Habs Stats: The First 35 games
Despite the team’s apparent lack of consistency, in groups of five games, the Habs continue to produce points in the standings at a regular pace with a 0.700 points percentage over the last five games. Considering the schedule (13 games in 23 days), the injuries, and goaltending issues, the Habs have undoubtedly avoided a season-breaking meltdown scenario that was almost writing itself.
The stats from the latest five-game segment are consistent with the season average although they allowed only 11 goals (the lowest this year so far) and have reached a greater than 0.900 save percentage for the first time this season. This is not-so-coincidentally happening when Jacob Fowler was called up and Samuel Montembeault was sent to Laval for a conditioning stint.
Advanced stats presented by NHL Edge are shown below. Although they don’t seem to show great improvement in zone time ranking (in All Strength), a detailed look shows them as being 16th in the league in Offensive Zone Time at even strength and third in the league on power play. On the PK, they are 30th in the league in Offensive Zone Time but yet fifth-lowest in Defensive Zone Time. This is due to them spending the most amount of time in the neutral zone in the league shorthanded.
What this suggests is that the Canadiens do not put much pressure in the offensive zone during their penalty kill and prefer to clog the neutral zone. This skews their All Strength numbers in the offensive zone without being a significant indicator of an issue with their game.
On the Shots On Goal Map, the Habs are showing improvement in mid-range shots, especially near the right half-wall of the zone. Coincidentally, Ivan Demidov was shooting at a much higher rate in the last five games with 1.5 shots per game compared to 0.7 on average this year. Knowing where Demidov likes to shoot from on the power play, this is surely related.
The team continues to keep pace with the other teams at the top of the Atlantic Division and they are nine points ahead of last year after 35 games. The fact that they are still trending towards a 100-point season despite the various issues is quite impressive.
The Habs now begin a four-day Christmas break before their annual Southeast road trip. Again this year, this trip is crucial to their season. Two division rivals in Tampa Bay and Florida, followed by Carolina, St. Louis, and Dallas. This will be the midseason point for the Habs as they attack another difficult month of January before the 17-day Olympic Break in February.