When Alex Burrows decided to step down from his role as an assistant coach in charge of the power play with the Montreal Canadiens, Martin St-Louis elected to take over and so far, so good.
It didn't look like there would be much improvement in the special teams department this season during training camp. At the end of their six exhibition games, the Montreal Canadiens had not found the back of the net in their 30 power play opportunities.
On the penalty kill, they had a 75.9% success rate through those six games. While coach Martin St-Louis was asked questions about his special teams almost every day, he kept humoring the press by saying he would need to have a serious talk with the man in charge of the special units (himself).
Where the coach was right, though, was the fact he had very little opportunity to use the units he wanted to deploy in the regular season, with injuries occurring left, right, and center. While he had started camp like he meant business, drawing NHL lines from day one, the weird turn the pre-season took prevented him from testing his units in game situations.
Since the start of the regular season, though, the Canadiens have looked like a threat on the power play and a solid group on the penalty kill. As things stand, the Habs are seventh with the man advantage with a success rate of 25.8% (at home, their efficiency is 22.7%, and on the road at 33.3%). This is a fantastic improvement, considering they finished last season in 27th place in that department with a 17.5% success rate.
So far, St-Louis' first unit, consisting of Nick Suzuki, Cole Caufield, Juraj Slafkovsky, Kirby Dach, and Mike Matheson, has been great. The second unit, even if it's missing Patrik Laine, has had some good looks. Lane Hutson, Alex Newhook, Brendan Gallagher, Oliver Kapanen, and Joel Armia have formed a good unit, too.
When they have to fend for themselves with a man down, the Habs are currently third in the league with a 90.3% success rate (94.1% at home and 85.7% on the road). Last season, they closed out the year in 24th place with a modest 76.5% success rate.
The big difference with the penalty kill this season is that Suzuki is not used on there anymore unless, of course, one of the regular killers up front is in the box. It's not that the captain was doing a bad job on there, but it's far from it. Keeping him fresh for offensive missions is a good idea. Jake Evans, Joel Armia, Josh Anderson, and Christian Dvorak have been doing fantastic work with a man down, helped by David Savard, Jayden Struble, Mike Matheson, and Arber Xhekaj/Hutson at times on the blue line.
As the bench boss keeps telling the press himself, it's hard to draw conclusions with such a small sample of games, but as a great Canadian singer likes to sing; so far, so good. Special teams can be make of break for teams around the NHL and when they are spluttering, the goings get hard even in wins, they can be momentum killers.
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