Canadiens weekly notebook: The value of one-goal games, Suzuki on Slaf’s ceiling

The Montreal Canadiens lost another one-goal game Saturday night in Ottawa — a game they led after two periods and with a little more than a minute left in regulation, but lost in a shootout.

It was the Canadiens’ league-leading 42nd one-goal game of the season and their record in those games is 17-11-14. Consistently, the Canadiens have said playing so many one-goal games gives them a path to future success, because if they can flip some of those overtime or shootout losses to wins, they could easily find themselves in the playoff race next season.

Alex Newhook spoke in those same terms again Saturday night after the shootout loss to the Senators.

“They’re still losses at the end of the day, but if they were wins, we’d be in a playoff spot,” he said. “So we try to flip that next year, those details that come down to it in those tight games, those playoff kinds of attributes that you need to have consistently through the regular season to come out on the right side of these. If we get a majority of them next year, we’re back in a playoff spot.”

When Newhook was told the Canadiens actually had a pretty good record in one-goal games this season, with a points percentage well above .500 (.571, in fact), Newhook seemed surprised. Why? Because it’s clearly become a talking point from the coaching staff that the one-goal games are a positive sign and a pathway to success next season, which explains why Newhook said what he said after the game.

But, then he countered.

“Yeah?” he said. “But that doesn’t include games where we gave up an empty-netter.”

No, he’s right on that.

The Canadiens have allowed 14 empty net goals this season, which is middle-of-the-pack in the league, but it does add to the total of games where the Canadiens were competitive right to the end beyond simply the one-goal games.

Still, the overall premise that playing a lot of one-goal games is a sign that better things are to come is worth examining. Bob Gainey once said a one-goal loss means you are two goals away from winning, so perhaps you shouldn’t read too much into them, and that’s a point worth remembering.

But have other teams who piled up one-goal games improved their efficiency in that situation from one year to the next?

We looked over the last five seasons at the teams that have played the most one-goal games or lost the most one-goal games to see if there was significant improvement in that area from one year to the next, and as it turns out, in the vast majority of cases, there was.

One-goal games are generally looked at as a source of variance in a team’s season. But based on how teams have improved their success rates in those games in recent years, perhaps the Canadiens have some reason to hope next season will be the same for them.

Lane Hutson at the Frozen Four. (Richard T Gagnon/Getty Images)

Ottawa Senators captain Brady Tkachuk is a Boston University alum, so it seemed appropriate to ask him Saturday morning about Lane Hutson signing with the Canadiens after the Terriers were knocked out of the Frozen Four on the weekend.

Tkachuk admitted he hadn’t watched Boston University much this season, but he does have a history with Hutson, to some extent.

Back in 2021, Tkachuk was in a contract dispute with the Senators and remained unsigned through training camp. As he waited for the contract to get settled, Tkachuk worked out with the United States National Development Program, where Hutson was playing at the time.

“I could see the skill he has, the composure, and you could see the battle, too,” Tkachuk said. “I was skating with him and I wasn’t taking it easy, I was trying to get ready for my season and that entails the physicality that’s involved. So those kids, that whole age group, they were battling every day with me and pushing me to get better. Hopefully I left a couple of lessons with them too.”

Hutson’s competitiveness, his battle level, is something people bring up often but that remains a bit under the radar in his game. Getting an endorsement from a player as competitive as Tkachuk should bring that aspect of Hutson’s game onto the radar.

One thing that is not under the radar about Hutson is his intelligence on the ice, his ability to process information on the ice and exploit it.

Jordan Harris made the same jump Hutson is now preparing to make two years ago, and that is what he sees as Hutson’s biggest advantage.

“Obviously the way the NHL’s going, skating and skill and puckhandling, but I think your brain is the most important thing,” Harris said. “There are some NHL players who are 6-foot-5, 240 pounds. There are guys like Arber (Xhekaj) out there, and then there are smaller, skilled guys out there, but everyone can think the game at an elite level.

“I think that’s one of Hutson’s strengths, at least from what I’ve seen, his ability to process the game. And I think our team places a big emphasis on that, and our coaching staff places a big emphasis on that, those little details in your ability to process the game. I think that will definitely help him a lot in that transition.”

Jay Pandolfo, Hutson’s coach at BU, spoke in December about how Martin St. Louis will love coaching him. Hutson’s intelligence is a big reason for that, but St. Louis didn’t want to limit himself as a coach who only works well with intelligent players.

“It’s a big part at this level, intelligence on the ice,” St. Louis said. “It’s how to show your intelligence at this pace. He’s got more intelligence, he’s got a lot of skill, so we’ll see how he puts it all together. For me, I love coaching, period. Whatever players. Obviously, there’s guys that have higher intelligence, they’re fun to coach. But there’s guys that need to work on that part of the game and I enjoy trying to help them and open their mind to different things maybe they’re not used to.”

Nick Suzuki says Juraj Slafkovský’s ceiling among NHL wingers is sky-high. (Minas Panagiotakis/Getty Images)

Nick Suzuki is very in tune with what happens around the NHL. So when he says something like this, after giving it a bit of thought, it’s significant.

But one day after Suzuki said what he said about Juraj Slafkovský, the 2022 first overall pick did this against the Ottawa Senators.

And when you see a player with his size and at his age do something like that, perhaps what Suzuki had to say about his big winger doesn’t come as much of a shock.

“I think his ceiling’s really high,” Suzuki said Friday after practice in Ottawa. “With the tools that he has I think he can be probably one of the best wingers in the league. I think he’s shown that on some nights, and as a young guy, it’s just getting that consistency down.

“He’s going through some growing pains, but I think everyone sees what’s there to be probably a top-five winger in the league.”

Right now, going strictly on points, the top five wingers in the league are Nikita Kucherov, Artemi Panarin, David Pastrnak, Mikko Rantanen and William Nylander. Matthew Tkachuk, Sam Reinhart, Kirill Kaprizov, Filip Forsberg and Mitch Marner also probably belong in that conversation.

That’s 10 wingers right there. If Suzuki feels Slafkovský will be top-five one day, that is a very high bar, especially considering Nylander is sitting on 97 points and the four top-scoring wingers in the league have more than 100 points right now.

Again, Suzuki paused before answering that question. He gave it some thought. He chose his words carefully. And if Slafkovský actually becomes a top-5 winger in the NHL, the Canadiens have themselves one hell of a building block.

With the arrival of Hutson and David Reinbacher at the pro level, the future reality of the Canadiens’ defence corps is starting to become much more real and much more present. This is what made the callup of Justin Barron after Kaiden Guhle and Arber Xhekaj were injured so interesting.

On the one hand, it was an opportunity for Barron. But on the other, the Canadiens were conscious of not overly weakening the Laval Rocket as they pushed for the playoffs. No one would have batted an eye if the Canadiens called up Logan Mailloux or even Reinbacher under the circumstances and kept Barron in Laval to help with that push. But they called up Barron.

Barron will require waivers to be sent to Laval next season, which in a way is closing his evaluation window with the Canadiens. Either he is an NHL player, or he isn’t. Because there is no chance Barron gets through waivers next season.

Does he see it the same way? Is there some urgency to this stint in the NHL?

“Yes and no,” Barron said. “Obviously it’s a good opportunity to come back up and show those improvements, show them I was really able to work on my game down there. It’s a good opportunity to get back up here and show those improvements.

“And for me, it’s showing I can be a full-time NHL player.”

That last part is the kicker. That Barron wants to show himself he can be a full-time NHL player. And it might be the most important part of what he said. Prior to the season, Barron said he had nothing left to prove in the AHL, and yet he found himself there regardless.

On Saturday in Ottawa, the Canadiens put Barron with Mike Matheson on the top pairing. He finished second among the team’s defencemen in ice time and anchored the second power play unit. He did not look terribly out of place, which is a compliment under the circumstances. But Barron has yet to show a legitimate NHL dimension that will make him indispensable for a team that is swimming in young defencemen.

The last two games of the season probably won’t be enough to make his case, but he needs to fully seize this chance, because if there is one player who personifies just how fierce the competition is about to get for a spot on the Canadiens’ blue line, it might very well be Barron.

“I feel like I was playing some good hockey before Christmas and then my game kind of dropped a little bit,” Barron said. “I feel like I was able to find my game again in Laval, and I certainly feel better coming back this time than I did the last couple of weeks before I went down.”

(Top photo of Brady Tkachuk scoring on Saturday: Chris Tanouye/Freestyle Photography/Getty Images)