Nov 12 What's There To Complain About Now?

Going into this week, there was a great sense of uneasyness among Canadiens fans as the team was coming off an underwhelming 3-2 loss against the Senators. The sense was that if the team keeps playing like they have against these weaker opponents, they're going to get crushed by power-houses Vancouver and Boston. On Monday, I pointed out some of the things the Canadiens needed to improve quickly to have success this week.

First, I pointed to the way the defense has performed. Despite conceding 34 and 35 shots to the Canucks and Bruins respectively, the amount of times Carey Price has had to stand on his head have been considerably less as opposed to the debacles against Columbus and Ottawa. There have been fewer odd-man rushes. There have been fewer goal-mouth scrambles. Price has been asked to be solid in his net and make the saves he's supposed to make, and he's done that exceptionally well. To my surprise the new defensive pairings have worked, most notably Andrei Markov and Josh Gorges. Hell, even the much-maligned Jaro Spacek's game has turned around. As a whole, the team's top six defencemen are a +6. Not too shabby indeed.

I also called on the guys whose job it is to produce offense to start pulling their weight. How have they responded? Last night, Scott Gomez played his first inspired game in weeks and scored the put-away goal as a reward for his effort. Brian Gionta has scored twice in the past three games including a beautiful power play one-timer from Michael Cammalleri. Tomas Plekanec has maintained his offensive output and has undoubtedly been the team's MVP thus far along with Price.

Lastly, I called on the power play to get going. To achieve success against hard-working, puck-controlling teams like Vancouver and Boston, the Canadiens absolutely needed to capitalized on the mistakes their opponents would make. They needed to light the lamp on the man-advantage. Going into the week, the power play was on life support at a putrid 6.6% success rate (3 for 45). In just nine chances over the last two games, they've doubled their goal output on the power play going 3 for 9, a 33% success rate. The calls for dragging Marc-André Bergeron off his couch or bringing Yannick Weber up from the farm have quieted for now.

Gone unnoticed has been the outstanding coaching job by Jacques Martin. The oft-criticized coach has been justifiably taken to task for his constant line shuffling and handling of young players, most notably Lars Eller. But there's a reason Martin has coached over 1,000 NHL games and it's been because he can do a few things right and has a system that once provided his players buy in to what he's selling. I point to last night's game in Boston as a perfect example. The Bruins had just come off a spirited comeback win against Pittsburgh Wednesday night in which they scored five goals in the third period to stun the Penguins. The Canadiens took advantage of their own speed and puck-possession ability to wear out what little energy the Bruins had left from that comeback and kept their heads on a swivel all night long. Martin managed his players' ice-time well all game long so that when the Bruins were skating with heavy legs in the third period, the Habs were fresh and able to step on the throats of their opponent scoring two goals and out-shooting Boston 15-9. All four lines were rolled well with no player playing fewer than 10 minutes.

Indeed, it's a good time to be a Habs fan. Every facet of their game is clicking. The story the team has written through the first 16 games has been a great one. The next 66 games promise to be up and down but for now, enjoy it cause there just isn't a whole lot to complain about.

Will Martinez runs the 'Hey, My Name is Will' blog and is a contributor for TheFranchise.ca. You can follow Will on Twitter @heymynameiswill

Tags: Andrei Markov \ Cammalleri \ Carey price \ Gionta \ Gorges \ habs \ hockey \ Jacques Martin \ Montreal Canadiens \ NHL \ Plekanec

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