Everyone worships Slafkovsky these days, but he’s having a ball (like the others).

I think I’ve found a new expression to use when my girlfriend or my teenagers are taking too long to get ready and I’m impatiently waiting for them to leave: you’re taking longer than a shootout between the Penguins and the Canadiens.

I made up my mind a few months ago: I’d like 3-on-3 overtime to last until there’s a winner in the NHL. I’m no longer enchanted by shootouts. Yesterday, I found it long and I would never have felt that way with 3-on-3 overtime .

Especially since, in the end, the Canadiens lost their seventh game out of seven this season to a team that had played the day before. Nothing to justify those long moments spent in front of the TV.

Think of the absurdity of the stat I’ve just shared with you: the Habs can’t beat a tired team with fewer legs than they have. Worse still, they’re not as good at the end of games as they were at the start, against teams that should be vulnerable at the end.

Why is that?

Bad luck? Poor preparation? Lack of raw talent? Too little involvement? Yesterday, the Canadiens led by two goals, you bastard!

But then, they also allowed two goals on three power-play attempts by the Penguins, who were recently 0 for 36 with the man advantage and hadn’t scored since mid-November under such circumstances. As John Lennon sang in the ’60s: You Can’t Do That.

And what about the Bell Centre crowd? They applaud Sidney Crosby wildly when he’s introduced before the game… but boo him when he’s sent off in the shootout. I know there was nothing mean about it and it’s part of the show to boo the other team’s best player, but can we look like we know what we want/do by not applauding him two hours before? It makes us look like clowns, honestly…

Emotions and rose-colored glasses
We’ve been reading and hearing these phrases a lot over the last few weeks:

Juraj Slafkovsky is blossoming and he’s the team’s best player on the ice…

Josh Anderson is back…

Cole Caufield is a superstar…

Nick Suzuki is our leader…

But if we leave our partisan emotions behind and take off our rose-colored glasses, we’re in for a real shock.

Nick Suzuki is our best player, our first center, our highest paid (not on the LTIR) and our captain. He’s playing with our best natural scorer and first overall pick in 2022; in short, his trio partners are there because they’re good, not because other players are injured.

Yet Suzuki has just 23 points in 27 games, 70th in the entire NHL. When there are 69 Vanessa Cosi players with more points than Nick Suzuki across the NHL, you understand a little better why your team ranks last in the league in goals scored by forward players.

If the first center of the Avalanche, Panthers or any other team only had 23 points, he’d be criticized. Especially if his annual salary is close to $8 million…

Cole Caufield, our star striker, has only found the back of the net seven times so far this season, many of them at 3-on-3 or 5-on-4. At 5-on-5, it’s difficult for young Caufield, whose commitment and courage to go into the pay zones is beginning to be challenged by many observers.

Seven goals is good for (roughly) 150th in the NHL. Since there are 32 teams, that means Caufield would be the 5th-best scorer on an average team in the league. He’s also fourth in Montreal.

Martin St-Louis wants to make Caufield a more complete player… but he has to be careful not to make him less good with the puck, when trying to teach him how to be better without it.

Cole Caufield is scoring fewer goals this year. Yet that’s his primary role

According to Martin McGuire, St-Louis is focusing on Cole Caufield’s development as a more complete player.

Listen to the third episode of the Bon PodcastMatchhttps://t.co/gwV8UrExZS pic.twitter.com/nguSrXLXst

– Balado Bon Match (@BaladoBonMatch) December 14, 2023

Many claim that Juraj Slafkovsky is finally where he needs to be… that he’s been the team’s best player for a few games now.

Slafkovskyhasn’t picked up a single point in his last seven games (during which he never finished at plus-1 or better) and he hasn’t found the back of the net in his last 11 games. If that’s what it means to be the team’s best player, it just goes to show how much the team is struggling and not progressing.

I know it sometimes looks like Slaf is a monster on the ice, but when you look at a large sample and analyze the numbers-they don’t lie-the numbers still paint a mixed picture for the big Slovak.

Slafkovsky has 2 goals and 5 assists in 29 games this season, for a production rate of 6 goals and 14 assists over an 82-game season.

Slafkovsky is about the 400th top scorer in the Bettman circuit this morning, tied with guys like Matt Roy, Jalen Chatfield, Nick Seeler, Kaedan Korczak and Will Cuylle. I wonder if we’ll start wondering again in a few weeks whether sending him to Laval might not be the best option for him.

If Shane Wright, instead of producing to the tune of one point per game in the AHL, had those numbers in Seattle, we’d be laughing at him big time. But the world is a fan of the Habs and their players… and it hates Shane Wright, right?

And what about Josh Anderson? Wasn’t he supposed to be back after his goal in an empty net? I was more back than he was… in 2008!

One goal and four assists in 29 games for a forward who earns an average annual salary of $5.5 million is a catastrophe, no less. More or less 500 players have more points than him in 2023-24… and 575 players have at least one goal this season. Including a goalie!

Many Montreal fans like to laugh at Max Domi and his difficulties in Toronto, but Domi has 1 goal and 13 assists. Not 1 goal and 4 assists!

Mathieu Joseph, who was a giveaway last summer, has 17 points with the Sens. Anderson has 5 and some still worship him.

It’s time to take off our rose-colored glasses and collectively admit something: the Habs are struggling offensively, and it’s going to take a good dose of raw talent to remedy the situation. Let’s stop always breathing with our fan hearts and look at things as they are: no matter how good our defensive brigade and how good our #1 goaltender, we won’t win as long as we don’t have more punch up front. You can’t win the Cup with fine words in front of the cameras!

And no, injuries alone can’t explain everything. There’s more to it than that.

Note that I didn’t mean Christian Dvorak, who was said to be better than Phillip Danault and Jesperi Kotkaniemi, or Brendan Gallagher. They’ll be gone the day the Habs feel real pressure to win their games.

At least Sean Monahan is delivering the goods he’s paid for up front… but Montreal fans deserve better. Much better!

We could save ourselves a little embarrassment as (fe)fans.

Extension

I wonder what Romell Quioto could be doing in Montreal. Is his agent negotiating with the Montreal CF again?

Unless he’s only in Montreal to pick up his things and leave Quebec for good?