Canadiens should never play Anderson on first line again – Hockey Writers – Montreal Canadiens

The Montreal Canadiens are starting to show signs of desperation, to the point where they started Saturday’s game against the Pittsburgh Penguins with Josh Anderson on the first line. Lost the match on November 2 with a score of 3–1.The Canadiens were predictably eager to score, eventually getting the only goal from Christian Dvorak, which ironically was his first goal of the season.

Now Anderson has made a strong start to the season, playing alongside Jake Evans and Brendan Gallagher. They now each have five points from 12 games. So, as head coach Martin St. LouisDefense, if you want to shake things up, you’ll probably end up reaching out to someone on that line.

However, it’s incredibly curious that you’d rather go to Anderson when Gallagher has four markers to the former’s two and has been more impressive overall. This may suggest that Gallagher’s production has dried up, despite the fact that basic statistics show that he continues to manage possession relatively effectively. Or maybe it’s the fact that he continues to be relatively efficient with the ball, St. Louis would prefer to spread its stronger players evenly throughout the lineup, with Evans and Gallagher ranking fourth and fifth on the team in shot attempt percentage (46 .2% and 45.6%).

Anderson with Suzuki and Caufield

Anderson ranks eighth (42.3%), according to NHL.com stats, which is actually ahead of top liners Nick Suzuki (42.0%) and Cole Caufield (40.0%). So on the one hand, it’s worth trying to start with Anderson where St. Louis did. The only problem is that he tried it over and over again with the same results every time in past seasons. Anderson simply complements them poorly and reduces their effectiveness.

Moreover, if Anderson had been third in this metric in his previous line, which was The Canadiens’ most used unit this season it kind of suggests he’s still the anchor he’s traditionally been over the last few years. Why play him with two of the most productive players and risk the same thing happening a season later, when both Caufield and Suzuki are closer to their best players and Anderson is even further from his?

In some context, while the Evans-centric line was generally effective, to the point that the center was technically getting top-six players on the ice (16:32, fifth among forwards), five points in 12 games, which now has three player. translates to a modest 34 points from 82 games. Two goals from Anderson, who scored over 20 at his peak with the Canadiens, now puts him on pace under 14. Considering the small sample size and margin for error, he really hasn’t shown much that would be expected. beyond a reasonable doubt, he has changed from a player who scored just nine goals and 20 points in 2023-24.

It just doesn’t make sense for St. Louis to go to that well again. Do you either hope he takes away Caufield, who leads the entire NHL with 10 goals, and Suzuki, who leads the team with 13 points? Or do you hope that they will be passed on to him? When has this not worked in the past? When has it been established that Anderson is (just) fine with Evans and Gallagher?

Anderson is no longer a viable top-six player

Seriously, if Anderson has such great offensive talent and, to his credit, has shown the ability to score in the past, it would be better to just put him on the power play. The fact that St. Louis only needs seven seconds per game suggests it already knows at least This stupid idea: Anderson has four power play points during his time with the Canadiens, dating back to the 2022-23 season when he had a 1:42 advantage over the man.

The strangest thing is that the Canadiens are not even worth the offense. They scored three goals in their last game, losing to the Washington Capitals 6–3. In their last four games, the Habs have averaged more than three goals per game. Meanwhile, they were outscored by 14 in their previous two games, losing both games. So working with his frontcourts, especially in this way, even though it’s St. Louis’s prerogative as a head coach, definitely sheds light on his questionable deployment decisions in the past. This is not just a one-off, but a trend, especially in terms of the obvious favorable treatment he gave Anderson.

Anderson is now 30. He’s not going to suddenly turn into a point-per-game forward after his all-time high was 47…six years ago with the Columbus Blue Jackets. The most he ever scored for the Canadiens was 32, albeit in 69 games. And while he served as a decent offensive player early in his Habs tenure, he was never one to carry the line alone. He’s also, unfortunately, much closer to the 20-point player he was last season than the 20-goal player he was in previous seasons in Montreal, and much less of a departure from his aforementioned career 2018 season –19.

This Anderson experiment simply needs to end.

Connected: Montreal Canadiens: It’s time to end the Dale Weise experiment

Fortunately, Anderson was unable to finish the Penguins game on the top line. Instead he did it on line with Alex Newhook and Juraj SlafkowskiAlthough. This is worrying. What The line famously didn’t work out last season, which further begs the question of what’s going on in St. Louis’ head as they keep returning to combinations that didn’t work out when Anderson, Gallagher and Evans were fine together.

Of course, “good” does not mean “great”, but it is the best you can get in the current circumstances, when the whole team is struggling. Moreover, it’s the best you can objectively hope for, regardless of these three and the roles they play. They did the job that was expected of them. And, bye St. Louis jobs shouldn’t be at risk.he needs to do a better job. Unfortunately, this does not necessarily mean more wins than losses in that particular season. However, it correctly assesses the limitations of your players.