and smart commentary not click bate crap ,you're starting to sound like leaf fans
Not gonna lie I get a little nervous everytime a shot is taken at Monty.
Slaf is done
If you're saying 1 bad game for Slaf,you couldn't have seen the last 15,i've seen at least 12 games at least that he's made many giveaways .
I'm done with Monty. Play Dobes unless back to backs.
I'm tired of people pretending Slaf is an all-star because he isn't as awful as he was his first couple of seasons. He's in his 4th season and he still can't stickhandle, and he has the balance of Happy Gilmore. For a 1st overall pick he's massively underperforming at this point in his career and he needs to be a lot better if he wants to stay on the 1st line.
Jacob Fowler can't get to the league soon enough. Goalie is the big missing piece for them. That said, I know Montreal can be a pressure cooker but they gotta make sure they're not too hard on the kid.
Monty needs a trip to Laval.
I dont care if Slaf gonna get demoted to 2nd or 3rd line, It would only be good for him, he is 21 and has a lot of potential to grow no matter what those one bad game lame haters saying. Would be only beneficial for his career to find other ways to play than just be the boards bully in the first line with Nick and Cole. But you know what haters? He has the contract so the management won't settle with him playing light minutes in bottom six 😜
That's why big teams win the cup. But i 💯 think a small fast team can win. But you need to to change strategies. Fast passing, never dump the puck. Possession is KEY. Look at the dynasty of Detroit with the Russians. They said " why would we give it away when we worked so hard to get it
I still think we should be shopping Laine for a decent goalie. We need a netminder to pair with Dobes that will not only win games, but steal a few as well.
Yeah idiot Marty keep playing monty
Probably Xhekaj's best game though!
As a Montreal fan, the team is playing well and we are in the best position development wise in the entire NHL. All the additions look great, back to back Calder's coming, Suzuki looking like a top 5 Canadian born player, Caufield looking rocket bound or close to it, I'm not worried and I'm not buying into any media click bate bullshitting fans into a frenzy. We are not TorontoAs a Montreal fan, the team is playing well and we are in the best position development wise in the entire NHL. All the additions look great, back to back Calder's coming, Suzuki looking like a top 5 Canadian born player, Caufield looking rocket bound or close to it, I'm not worried and I'm not buying into any media click bate bullshitting fans into a frenzy. We are not Toronto
Slaf had a bad game, Veleno's missed shot block (debatable), the Dach penalties didn't help but first one was 'weak sauce' (and they didn't call similar plays going to the other way), as you stated Dach's 2nd penalty (puck to Byfield's face) should not have been called at all. I have no idea what Monty was doing not covering the puck when he bumped it to Fiala, Hutson muffed one up,…it all adds up to too many errors…heck, if one of those doesn't happen and Dobson buries that unbelieveable effort from Suzuki to beat out / dig up the puck and slide over a perfect set up pass, maybe we have a different result. The 3-goal breakdown was tough to watch and caused me to exasperate aloud: "come on!". There will be games like this in a long season. Let's hope they rebound appropriately against Dallas with Dobeš in net. I don't think it's time to blow up the first line, but I would like to see the Bolduc, Dach, Demidov experiment come to fruition. I also think it might be time for a call-up from Laval to come in and have Veleno sit for a couple games.
Montembault played well in the first period but he needs to realize that the game is 3 periods !! If thursday he doesn’t start Dobes im done watching montembault ruin our good start
I'm tired of forcing the issue with Montemblow … this insistence that he has to start three out of every four games with Dobes is having the better season to date really has me ****ed off
Play Dobes for a few games. Call up Davidson and put Veleno in the press box.
Lets chill.. these games are supposed to happen during a 82 game season, even more so with such a young team.
Honestly what bugged me the most out of that game is how boring it was, mostly because of bad execution and intensity from MTL.
I don’t mind them loosing when they at least make some plays happen and are exciting. This game had none of that.
factors that made them lose:
– LA is good, a lot of veterans that are elite at playing shutdown hockey (Kopitar, Danault and Armia to name a few)
– MTL had a bad game, probably their worst execution game of the season.
– MTL was not as hungry as usual, and less than LA in this game. (Normal during a 82 game season that they are not always as hungry).
So based on that, I don’t even think LA is a better team in general, they just played better in that game than MTL.
As long as the kids learn from this (and I’m sure they will), games like these are absolutely necessary for them. If they just keep winning even without playing well or hard, sure its good for the standings and everyone loves winning, but they would end up playing soft and relying too much on talent to win.
The last thing we want, is MTL to become the next Toronto Maple leafs, and be good in the season based mostly on talent, and get crushed in the playoffs because they never had to dig deep to win some games.
Losing now, if it makes them better, is fine by me. They are still way ahead of what i expected them to be in the standings so far this season.
We're top of the east even without Patrik Laine?! We're top of the east BECAUSE we're without Laine lol
Demi on the first line yesterday was just a way of trying to spark something in a dead game…not gonna last, of course. Slaf needs to be on that first line with Goal and Nick
Big mistake from the coach. Proves what I always said…St-Louis is not that great of a coach. You CANNOT have a rookie that did not prove himself at a long term, moved up so quickly. The rest of the players are not ok with that and he will loose his locker room. 👎🏻
The guy can't pass if his life depended on it .why the fuck did we start Monty im starting 2 thing mls has no ideal what hes doing
Stop saying Monty is not a problem. His career GAA while playing with the Habs is 3.00 That is bad when Montreal needs to score 4 goals to win on average with him in net. He was a waiver pickup and not the future starter. Back up goalie at best.
Yes the officials, only a regular bases miss calls for Montreal and rarely get the important calls. Montreal needs to STOP!! the fancy plays on PP1. Just shot!!! The habs always have a hard time with bigger players and teams. The habs are a fast time so why do they not get more calls called against the other teams
Slaf needs to play his game, Just like Arber keep it simple and the both players will be better. Kevin from HFX
How can you give deminov a few shifts with line #1?. N be like no that doesn't work pfft!. Let's try for a game, slafs turnover after turnover. Killing rushes , stupid passes on PP 1 . like make the decision n move him down. He's been in the league long enough. N still doesn't get it!. # move up #93 too line 1 .
Struble had an awful game. Xhekaj played well again. Maybe had the best game of all the dmen . . Struble will be traded before the deadline. I was all for supporting Monty early but we have played 20%of the season now. Monty's had more than enough time. He hasn't played one game where he hasn't let in a questionable goal. It's deflating. Time for St Louis to give Dobes a shot at being the starter
slaf is on the first ONLY because is cap ask that . Suzuki not better to sorry but it’s not all on paper !. caufield should be support on the first by fast and strong players . As dach , newhook, Evans, even kapanen and Anderson work better than these two Suzuki and slaf !
Would anyone be interested in bringing Danault back for the right cost. See how he plays with the new core? He’s a rental.
I don’t know how things are like in LA though; just a thought
This is the kind of game to do the Demidov experiment, because you have nothing to lose. I think it is a line that should be developed, but used in special situations. I would like to see the Habs build a one-two punch like the Avs in the Forsberg-Sakic days, when they typically centered the two big lines. But they would do a special 5-on-5 line with Hejduk-Sakic-Forsberg when they really needed a goal. I still think we need a second line built around Demidov, separate from the current first line. But if you develop a special Caufield-Suzuki-Demidov line in practice and games like this, you can use it when you really need it (it did not look all that good last night, needs work)…Regarding Hutson, anyone who has played ANY sport should know it was not Hutson's fault UNLESS Struble and/or Monty were warning him that someone was coming! That's just basic stuff you hafta know.
Monty need to take a few steps back and let Dobēs’s talent and hunger take the main stage for a few games in a row, win or lose, at this point it’s about energy, and Monty, with all due respect, is surrounded by bad energy and doesn’t seem to be handling the pressure as well as he did last year.
Armia got a sweet one love that
The only thing that could have started this game was a timeout after the third goal and putting Dobes into the net. They would have won.
Demidov played last night?