Getting blown out on home ice is rarely a pleasant experience, and the frustration was palpable for the Montreal Canadiens when they faced such a fate on Super Bowl Sunday. Taking on the St. Louis Blues, they gave up two early goals, and never really got back into the game thereafter. By the numbers, it was far from their worst game of the season, yet still managed to be one of their most lopsided losses.
A big part of that was the performance of Jake Allen, who exacerbated the blowout with some very shaky goaltending, and just may have played himself right out of any trade deadline conversations.
Allen has been the subject of trade rumours and speculation basically since before the season started. The decision for the Canadiens to go into the season with three goaltenders was at least assumed to be temporary, and they’d move one of the three at some point prior to the trade deadline. Allen was always viewed as the likely candidate to be moved, but now it seems that he’s a long shot at best. His level of experience and past performances probably won’t be enough to overshadow the way he’s been playing lately.
You can’t hang the loss to the Blues solely on him, but the degree to which they were blown out was avoidable. At least three, maybe four foals were on shots he should probably stop, so he did little to give them a chance to stay close in that game. They didn’t quite play well enough where you could say they should have won, but they definitely played well enough to not be blown out like that.
It is at least worth wondering how much this three-goalie system has hampered his performance. Samuel Montembeault has deservedly been treated like the starter in terms of game action, while the other two have had to split whatever games remain. Allen in particular seems to have suffered with this configuration, and his trade value has plummeted the longer that he has to play within it.
Kent Hughes has showed some of the better asset management we’ve seen in decades as the team’s General Manager. With Allen he has a rapidly depreciating asset, still signed through next season. It should be interesting to see what he pulls off, if anything, before the deadline.
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