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Offensive expectations: The goals are starting to return for the Montreal Canadiens

Are the Montreal Canadiens a good team again?

By Miprid
Minas Panagiotakis/Getty Images

While the Montreal Canadiens managed to score five goals in their game against the Edmonton Oilers, they finished last week with an average of just 2.5 goals per game, and a median closer to two goals.

A team can't win with just two goals per game in the long run. The 2-1 shootout win over the Carolina Hurricanes on Sunday afternoon was just the third time this season that the Canadiens have won while scoring less than three times.

The way things are going, the team will end the season with the lowest total goals of any campaign in Michel Therrien's latest tenure.

Let's take a look at last week's numbers:

Shots Goals
Average before 31.8 2.66
Average last week 34.3 2.50
Average now 32.0 2.65
82-game pace 2621 217

Here are the numbers for the entire roster. You can click a column's heading to sort it. Shootout goals are not included in the totals.

Player Pos. GP Exp. S Actual S Pace S Exp. G Actual G Pace G Exp. P Actual P Pace P Sh%
Andrighetto, Sven F 20 110 25 103 10 4 16 25 5 21 16.0
Barberio, Mark D 16 74 19 97 3 1 5 14 3 15 5.3
Beaulieu, Nathan D 51 144 61 98 6 2 3 20 16 26 3.3
Byron, Paul F 35 131 32 75 12 8 19 25 11 26 25.0
Carr, Daniel F 19 110 34 147 8 5 22 20 8 35 14.7
De la Rose, Jacob F 3 66 1 27 4 0 0 10 0 0 0.0
Desharnais, David F 54 109 75 114 10 9 14 45 24 36 12.0
Eller, Lars F 54 108 94 143 12 9 14 27 16 24 9.6
Emelin, Alexei D 44 74 37 69 3 0 0 14 5 9 0.0
Fleischmann, Tomas F 52 131 92 145 12 9 14 25 19 30 9.8
Flynn, Brian F 54 99 72 109 6 4 6 20 10 15 5.6
Galchenyuk, Alex F 54 225 130 197 25 12 18 50 31 47 9.2
Gallagher, Brendan F 37 208 118 262 25 13 29 50 28 62 11.0
Gilbert, Tom D 40 49 34 70 2 1 2 12 2 4 2.9
Holloway, George F 1 88 1 82 8 0 0 22 0 0 0.0
Hudon, Charles F 2 78 1 41 7 0 0 30 2 82 0.0
Lessio, Lucas F 1 99 0 0 6 0 0 7 0 0 NA
Markov, Andrei D 54 140 72 109 8 3 5 40 26 39 4.2
McCarron, Michael F 2 78 4 164 7 0 0 20 0 0 0.0
Mitchell, Torrey F 43 66 44 84 4 6 11 12 12 23 13.6
Pacioretty, Max F 54 308 210 319 37 20 30 60 38 58 9.5
Pateryn, Greg D 11 49 9 67 2 0 0 8 0 0 0.0
Petry, Jeff D 51 192 98 158 8 5 8 25 16 26 5.1
Plekanec, Tomas F 54 167 134 203 20 10 15 50 39 59 7.5
Smith-Pelly, Devante F 39 115 48 101 7 4 8 19 10 21 8.3
Subban, P.K. D 54 211 147 223 12 5 8 50 42 64 3.4
Weise, Dale F 50 88 110 180 8 12 20 18 22 36 10.9

Pace stats are projected over a full year of hockey (82 games)

Tomas Plekanec had an offensive explosion on Saturday against Edmonton. He has since followed that up with a three-point performance on Tuesday night versus the Tampa Bay Lightning (to be included in next week's update). He has found his stride playing between Alex Galchenyuk and Brendan Gallagher, something Lars Eller also experienced a few seasons ago.

Dale Weise and Max Pacioretty had goals last week, but centreman David Desharnais didn’t register a single point. Whatever chemistry used to exist between 67 and 51 has completely evaporated, and there's no way that combination should still be used together.

After mentioning how important it was for the defence to pick up some of the offensive slack, it was a good week for the pointmen. P.K. Subban has been on an offensive tear, and Andrei Markov, Jeff Petry and even Tom Gilbert — who scored his first goal of the year — hit the scoresheet in the four-game span.

With the victory Tuesday night, it seems the team may be at the beginning of a new winning streak. It'll be interesting to see how the rest of this week plays out.

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