Habs Post Mortem: What Went Wrong For Les Canadiens

Question: when the season began, how many people thought that the Montreal Canadiens would even make the playoffs? How many people felt that Guy Carbonneau would be nominated for Coach of the Year? How many people would have thought that the Habs would still have the best power play in the NHL.

Answer: Very few people in Montreal, and almost no one outside of the city.

So the fact that the Canadiens finished first overall in the Eastern Conference, and went to the 2nd round of the Playoffs has to be considered a success. According to Bob Gainey, the Habs were ahead of schedule leading into the 2008 NHL playoffs, as they neared the end of year 3 of his 5 year plan.

However, since we are doing a post mortem, we need to look at who and what went wrong this season, so that we can see how they will be addressed.

GM: Bob Gainey

When looking at what went wrong, you have to start at the top of hockey operations, and in this case, it's with Bob Gainey. While I completely understand his reluctance to give up on quality prospects and young players to bring in a rental, or the fact that he did not want to break up the chemistry of this time, you have to question at least 1 decision he made at the deadline. No, I am not talking directly about trading Huet for next season's 2nd round pick. Instead, I am talking about leaving the team with 2 very young, very unproven and inexperienced goaltenders. Bob made a decision earlier this season that Carey Price was the future. Bob made another decision at the trade deadline to make the future now. But what Bob did not need to do was leave Guy Carbonneau with no other options in nets.

Lessons Learned: Always have a proven insurance policy. While you can't plan for every contingency (see Colorado Avalanche), you should have at least have provided a few real options for your coach. I'd like to think that this is the last time that we will see 2 young goaltenders in nets for the Canadiens for a long time.

Coaches: Guy Carbonneau and his entire staff

While this team did an amazing job throughout the regular season, they did so with largely the same cast of characters since Montreal lost very little in the way of man games from there regular starters. They never had to deal with losing any of their star players either on offense or on defense for any real stretch of time, so they never had to learn about making adjustments to their game-plan. In the end, this is what I think hurt them as a group. I think that the coaches simply got used to a certain game-plan, and when they lost, they blamed the problem on a lack of execution or commitment on behalf of the players.

Lessons Learned: Change it up! If you are playing a team in a 7 game series, they will begin to pick up on what you do, and will have devised strategies against it.

Players NOT to blame:

Captain Koivu: He is a legend and totally under appreciated by the fans and the media. The best offense the Habs had is when he is on the ice. He was temporarily put on the 3rd line, but instead of bitch about, he instantly made his new line-mates better. He was tied for 2nd in scoring despite missing 5 games due to a broken bone in his foot.

Players at fault:

Alexei Kovalev: Here is a player that changed nothing about his game in the playoffs versus the regular season where he was arguably the Habs most valuable player. The problem is that the requirements for what Montreal needed from him did change, and he was only a shadow of the player on the ice that he was during the regular season. He may have still been all those things that he was off the ice, but the Canadiens needed to see him do much more, on the power play especially.

Maxim Lapierre: He improved his game tremendously, and will be highly graded, but was still tied for worst with a minus 5.

The Defense: As a unit, Montreal's defensive core let them down game after game after game. From taking bad shots from the point that led to odd man rushes (yeah, looking at you Streit), to bad penalties, to sloppy play, Montreal needed a much better effort from their defense. When Gorges and Brisebois are playing on par with your best defencemen, you know you are in trouble.

Guillaume Latendresse: For those morons that keep saying that the Habs need more French Canadian players, look no further than this failure as a power forward who tied with another French Canadian (Lapierre) with the worst post season +/- rating on the club, but with 4 less games played. And despite having 4 less games, he led the team in penalty minutes, not a great stat for playoff hockey.

Carey Price: I have been bashing Kid Price all season, but I will not gloat now. I simply feel that he was put into the wrong place, and the wrong time, by people who made the wrong decisions. He did not play to the caliber of a 1st place in the Eastern conference team, and quite frankly, Huet would have taken them further than Price this year, if only this year. Huet took a much weaker Washington team to 7 games against a Philadelphia team that beat Montreal in 5.