theathleticuk
A seemingly ordinary practice on October 7 at the Canadiens' suburban training facility set the stage for a 2-0 victory over the St. Louis Blues on Tuesday night. The session, which followed a disheartening 6-4 loss to the Carolina Hurricanes, saw coach Martin St. Louis implement a chip-and-chase drill aimed at defining the team's identity. During that same practice, goaltender Sam Montembeault, slated to start the next night for the first time since March, tweaked something and left the ice. Jacob Fowler, who had been cut at the end of training camp, was recalled from the AHL and started against the Nashville Predators instead.
Fowler seized the opportunity and has not looked back. On Tuesday, he turned aside 46 shots to blank the Blues, recording the third-most saves in a shutout in franchise history and the most by a rookie. Since his call-up, he boasts a 6-1-0 record with a 1.54 goals-against average and a .942 save percentage. "I think we put a lot of emphasis on the D to having good boxouts and I thought they were terrific tonight," Fowler said. "Can't say enough good things about them, they let me see the shots. To be a goalie in this league, if you see it you've got to try and stop it. I got lucky tonight."
Luck had little to do with it. Fowler has essentially stolen two consecutive wins and made it impossible for the Canadiens to remove him from the lineup, staking his claim on the net as Jakub Dobes waits for his chance to reclaim the starting role and Montembeault works his way back from the untimely injury. "That's a good problem to have," St. Louis said.
Fowler has also masked some issues that have crept into the Canadiens' game, stemming from the same chip-and-chase drill that opened the door for him. "Not necessarily in the first, but in the second it was puck play," St. Louis explained when asked why the Canadiens were forced to defend so much against the Blues. "Their goalie touched the puck too much in the second period. It's hard to forecheck when their goalie touches it, so then you're probably going to have to defend more because it kind of eliminates the forecheck. So we kind of did that to ourselves a little bit with where we put the pucks, and then tired defencemen on the ice because the goalie touches the puck, we can't really change. To me, tired bodies will always make you defend more."
Fowler helped the Canadiens overcome that deficiency, but he is not the only player to get an opportunity and run with it due to injury. If Nick Suzuki and Ivan Demidov were currently available, it is very possible Kirby Dach would not be in the lineup. The same goes for Florian Xhekaj, who scored his first career goal early in the third period to make it 2-0—a goal that provided breathing room Fowler ultimately did not need but was important nonetheless. "It feels pretty good," Xhekaj said. "I had some chances in the first, I could feel it was coming."
That goal will help Xhekaj stake a similar claim to a lineup spot once the Canadiens get healthy. But the player who has staked a more lasting claim is Dach. Tuesday morning, when asked how Dach was playing, St. Louis did not hesitate. This is a different version of Dach than the one seen earlier in the season, when he was given an opportunity to grab a top-six role and was invisible. Not anymore. "Kirby's playing very good hockey," St. Louis said. "For one, it's his attitude. He had a longer runway a couple of years ago, but now his runway's gotten shorter and he's on the job. It starts with his attitude, he's working. He's forcing me to give him more."
St. Louis did just that Tuesday night, taking every opportunity to get Dach an extra shift. Coming off a penalty kill that tired out Phillip Danault, Dach went out in Danault's spot with Alexandre Texier and Zack Bolduc. His regular line with Xhekaj and Jake Evans had a 100 percent expected goals percentage at five-on-five, according to Natural Stat Trick, and Dach's ability to protect pucks and have a good stick defensively was a big part of that. "I think when he's at his best he's holding on to pucks more, protecting them more and sucking guys in, then making a play," Evans said. "That's probably the biggest reason he's doing better. I think early on you're just trying to find your way and sometimes it takes a few games. Sometimes the game's not as much there for him, and I think that's hard on a player. He's starting to figure it out and understand what he can do and what's working."
What the Dach-Evans-Xhekaj line is doing well goes back to that consequential practice. Unlike most other Canadiens forward lines, the Evans line was able to place pucks where it could retrieve them, then converted that into offensive zone time. It was a rare reprieve for the Canadiens on Tuesday night, when so many attempted chip-and-chase opportunities turned into defensive zone time instead. "I feel like they were good again tonight," St. Louis said of the Evans line. "I feel like they play inside our rules, they compete, they're giving us some good hockey. They're not reinventing anything."
Key Analysis
Fowler has turned his opportunity into a clear stake for a more permanent role, as has Dach. When Suzuki and Demidov return from injury, the forward mix will change drastically. The reality right now is the Canadiens' worst line is made up of Chris Kreider, Alex Newhook and Josh Anderson. Two forwards will need to come out when Suzuki and Demidov return, and it is hard not to see one of them being Xhekaj despite him playing pretty well. The hierarchy of NHL rosters often means rookies suffer in such situations. But if the decision needed to be made at this very moment, it would be hard to argue that the second player to lose his spot should be Dach instead of Kreider. Fowler and Dach, at the very least, are presenting a good problem for St. Louis to have.
Originally reported by theathleticuk.