Another top-5 pick for the Habs and a tip for Martin St-Louis

So it looks like the Habs will (again) be in the mix for a top-5 pick. It’s a virtual certainty.

After 14 games, the Habs have the^3rd worst record in the NHL. Fourteen games is almost 20% of the season…

With 10 points in 14 games, he has a .357 scoring percentage, a nice average… in baseball.

He ranks ^24th in goals for and 31st (or^2nd, depending) in goals allowed.

The goalkeepers are no miracle workers, and the team’s overall style of play is often pitiful.

In short, look at it any way you like, all the indicators are in the red.

So it’s clearly shaping up to be a fourth consecutive season of misery.

Not convinced yet? No need to panic? Nerves, Patoine?

Okay.

Which teams have a real chance of finishing with a worse record than our very, very secular Habs?

On the face of it, we can anticipate that only a tiny handful will be battling with the Habs for the very first overall pick at the next auction: San Jose, Philadelphia, Chicago and Anaheim.

The Sabres, Islanders, Predators, Avalanche, Penguins – all clubs that are off to a poor start this season – will logically end up in the bottom three.

Once again, the Habs are clearly among the five worst clubs in the NHL.

It would take quite a turnaround for the Habs to position themselves “in the mix” for a playoff spot or a draft pick outside the top-10 as many were anticipating, at least before Patrik Laine’s injury.

Of course, if that same Laine comes back in good enough shape in December, stays in the lineup until April and puts up 20-odd goals in 50 games, the Habs could start playing for .500, or thereabouts.

But we’d be here in an ideal world, without another injury to this same Laine or any of the team’s other impact players.

Don’t bet a dime on that!

Heavy losses…

The truth is, the Habs really don’t have a better club on the ice than they did this time last year.

Sean Monahan and Johnathan Kovacevic brought a lot of stability to the forwards and defence.

Monny, 35 points in 49 games with the Habs, a very respectable 59-point pace over an 82-game season, was the very definition of a good second-line center, which Kirby Dach, nor anyone else, is at the moment. I’ve got my own ideas about what might be worth a try, but…

The much underrated Kovy III, the team’s great leader on the differential side (+11), and a much-loved player in the locker room, wasn’t committing the kind of repeated blunders and misreads that virtually every defender on the team is doing this season.

Quite simply, apart from Lane Hutson, no player in the current edition is bringing anything better to the team when compared to last April.

In 33 games following the Monahan trade on February 2, the Habs maintained a record of 10 wins, 15 regular-season losses and 8 overtime losses for a total of 28 points out of a possible 66, a point-per-game percentage of 0.424. He was playing for .490 before February 2.

Again, the team is currently at .357, even with Dach back in action.

Even following a theoretical .500 improvement from Laine’s return with, say, 50 games to go, the Habs’ season will go “sul yab’”!

Without their Finnish scorer, the Habs are on course for 23 points in 32 games.

If we VERY POSITIVELY add 50 points in 50 games after his return, that would still only be 73 points at the end of the season.

That’s three points less than last year, when the Habs finished ^28th in the NHL…

So, more convinced that we can dream of a top-5 or even top-3 pick?

Another season for draft buffs!

It’s going to be another season in which we’ll have to start eyeing the top-20 early for the next draft, because yes, we’ll also have to keep an eye on the Flames’ pick, which should logically end up between 12th and 20th.

Don’t think the Flames will maintain their current .571% rate, which currently places them 20th in the draft, but who knows…

So podcasts like Processus, Recrutes and company will continue to thrive as all “prospects”-literally all prospects! – will once again be allowed for the Habs.

I, for one, will be resuming my pre-draft analyses in the coming weeks…

In other words, after the selection of an exceptional talent like Demidov and a possible ^21st-ranked home run in Michael Hage in 2024, the Habs will potentially add two more top prospects to their already rather well-stocked bank.

Martone, Hagens, Schaefer, Misa, Frondell, Ryabkin and Desnoyers are all names we’ll be hearing a lot about in the coming months…

Meanwhile in Chestnut Hill, #WorldU17 points record holder James Hagens (2025) to Ryan Leonard (WSH) in OT. pic.twitter.com/5Gq3gLBPgb

– Scott Wheeler (@scottcwheeler) November 9, 2024

However, we’re not talking about an exceptional year at the top – no Bedard, no Celebrini – but most likely a top line of Hagens, Martone and Schaefer, followed by a solid top-5, or even a very good top-10.

We’ll see in due course whether there’s reason to get excited about the top-20, but there are still some good players between ^15th and ^20th place…

A word of advice for Martin St-Louis!

You simply have to be patient with the 2nd youngest team in the NHL.

Four of the organization’s six top prospects aren’t even in the NHL yet: Demidov, Reinbacher, Hage and Fowler.

The other two, Slafkovsky and Hutson, are doing quite well, thanks to the fact that they’re just 20 years old. Twenty years old!

Even with Suzuki and Caufield entering their prime, the Habs core is still a long way from reaching maturity.

So, for the here and now, I’m convinced, you can’t make water come out of a rock or, as Martin Leclerc’s beautiful image illustrates, “it’s not by pulling on the flower that it will grow faster”…

So I have a great deal of sympathy for Martin St-Louis.

But, even though he’ll never ask my opinion as a simple sports columnist, beer-league player and professional philosopher, I’d like to offer him this humble piece of advice in conclusion: apply yourself what you preach to your players.

If you tell them that they “must constantly play the game in front of them”, you must do the same in your role behind the bench.

If you tell them that “the game speaks to you”, it speaks to the coach too!

So – without even getting into the thorny subject of the defensive system – if you see the game in front of you and you notice, as you did against the Devils on Thursday night, that :

1) your first powerplay unit isn’t doing anything, adjust accordingly and play your second unit more, or put your most creative player, Hutson, on the first unit.

In short, change the recipe for the game in front of you.

2) If you find that nothing works with Dach on the right of Caufield and Suzuki, and Gallagher is on fire or Slaf or Newhook has a solid one in his legs, like in New Jersey, don’t wait!

Make changes in the game ahead of you!

Practice what you preach!

And as for defensive play, maybe we should stop trying to fit squares into circles…