Canadiens playoff notebook: Potential lineup changes, power-play woes, right-catching goalies

New York Times

24-04-2025

The Montreal Canadiens returned home for Game 3 of their series against the Washington Capitals on Thursday with a dilemma on their hands.
Patrik Laine has clearly been a drag on the team, and that became especially evident in the third period of Game 2 when Laine's regular linemates, Alex Newhook and Ivan Demidov, looked so effective with Jake Evans.
That lone period away from Laine left him alone in last place for on-ice expected goals for percentage in the Stanley Cup Playoffs among players who have played at least 15 minutes at five-on-five prior to Thursday's games, according to Natural Stat Trick.
Demidov's inclusion on that list and his separation from Laine show how much his third period with Evans and Newhook helped his numbers: that line controlled just north of 60 percent of the expected goals in just over four minutes of play together.
Of course, if this were just a matter of two bad games on the road for Laine, that would be much easier to tolerate for Martin St. Louis. But that's not the case. This has been going on for weeks, if not months, and now the stakes are too high to tolerate it for much longer. Thus far in the series, whenever the Canadiens managed to create a shift or two of momentum, it would be cut by the Newhook line spending their shift in the defensive zone. The Capitals have no easy lines for St. Louis to send them out against at home, either.
The coach's message to reporters in Washington on Thursday morning was the same one he delivered at the end of Game 2, namely that the Canadiens need to produce more good minutes over the course of the game, and not just in the third period.
All that pressue in the third to only get three posts.
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— Micah McCurdy (@hockeyviz.com) April 24, 2025 at 10:27 AM
It was a message he leaned on again when asked Thursday if Laine needs to up his intensity.
'I think it's everyone's level, again, more minutes. I'm repeating myself, but it's everyone, not one guy or two guys, it's everyone,' St. Louis said. 'Collectively, can we stretch it to our end a bit more? And it definitely starts with the individuals.'
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St. Louis seemingly has three options here.
The first would be to maintain the status quo and see if his lineup can take advantage of playing on home ice with more favourable matchups (again, the Capitals don't present any particularly favourable matchups, but some are more favourable than others).
The second would be to replace Laine in the lineup with Oliver Kapanen, which would also provide St. Louis with an opportunity to tweak his power play (more on that in a minute). Inserting another rookie into a playoff environment does not seem ideal either, because with Kapanen, Demidov and Emil Heineman, that would make three rookies among 12 Canadiens forwards.
The third would be to go with 11 forwards and seven defencemen, giving St. Louis an opportunity to not only insert Arber Xhekaj into the lineup on the blue line, but also give his best players some extra shifts with the two extra forwards St. Louis would dress, which could even include Laine. This would allow St. Louis to further mitigate David Savard's usage at five-on-five by giving both Xhekaj and Jayden Struble and Savard spot shifts with a member of his top four on defence. Savard has already played the fewest five-on-five minutes of any Canadiens player in the series, but his difficulty in getting around the ice efficiently is becoming more and more glaring.
St. Louis is still a young coach. These are his first playoffs. And this is his first critical moment of these playoffs. It was reasonable to stick with what he had in Game 1 after the Canadiens lost in overtime, and it might still be reasonable to stand pat based on how close Game 2 actually was.
But if the Canadiens go down 3-0 in the series, the series will essentially be over. It seems like a time for the coach to act, and while the 11 forwards and seven defencemen lineup is not something that St. Louis particularly likes, it appears like a situation where it might be appropriate.
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After Game 2, Capitals coach Spencer Carbery identified a key moment that not only allowed his team to maintain momentum after scoring two quick goals in the second period to erase a one-goal lead, but it actually allowed Washington to build momentum.
That was the Canadiens' power play that began 21 seconds after Dylan Strome gave the Capitals the lead, one where the Canadiens generated two shot attempts, none on goal, and had to defend for a good chunk of it.
'We just take the lead, it's 2-1, now they get a power play. That can swing either way, right?' Carbery said after Game 2. 'They can have a great power play and potentially score. Now it's 2-2. Now we're back to square one. Or you can have a really strong penalty kill in that situation, and now you carry the momentum.
'And I thought that's exactly what we did.'
The Canadiens' power play is 1-for-4 in the series, which seems fine on the surface. But it has not been sharp, not only in the series, but since the beginning of April. They went 1-for-20 over their final nine games. In their two playoff games, the Canadiens have generated 6.97 expected goals for and 9.25 high-danger chances per 60 minutes of power-play time. That's down from 7.07 expected goals and 17.94 high-danger chances per 60 in the regular season.
Laine hasn't scored a power-play goal in 11 straight games, though he was the source of the bounce that led to Cole Caufield's power-play goal in Game 1. Still, if Laine is not scoring on the power play, and if the power play in general is suffering, and his five-on-five play remains problematic, having him in the lineup is difficult to justify.
Perhaps this would be a good time to put Caufield back in that left circle spot he surrendered to Laine back in December, a point at which Caufield had seven power-play goals in 24 games. He had three in his remaining 58 games. Perhaps Demidov could get a look on the top unit.
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Regardless of what it is, something needs to change.
St. Louis said that toward the end of the regular season, when it became obvious that the Canadiens would be facing the Capitals in the playoffs, he assigned Alex Burrows the task of scouting them.
The Canadiens had five days between their final regular-season game and Game 1 of the series on Monday.
But one of the unique aspects of the Capitals is that they have two goaltenders, Logan Thompson and Charlie Lindgren, who catch with their right hand. There are only four in the entire NHL, three if you don't count Yaroslav Askarov, who spent most of the season in the AHL, and the Capitals have two of them.
It is highly unusual.
In fact, we asked Lindgren about it prior to Game 1 and he said they had looked it up, and they found they are the first team since the 2010-11 Columbus Blue Jackets tandem of Steve Mason and Mathieu Garon to have two right-catching goalies.
There was some doubt prior to the series as to whether Thompson would be ready to play Game 1, but either way, the Canadiens knew they would be facing a right-catching goalie.
It is a significant change for shooters, something to adjust to. We've seen early on the Canadiens targeting Thompson high on his blocker side, and thus far, no dice. Nick Suzuki had two excellent scoring chances in the first period of Game 1, and that's where he aimed on both.
We asked Christian Dvorak if they ever thought of finding a right-catching goalie to practice on prior to the series, and he said it never came up.
'It's probably hard to find one,' he said.
Seems like that might have been a good idea, though it would have made those practices tricky for their own goalies. Dvorak did say they went over video of both goalies with goaltending coach Eric Raymond, and some suggestions were made as to how to attack a right-catching goalie differently, but that was it. And in the heat of the action, it can be difficult to make that adjustment in real time.
'It is definitely different,' Dvorak said.