The Canadiens, not overly weighed down by turkey and fruitcake, managed to beat the Panthers 5-3 at their rink in Sunrise, but with the usual home crowd of vacationing Montréal fans in attendance.
I missed puckdrop and it was already 1-0 when I turned the game on, Tomas Tatar with the early goal. Marc Denis says they started "sur les chapeaux de roue." I found a good crisp stream for this game, much better than what I've found for the World Juniors feeds so far, those are fuzzy and unreliable, sign off without warning.
I'm a pessimist, maybe a fatalist, and I assumed this season would be another one out of playoff contention, what with the giant void at #1 centre, #2 centre, and on the left side of the blue line. So I'm always waiting for the other shoe to drop, for the swoon to begin. And I'm perpetually surprised/disappointed.
Tonight, Tomas Tatar woke from his slumber. Tie Domi's foul offspring stuck to hockey. Antti Niemi didn't void his bowels. Michael McNiven, the kid who HIO crowned as ready to take over when we traded Carey Price for Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl, remained safely tucked away at the end of the bench. It all added up to a win.
Jesperi Kotkaniemi is being used perfectly in my opinion. Despite his flashes of brilliance, he's still a kid with a lot of growing to do, and he makes mistakes with gusto at times. He was used as much as possible by the coaching staff, and Marc Denis explained that with a horse like Sasha Barkov to face off against, it didn't allow him many chances to shine in the offensive or defensive zone, with the Panthers having the last change. So Jeppu played 12 minutes, in the best situations the coaches could find for him, and he did well. He rang two lasers off the goal posts, came close. The kid is doing fine.
We've tried every combination and permutation of defencemen and defensive pairs, short of putting righties on the left like Team Canada does with Josh Brook, so I'm glad we've arrived at the most sensible combos, and I want to stick with this.
Victor Mete isn't perfect or even great, he's small and weak and his shot couldn't dent a sheet of tin foil, but his many strengths and few weaknesses mesh very well with Shea Weber. What Victor can't do, Shea can do in spades, and vice-versa. It's not a perfect combo, it's not Larry Robinson and Serge Savard or a young Chris Chelios, two future Hall of Famers on a same pair, it's not an overabundance of talent on one pair, but it could/should work. Victor will retrieve and carry the puck, he'll make the passes and jump in the rush. Shea will stay back and mind the store, muck in the corners and punish those in front of the net. Victor will pass the puck, Shea will shoot it.
Same with the second pair, it's not Bouwmeester-Pietrangelo, two superb athletes with size and mobility and offensive acumen while being defensively reliable, but it's also a pair that should work. Mike Reilly has decent size and excellent mobility, he loves to carry the puck and get in on the play. Paired with Jeff Petry, the two of them will make a gaffe or three per game, but will overcome those by being too much to handle, other teams won't be able to tell which one will carry the puck, which one will jump on the rush. They can gamble on offence and have the wheels to get back on defence.
The operative principle here is to stick with this. Enough with the Jordie Benn experiments, we've all seen what David Schlemko has, which is nothing, these are our best options. Leave Victor Mete and Mike Reilly in there to play big minutes, to learn, they're both without peer. Let's not pretend that Brett Kulak can turn into Mark Giordano, let's not give Karl Alzner another another another chance. Let's roll with these guys and let them hit their stride, play with confidence.
They can succeed, they can maybe not quite get there but improve their trade deadline value, they can flame out, at which point we haven't really lost anything, they were acquired at the cost of a fourth and a fifth-round pick. Let's ride those ponies and see what they got, instead of babying them and cajoling them and sticking them in the press box when they irk us. I don't care if Mike Reilly sometimes eases off and takes chances and does things he's been told by coaches not to do. The guy is 24 years old, he's who he is, let's take the bad with the good.
The third pair can be the Thunderdome where the Benns and Kulaks and Alzners sort themselves out.
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