The dreaded California road trip has finally come to an end for the Montreal Canadiens. Ending it with a whimper, the Habs succumbed 6-3 to the Los Angeles Kings, sending them back to Montreal looking for answers before their back-to-back on Super Bowl weekend.
One thing that could provide a big help in fixing their game would be to address their awful play in transition.
Great work by Alex Newhook, gets in deep with his legs and curls, finds Logan Mailloux for a snipe. pic.twitter.com/41XqkIdGtD
— Matt Drake (@DrakeMT) February 6, 2025
Alex Newhook was one of very few players who showed the ability to gain the offensive zone with possession. He used his speed to pull the Kings deeper into their zone than they would have liked, and a well-timed curl in the corner allowed him to feed Logan Mailloux with a ton of space to let loose his weapon of a shot. All three of Montreal’s goals came from point shots, but the previous two were of the luckier variety, and not the result of sound transitional play like Newhook’s.
The Habs’ transitional play has fallen off a cliff of late, and it doesn’t take a genius to understand why. When breaking out of their zone, forwards are gone far too early, and the defencemen are forced to try low-percentage lob passes into traffic, which tend to be the hockey equivalent of a punt more often than not. When they’re not trying lobs or stretch passes, they often try to clear the zone by simply forcing the puck along the wall and into traffic, which is the hockey equivalent of a jump ball, as they initiate board battles instead of trying to clear the zone with possession.
As for zone entries, these are almost always executed in the form of a dump, or a hard pass that is deflected into the zone. On numerous occasions last night, the Kings defencemen were anticipating this, and waiting below the hash marks in their zone, taking away any chance the Habs may have had of winning a race and having an offensive zone possession. Plays like Newhook’s were few and far between, which is frustrating when you see how they completely change the team’s offensive outlook.
Defensive zone coverage has been an issue for their entire season, but what made them successful in December and January was their transitional play. For all their flaws in the defensive zone, they moved the puck out and up the ice far more efficiently, and with that aspect disappearing from their game, they find themselves looking more like the Habs of November.
Fatigue is the excuse that keeps being brought up, and we will soon find out if that is anything more than an excuse. After the weekend double header, they will benefit from the Four Nations break to see if they can get back to some semblance of the team they were in December and January.
Click the play button below to listen to your full Bottom Six Minutes, also available wherever you get your podcasts. The road trip is over now, and we’ll be back when the Habs return to the Bell Centre for the Super Bowl weekend back-to-back this Saturday and Sunday.
