What’s working for the Canadiens right now?
One of the best teams in the Eastern Conference is well on its way to another postseason berth.
The Montreal Canadiens have been playing excellent hockey this year, building off a rather surprising run to the Stanley Cup Playoffs last season. With that experience under the team’s belt, the group looks more mature and ready to make a solid run in the postseason this time around.
On Wednesday’s edition of Daily Faceoff LIVE, former NHLer Max Lapierre of Hockey with an Accent joined Tyler Yaremchuk and Steve Peters to explain what has been working for the Habs this season.
Max Lapierre: It’s been tough in net. We were scared a little bit last week when they were in California. I think they weren’t playing up to the standards that they set here at the beginning of the season. In Montreal, it’s all about the transition game, the speed, the skill. They never quit, you know. Sometimes it’s not pretty out there, but they always show up. They always find a way to be better at one point during the game, to come back from behind. It’s exciting.
We’ve been in a rebuild for so long now, and I think they’ve been patient and now they’re getting rewarded because the kids, they were allowed to play out there, make mistakes, and they were going back on the ice, and now we have a confident group with good veterans. We went and got Philip Danault, Mike Matheson. We have a good group of guys and I think we got a solid team. They’re going to figure it out in net. I cannot believe that for 82 games, it’s going to be about who’s number one goalie? Like right now, Dobes is on fire. He’s been structured in front of his net. He was swimming a lot in his crease at the beginning of the season, but he was winning. Now he’s winning, but with authority. Now he’s playing the right way.
You can watch the full segment and entire episode here…
