Stu’s Slapshots: Young and hungry Canadiens ready for playoffs
Young and hungry.
It’s a line defenceman Kaiden Guhle used several times when speaking with the media after practice Friday in Brossard as the Canadiens prepared for Game 1 of their first-round playoff series Sunday against the Lightning in Tampa (5:45 p.m., CBC, SN, TVA Sports).
I asked Guhle if that was the team’s slogan for the playoffs and if they had made T-shirts.
“No, I just came up with it right now,” he said with a chuckle.
It is a great way to describe the Canadiens, who for the second straight year are the youngest team in the playoffs with an average age of 26.
The Canadiens made the playoffs for the first time in four years last season with a 40-31-11 record for 91 points. They improved by 15 points this season with a 48-24-10 record to finish third in the Atlantic Division.
“I think when you look at what we’ve been through as a team and, obviously, there’s a couple of years there where we were bottom of the league and had to work our way up, and then last year kind of get a sniff of the playoffs and clinch the playoffs on the last game of the year,” Guhle said. “I think just getting that playoff atmosphere and that playoff kind of feeling is so addicting and we got a little bit of a taste of it. I think that’s just something we’re going to want to do every year. It’s an addicting feeling to feel that and you want to feel that every year.”
Last year, the Canadiens lost in five games to the Washington Capitals in the first round of the playoffs after clinching the second wild-card spot in the Eastern Conference with a 4-2 win over the Carolina Hurricanes in their final game of the regular season.
Head coach Martin St. Louis said the thing that impressed him most about his team this season was the competitiveness.
“I think we compete,” he said. “I feel like it was rare that we weren’t in games — whether we were winning or tied. We were always close enough that we could go get it if we needed to. We learned to close games better. So I feel like we competed.”
The Lightning is in the playoffs for the ninth straight season, including back-to-back Stanley Cup championships in 2020 and 2021, followed by a loss to the Colorado Avalanche in the 2022 Cup final.
“I’ll give you facts,” St. Louis said when asked about his team being considered the underdog in this series. “They’re a veteran team that’s been pretty much the standard for the last seven-plus years, eight years, 10 years. They’re good. We’re good, too.”
I think the Lightning will win the series in six games, but I wouldn’t mind being wrong about that. There’s nothing like the playoffs in Montreal. A long playoff run would be great for the city, the fans and the team.
Guhle enjoys being “a prick”
A big reason why I’m picking the Lightning to win in six games is the Canadiens will be without defenceman Noah Dobson because of what is likely a broken thumb.
As a result, it looks like the defence pairings for Game 1 in Tampa will have Guhle with Mike Matheson, Lane Hutson with Alexandre Carrier and Arber Xhekaj with Jayden Struble. David Reinbacher and Adam Engstrom will be the extra defencemen.
“Obviously, he’s a great player and it’s tough to have him out for now,” Guhle said about Dobson. “But we’re lucky enough to have a lot of depth on D and a lot of players that can play and log a lot of minutes.
“There’s a couple of guys that maybe don’t play as much and you’re a competitor and you want to always be playing more, so this is their chance and they’re going to be ready to step up in that regard,” Guhle added. “Again, young and hungry. Younger D that maybe haven’t got an opportunity this year to play and play a lot of minutes and they’re going to get that now and they’re going to take that opportunity and run with it.”
Guhle is one of the nicest young men you could ever meet, but he takes pride in being what he calls “a prick” on the ice.
How does he flip that switch?
“It’s just fun to do that,” he said. “I like getting in guys’ faces, pissing guys off. I like when the other team’s yelling at me and kind of giving me s—. I feel like if teams aren’t doing that to me in a game, I feel like I’m not really doing my job. It’s fun being in the fire. It gets you into the game. I want other teams’ players to be playing the Habs and think: ‘We got to play this guy and this guy and this D core.’ That’s like a pride thing, I guess, more than anything. It’s fun to be like that.”
Guhle was asked where his “prick meter” will be for Game 1.
“You’ll see on Sunday,” he said with a grin.
Dynamic duo?
The “couple of guys” Guhle was talking about getting their chance now are Xhekaj and Struble.
Xhekaj and Struble are great friends, but they have been competing against each other all season for the sixth defence spot. Now, because of the injury to Dobson, they find themselves as partners to start the playoffs.
“It’s cool,” Xhekaj said. “We root for one another, we compete against each other, but we don’t make the calls. We got each other’s backs, so I think it’s going to be good to play with him. We’ve played together in the past and we’ve had fun. We’re going to be an important D pair, I think, in that series.
“I think we both play physical and we can kind of wear down their forwards as the series goes on here,” Xhekaj added. “I think it’s going to be especially important because we like to play that game and I think you got to let Laner do his thing and Carrier, too. Guhls and Mike are going to be a shutdown pair and I think it’s going to be our job to kind of get things going when the team needs it.”
Struble was a healthy scratch 22 times this season and Xhekaj 17 times. Struble played the first two playoff games against the Capitals last season before being replaced by Xhekaj for the last three.
“It’s something you dream about as a kid to play in the Stanley Cup playoffs and play for a Stanley Cup,” Xhekaj said. “It’s what every kid’s goal is in life and I think when you get there it’s special. It’s what you play for, it’s why you play the game. It’s definitely a special thing to make the playoffs and go for the Stanley Cup was a dream of mine as a kid.
“We know what this city’s like when the playoffs get going,” Xhekaj added. “I played a few games last year, but it was probably the most fun hockey I’ve ever played. So we’re all excited for that.”
Guhle believes Xhekaj and Struble will play a big role against the Lightning.
“They’ll be huge, I think,” Guhle said. “They’re a gritty team and they like to get in your face and scrum it up. Those two guys don’t shy away from that stuff. They love it, so it will be a good matchup for them, for sure.”
The goalie matchup
Another big reason why I’m picking the Lightning to win the series in six games is the goaltending matchup.
The Lightning has Andrei Vasilevskiy, who has already won two Stanley Cups, a Conn Smythe Trophy as playoff MVP and has a career .918 save percentage in 120 career playoff games. The Canadiens have rookies Jakub Dobes and Jacob Fowler, who have three career playoff games between them.
Dobes played the last three games against the Capitals last season after Samuel Montembeault tore two groin muscles and he posted a 1-2-0 record with a 2.91 goals-against average and an .881 save percentage.
“They’ve got a great goalie,” Guhle said. “He’s done a lot in this league and he’s a tough guy to beat. But our guys are young and hungry and excited to accept this challenge and Doby got a couple of games in last year and Fowls, it will be a new experience for him, but I think both those guys will live up to the challenge.
“I think this kind of stuff is what they both live for and I’m sure they’ll rise to the occasion and be great for us.”
Canadiens captain Nick Suzuki also has confidence in the team’s two goalies.
“Vasilevskiy’s been maybe the best goalie over the last, I don’t know, five, six years,” Suzuki said. “He’s definitely a big guy. He knows how to win. He’s obviously shown that. He’s going to be maybe a Vézina winner (this season), but I think we have confidence in our goalies. They’ve showed down the stretch that they can win big games and make big saves and we got all the confidence in the world in whoever’s in net for us.”
The Perry Factor
The Canadiens will have to deal with veteran Corey Perry’s antics during the playoffs as the 40-year-old tries to get under their skin.
Perry will definitely be targeting Hutson, like he did the last time these teams met on April 9 at the Bell Centre with the Canadiens winning 2-1. The teams combined for 126 penalty minutes.
“It’s part of the game,” Hutson said when asked about Perry. “He’s good at it. Not my typical interactions on the ice. That’s something he brings and something you got to be aware of. He’s good at it and it’s good for him, I guess.
“You just got to play,” Hutson added. “I think when you just play and play as hard as you can and take care of the team … you know that they’re going to come hard anyways. Kind of be ready for whatever’s going to come, I guess. But just got to play.”
Xhekaj said Perry’s constant chirping doesn’t bother him.
“I don’t get mad too often on the ice,” Xhekaj said. “Unless you do something physically to hurt me or hurt my team. The chirping thing, I never get mad at that stuff and I know what he’s doing. So if you think I’m going across the line or going wild, I’m probably not if it’s a chirping incident. I know what he’s doing and, obviously, I try and feel it out with the refs, see what I can and can’t do. Kind of just play my game.
“I kind of just play my game and whatever’s in front of me I just do,” Xhekaj added. “I try not to overthink things or look at what if this happens or what if that happens. I trust my instincts and I just play the game in front of me.”
Hutson keeps getting better
Hutson had an outstanding season, finishing with 12-66-78 totals and tying Hall of Famer Larry Robinson’s team record for most assists in a season by a defenceman.
The 22-year-old also had a plus-36 differential — the seventh-best among NHL defencemen — after finishing minus-2 last season when he won the Calder Trophy as the NHL’s top rookie with 6-60-66 totals.
“I think it’s his anticipation and reads,” St. Louis said when asked about Hutson’s improved defensive play. “Because I feel he’s always competed. He’s such an offensive guy that he probably makes great reads defensively just by reverse engineering it and I feel like the best players do that. So I feel like probably having a reverse-engineering mind, he’s taking the most likely next option because he reads it fast, because he understands it on the other side of the puck.”
Demidov a special player
The Canadiens’ Ivan Demidov led all NHL rookies in scoring this season with 19-43-62 totals to finish ahead of Anaheim Ducks forward Beckett Sennecke (23-37-60) and New York Islanders defenceman Matthew Schaefer (23-36-59).
The 18-year-old Schaefer is the favourite to win the Calder Trophy this season after being the No. 1 overall pick at last year’s NHL Draft and averaging 24:41 of ice time this season while finishing plus-13.
“I’m still learning about Demi,” St. Louis said. “You don’t want to over-coach players like Demi. The thing I love about Demi, he’s such a talented kid and it’s not necessarily about him. He wants to do things to help the team, not necessarily: ‘I’m going to do the things that help me, what I like to do.’
“I totally get the things that he likes to do and he’s elite at that,” St. Louis added about Demidov, the No. 5 overall pick at the 2024 NHL Draft. “I feel it’s probably the hardest thing for a coach is to convince a very talented, high pick, young player that there’s a whole other game out there to be played besides the things that you like to do that’s going to benefit the team and that’s what impresses me the most with Demi at his age. To really want to take care of the team and still finding his own moments for what he likes to do. So that impresses me.”
Tampa connection
St. Louis played 13 seasons in Tampa during his Hall of Fame career and won the Stanley Cup with the Lightning in 2004 when he also won the Art Ross Trophy as the NHL’s leading scorer with 38-56-94 totals and the Hart Trophy as league MVP.
St. Louis’s last season with the Lightning in 2013-14 was also Jon Cooper’s first full season as the team’s head coach. In 2017, two years after he retired as a player, St. Louis became the first Lightning player to have his number retired by the team. His No. 26 hangs from the rafters at Tampa’s Benchmark International Arena.
Now, St. Louis and Cooper will go head-to-head as coaches in the playoffs.
“I think I’m so far removed from that,” St. Louis said about his time playing for the Lightning. “I think it’s my fourth year now (coaching the Canadiens), gone to the building plenty of times. I think the first time I went: ‘Yeah, it was a little weird.’ But I’m so far removed from that. I don’t have any emotion attached to the Lightning right now. Zero.”
St. Louis and Cooper remain friends. When asked what he learned from Cooper that has helped him as a coach, St. Louis said: “Probably the way he communicates, I would say.”
Suzuki is in his fifth season with St. Louis as his head coach and he had Cooper as his head coach at this year’s Olympics with Team Canada.
“Coop’s been an amazing coach and then Marty has learned from Coop and now Marty is going back to Tampa,” Suzuki said. “There’s a lot of similarities to how we play and how they play. It’s going to be a tough test for both teams. A lot of offence, a lot of great defenders. I’m sure Marty and everybody’s pretty excited to get going there.”
Cup comes home?
EA Sports announced Friday the Canadiens won the Stanley Cup in its annual NHL video game playoff simulation.
The simulation had the Canadiens beating the Lightning in seven games in the first round, the Buffalo Sabres in six games in the second round and the Carolina Hurricanes in seven games in the Eastern Conference final before beating the Minnesota Wild in seven games in the final.
Before Canadiens fans get too excited about the video-game results, EA Sports had the Toronto Maple Leafs winning the Stanley Cup in last year’s simulation. The Leafs ended up losing to the Florida Panthers in seven games in the second round.
EA Sports did correctly predict the Chicago Blackhawks winning the Stanley Cup in 2011. But between 2012 and 2021 the simulation did not come up with the actual Cup winner once and only once correctly predicted a Cup finalist with the Nashville Predators in 2017, who lost to the Pittsburgh Penguins.
End of the road for Price, Weber
The end of the regular season meant former Canadiens’ Carey Price and Shea Weber are now officially retired with the San Jose Sharks and Chicago Blackhawks both missing the playoffs.
Price hasn’t played since the 2021-22 season because of a knee injury and Weber hasn’t played since the Canadiens lost to the Lightning in the 2021 Stanley Cup Final because of several injuries. But this was the last season for both of their contracts.
Canadiens GM Kent Hughes traded the final season of Price’s eight-year, US$84-million contract to the Sharks last September. The 38-year-old Price had a US$10.5 million salary-cap hit this season, but only had a base salary of US$2 million. The Canadiens also had to pay Price a US$5.5 million signing bonus before trading him.
Hughes traded Weber’s contract to the Vegas Golden Knights in the summer of 2022. Since then, the 40-year-old’s contract has been traded to the Arizona Coyotes (who became the Utah Mammoth) and then the Chicago Blackhawks.
The final year of Weber’s 14-year, US$110-million contract had a salary-cap hit of US$7.857 million, but he only earned US$1 million this season on the heavily front-loaded contract that paid him US$80 million over the first six years, including US$68 million in signing bonuses.
End of the road for Julien?
Former Canadiens head coach Claude Julien has been fired as an assistant coach with the St. Louis Blues.
St. Louis general manager Doug Armstrong announced Friday the contracts of Julien and fellow assistant coach Mike Weber wouldn’t be renewed after the Blues missed the playoffs with a 37-33-12 record.
“I would like to thank Claude and Mike for their contributions during their time with the organization,” Armstrong said. “With their contracts set to expire this summer, we wanted to give them the opportunity to move on to the next chapter of their coaching careers while we work to building a coaching staff that is best suited to lead our team moving forward.”
Julien, 65, joined the Blues as an assistant coach in the summer of 2024.
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