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Offensive Expectations: The answer to the goal-scoring woes may be on the back end

The All-Star break came at a perfect time for the Montreal Canadiens. Now they need to get their offensive production back on track.

By Miprid
Brace Hemmelgarn-USA TODAY Sports

After two blowout losses to the worst team in the NHL, it's difficult to spin the offensive contributions of the Montreal Canadiens in a positive manner. The team is now below the projected pace of 224 goals, so I guess things can only get better from here.

The effort level was the most disappointing aspect of the team's play, with only a sick P.K. Subban giving it his all. Let's take a look at the team's season numbers after their discouraging week:

Shots Goals
Average before 31.7 2.74
Average this week 32 2
Average now 31.8 2.66
82-game pace 2606 218

Here are the numbers for the individual players. You can click a column's heading to sort it. Shootout goals do not count in their total.

Player Position GP Exp. S Actual S Pace S Exp. G Actual G Pace G Exp. P Actual P Pace P Sh%
Andrighetto, Sven F 17 110 19 92 10 4 19 25 5 24 21.1
Barberio, Mark D 13 74 15 95 3 1 6 14 3 19 6.7
Beaulieu, Nathan D 49 144 59 99 6 2 3 20 15 25 3.4
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 50 109 69 113 10 9 15 45 24 39 13.0
Eller, Lars F 50 108 86 141 12 8 13 27 15 25 9.3
Emelin, Alexei D 41 74 32 64 3 0 0 14 5 10 0.0
Fleischmann, Tomas F 48 131 89 152 12 9 15 25 18 31 10.1
Flynn, Brian F 50 99 65 107 6 4 7 20 10 16 6.2
Galchenyuk, Alex F 50 225 117 192 25 11 18 50 28 46 9.4
Gallagher, Brendan F 33 208 106 263 25 12 30 50 26 65 11.3
Gilbert, Tom D 36 49 31 71 2 0 0 12 1 2 0.0
Holloway, Bud 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
Markov, Andrei D 50 140 66 108 8 2 3 40 24 39 3.0
McCarron, Michael F 2 78 4 164 7 0 0 20 0 0 0.0
Mitchell, Torrey F 39 66 41 86 4 6 13 12 12 25 14.6
Pacioretty, Max F 50 308 195 320 37 19 31 60 36 59 9.7
Pateryn, Greg D 11 49 9 67 2 0 0 8 0 0 0.0
Petry, Jeff D 47 192 92 161 8 4 7 25 15 26 4.4
Plekanec, Tomas F 50 167 123 202 20 9 15 50 34 56 7.3
Smith-Pelly, Devante F 35 115 43 101 7 4 9 19 9 21 9.3
Subban, P.K. D 50 211 134 220 12 4 7 50 37 61 3.0
Weise, Dale F 46 88 101 180 8 11 20 18 21 37 10.9

S = shots; G = goals; P = points. Remember that the pace is based on a full year of hockey (82 games).

To add injury to the insulting losses, Daniel Carr is out for three months with a leg injury, and that's bad news for the Habs' offence. Sven Andrighetto has been called back up, but he has not produced at the same level so far this season, as the following comparison shows:

GP iShots iHSC iSC TOI
Andrighetto, Sven 17 19 8 20 207
Carr, Daniel 19 34 25 42 221

Alex Galchenyuk is back on the wing playing with David Desharnais, and had one goal this week; coming on the power play with Desharnais on the bench. He is about four goals shy of his expected production pace.

Max Pacioretty and Tomas Plekanec are about three goals behind to this point of the season. Plekanec is heading toward the lowest goal production of his career.

Devante Smith-Pelly scored a goal versus the Blue Jackets. I repeat DSP scored. I say it twice because it might be a while before I say anything else about him.

Subban is having a wonderful season, despite the poor team performance, and some bad luck in goal production. He truly deserved his appearance at the All-Star Game. I would like to see Michel Therrien cut down his ice time a bit to allow him to play at his best all game long. You can't jump up in the rush and race back into defensive position when you are expected to be on the ice for 30 minutes per game.

With the return of Tom Gilbert (expected back this week) maybe will see some stability at the blue line, though the defensive zone issues cannot be blamed on his replacement; Mark Barberio provided some decent minutes in his limited ice time.

Concerns are growing around Andrei Markov, however. He's not getting the shots he usually does, and has been having a rough go of things defensively in recent games.

The fact that only one of the top four defencemen is meeting his shot expectation is a sign that the team isn't reaping the benefits of their puck-moving defenders. That might indicate why the team is having little success scoring goals.

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