Canadiens have best shot at the first draft pick, but the evolution of their veterans is almost as important – The Athletic

NEW YORK This is what Jeff Gorton and, later, Kent Hughes clearly wanted all along.

As the Canadiens continued piling up lopsided losses under Dominique Ducharme in December, first with a roster decimated by COVID-19 but then after the pause to bring the outbreak under control, Ducharme kept his job. It was only when things got so bad that it was clearly becoming damaging five straight regulation losses in which the Canadiens gave up 33 goals and scored 12 did Gorton and Hughes step in, firing Ducharme and hiring Martin St. Louis, just about the most outside-the-box hire they could have made.

By that point the Canadiens were 8-30-7, and what was finally confirmed Wednesday night had seemed somewhat inevitable. No matter the new-coach bump the Canadiens would experience under St. Louis, the hole was too deep to avoid claiming the ultimate prize: last place in the NHL and the best odds at picking first at the draft Montreal is hosting in July.

A run of injuries for Arizona made this end goal tighter than it seemed it would be in February, but Montreal clinched finishing with the worst record in the NHL when the Coyotes erased a three-goal deficit and beat the Dallas Stars in overtime Wednesday, not long after the Canadiens had defeated the New York Rangers 4-3 on a last-minute goal by Jeff Petry.

The Canadiens win at Madison Square Garden was only their 15th regulation victory in 81 games this season. Think about that for a moment. And honestly, the Canadiens record under St. Louis at 13-19-4, a points percentage of .417 is not exactly great.

But Gorton and Hughes are scouting the world under-18 championships for a reason, because this draft pick is vitally important to the future of the Canadiens, a future they hope will look somewhat like the one the Rangers have created for themselves ever since Gorton embarked on a rebuild in New York in 2018.

The Rangers kept most of their best players out of the lineup Wednesday which takes some of the shine off this last-minute Canadiens win but when looking at the list of scratches that included basically the entire core of Artemi Panarin, Adam Fox, Mika Zibanejad, Chris Kreider and Jacob Trouba, it is worth noting that Gorton acquired every one of those players for the Rangers except for Kreider.

But the Rangers success this season is highly predicated on Kreider suddenly becoming a 52-goal scorer and winning the franchises first Mr. Ranger award before the game, an award named for the late Rangers great Rod Gilbert.

And Kreiders breakout season at age 30 he had never scored more than 28 goals before this year is highly relevant to what the Canadiens are trying to do and what role St. Louis will play in it.

Because though Gorton and Hughes are surely happy to have the best odds in the draft lottery this year, they have no intention of this becoming a regular occurrence.

When Kreider was an impending free agent approaching the 2020 trade deadline, Gorton signed him to a seven-year contract worth $6.5 million a year. The Canadiens were on the ice practicing that day, Feb. 24, 2020. When Brendan Gallagher came off the ice, I told him about the contract that took Kreider off the trade market.

What did he get? he asked.

Seven years, I responded.

No, Gallagher said, how much?

When told the AAV, Gallagher nodded his approval.

He and Kreider were seen at the time as very similar players with similar numbers and similar impact. Gallagher was a year away from his contract expiring and was likely to enter into negotiations that offseason. As it turns out, eight months later, Gallagher signed his six-year extension with the Canadiens.

And the AAV was exactly $6.5 million.

But now Gallagher is not performing, or at least not producing. In the game Wednesday, only Michael Pezzetta got less ice time than Gallaghers 12:27, and he was basically a nonfactor.

Gallagher is fully aware of how disappointing his season has been, how bad it looks in the first year of that contract, and he is determined to make things right this offseason with proper preparation and determination.

Saturday night in Ottawa, Gallagher was asked about trusting his shot a bit more and attempting more shots from distance than he normally has.

I still have to be around the net to score the majority of my goals, I know that, and I know I havent been scoring this year, Gallagher said. But its a good chance for me to grow my game a little bit. It doesnt mean Im forgetting about the success Ive had and where it was, but there are opportunities you can find to get in those areas. I had some good looks tonight, didnt beat the goalie.

St. Louis is asking Gallagher to adapt his game, to evolve. And that word evolve came up a lot Wednesday. Because St. Louis once played with Kreider in New York, and the player he sees now is not the player he played with in a Rangers uniform.

I think Chris has evolved as a player, St. Louis said. I think Chris always had a fastball, you know, coming down the wing and getting behind. I think hes learned a few other pitches now. Hes not just a fastball thrower. Hes evolved as a player, hes controlling his speed better. It allows him to process the game probably a little bit better and get into the right areas. Hes always been very good in front, so he hasnt lost that.

Theres probably one thing Kreids does better now than he did in the past is he probably manages his game way better from blue line to blue line, in terms of what kind of speed does he bring.

Controlling speed is something St. Louis is asking of a lot of players, but particularly Josh Anderson, whose speed is such an asset in his game. And if there is one player on the Canadiens who is most similar to Kreider in terms of playing style and size, it is Anderson.

I think its important that you need the speed, but to stay successful in this league I compare it to a baseball pitcher, if you only throw gas, eventually they just time it right and they hit home runs, St. Louis said. So thats why you need many different pitches. Im trying to address it with Josh, but still, you cant lose that speed. Its just knowing how to use it better, probably. And I think Kreids has done that.

Whats important for the Canadiens is that notion that players need to evolve over the course of their careers, something St. Louis understands better than most because he did that so well. He has already said the one thing he thought he did at an elite level as a player was get better. But not everyone can do that at the same level.

Gallagher will do it one way. Anderson another. And so will Jake Evans, who once said in Laval that he saw himself as a fourth-line checking centre in the NHL but acknowledged Wednesday he now sees himself as potentially more than that.

Maybe they see somebody do something they werent doing before, is it the coachs fault that the players doing X, Y and Z? St. Louis said. I think its part of it. You bring attention to certain details of their game that they need and certain thoughts that I want them to think of when theyre out on the ice.

But at the end of the day, its the players. Actually, its an art to be able to absorb and apply, and I think thats on the player. Its a little bit on me, too, in the sense that not everybody learns the same way, so I cant necessarily try to teach somebody one way and think its going to work with everybody. Im still figuring that part out. But for the most part, when guys are evolving as players, its really on them. As a coach, I think youre a facilitator in that sense, but its the player that has that responsibility to go and apply it.

The Canadiens will need St. Louis to lock down that ability to understand which players have a capacity to evolve and which dont, and it will be vitally important to the organization that he find a way for certain players to make a jump at least similar to the one Kreider made this season. No, neither Gallagher, Anderson nor Evans is likely to become a 50-goal scorer, but if they can adapt their games to become more consistent contributors, the Canadiens will be the big beneficiaries.

Because landing the first pick in the draft, or picking in the top three if someone else wins the lottery, is definitely a big thing for the organization. It can turn around what has been an objectively awful season, the worst season in the NHL.

But that one high-end prospect will not be enough. The Canadiens will need certain veterans to adapt and evolve into more productive versions of themselves next season. And even if the wins have not really been there much for St. Louis this season, he is a big part of that evolution.

(Photo of Brendan Gallagher: Bruce Bennett / Getty Images)

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Canadiens have best shot at the first draft pick, but the evolution of their veterans is almost as important - The Athletic