Montreal Canadiens Coming Off Impressive Month of December
The Montreal Canadiens lost a couple of tough games to end 2016. However, looking a little closer at their month of December, a 6-4-4 record was quite impressive.
The Montreal Canadiens just went through one of their toughest stretches of the season. A couple of late blown leads to end 2016 left a sour taste in some fans mouths. However, taking a look at the schedule, their record and the circumstances around it, December was a pretty impressive month.
The last game of the month was a 4-3 overtime loss to the PIttsburgh Penguins. Losing in overtime and gaining one point against the defending Stanley Cup champions shouldn’t be a bad thing. However, blowing a 3-2 lead in the dying minutes is never ideal.
Especially when it’s not the first time you’ve seemingly given away a point that week. Montreal was in a simiar situation against the Tampa Bay Lightning just three days earlier. The Canadiens held a 3-1 lead in the third period, but lost 4-3 on an overtime marker by Tyler Johnson.
The month got off on the wrong foot with a 2-1 loss to the San Jose Sharks in California. Then, leading scorer Alex Galchenyuk was injured against the Los Angeles Kings in December’s second game. Doom and gloom were predicted when we found out he would be out for six weeks.
However, the Canadiens were able to battle without their best skater. They would fight back against the Kings and win in a shootout after tying the game in the third period.
Habs unfazed by injuries, made most of a tough stretch of games
All told, the Habs played 14 games in December. They went 6-4-4 in the month, which is okay, but not excellent. When you factor in they were without Galchenyuk for 12 and a half of those 14 games, missed David Desharnais for 11 and a half of them, Andrei Markov missed six and Carey Price was actually human, it’s an impressive month.
Looking a little closer, it was an extremely difficult stretch of games as well. Of Montreal’s four regulation time losses, two came against the Sharks. San Jose was the Stanley Cup runner up last season and are an exceptional hockey team. Also, they are a Western Conference team, so losing to them doesn’t sting all that much.
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Their other two regulation losses came against the Minnesota Wild (again, a Western team) who were in the midst of a 12 game winning streak. The Habs lost the very next night to the Columbus Blue Jackets who are now on a 15 game winning streak. If you are going to lose to someone, it may as well be the two teams who can not lose.
Sure, the Habs let a few points slip away when they blew late leads to the Lightning and Penguins. However, they were able to take a point in each game, against two of the most talented teams in the league.
Canadiens took care of business against weaker teams, battled tough teams
The only teams Montreal played that are outside the playoff picture right now are the Lightning, Florida Panthers, New Jersey Devils and Colorado Avalanche. The defeated the Devils handily 5-2, crushed the Avs 10-1 and beat the Panthers 3-2 in overtime with Al Montoya in goal.
So, the Habs played two teams (Devils and Avs) all month that they should easily defeat and they outscored them 15-3. They played two other teams outside the playoffs and came away with 3 of 4 possible points.
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Basically, the Habs took care of business when they should have. This is without Galchenyuk who was leading the team in points. Also, Price posted a sub-.900 save percentage. We were all told if Price isn’t superhuman the Habs will struggle.
Well, Price was below average in December and Galchenyuk had one assist in a game and a half. However, the team still put up 16 points in 14 games. That’s a 94 point pace over the stretch of a full season.
With your best player playing less than average and your best skater injured, that’s a pretty impressive month.
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