Playoff Performers: New Names

There are seldom greater wild cards in any team’s chances for playoff success than the new additions to their playoff squad be it by a trade, free agent signing or an emerging prospect over the course of the past year. There will be no shortage of exactly those for the Montreal Canadiens as this look will examine ten of those particular players.

P.A. Parenteau

Parenteau really does a lot of things particularly well but he seems to come up short when getting rewarded for it. He was that guy that filled in that top or middle six forward spot vacated by Thomas Vanek. In doing so, he provides numerous needs for this team with the exception of one glaring hole: Parenteau’s shot is a bit of a muffin. This may be a contributing factor to him being a reasonably good possession player but his point totals not reflecting as such. However, Parenteau also does not shoot anywhere nearly as often as he should. A soft shot will only remain soft without further practice or exercise. Besides, he just has to get something off in as quick a manner as possible; such being a key in playoff scoring.

If his totals have not brought about a sum worth mention in the regular season –akin to Vanek in the playoffs– and his play suggests that he should be yielding greater results, maybe his fortunes will find a reversal. The Montreal media is salivating, waiting to cover a Quebec born playoff hero. Parenteau may just answer their prayers.

Jacob De La Rose

Michel Therrien often mishandles and outright fumbles various aspects of coaching but none more than young, potential loaded players.

…Except for Jacob De La Rose.

“I don’t want to go back to Hamilton.” De La Rose made this abundantly clear when he came in and outright said so. However he said it, Michel Therrien was listening and he forced Marc Bergevin to keep him in the lineup with his play. Going against the notion of “typical Swedes” De La Rose has a spectacular two hundred foot game for such a young player that is not even close to his prime just yet. More of the same is needed here. De La Rose understands that doing all of the right things on a shift-by-shift basis will eventually lead to offensive production. A smart, aware player, Jacob demonstrated this in the season closer against Toronto late in the second period when he charged up ice, assuming no formalities, got to a position where he posed a threat to a mishandle of the puck, picked it up and made Jonathan Bernier pay with a backbreaking goal. A tally such as this could determine this team’s long term fate and it may just rest in his hands.

Manny Malhotra

Win draws. Period.

Torrey Mitchell & Brian Flynn

These guys get grouped together not only because of coming over together but also because of playing similar roles to similar levels. There may be some feeling in the air that one or both of these guys could potentially heat up at some point, especially following the fact that they had been playing some of their better games towards the end of the season. Will Torrey Mitchell’s homecoming ignite a crunch time streak? Will Brian Flynn fly under the radar? The likelihood is probably not and the expectations are maybe more akin to hopes: just surprise someone at some point. Every little bit for these guys counts, even if all they do is have strong, mistake free shifts.

Devante Smith-Pelly

What a hot button issue and maybe the most pressing one regarding performance expectations. Smith-Pelly has a monumental multitask set for him come playoff time. What exactly does this mean? It means that Devante Smith-Pelly plays a power forward game or something resembling it. In fact, with optimism to his game, he does one thing in particular that seems to be the one particular thing that Max Pacioretty struggles with: he cuts to the net extremely well. That being said, Smith-Pelly has little to nothing to show for it as a result this season.

The bright side is that all throughout every level of his career, he has been a playoff performer; his sample size is only a dozen games but Smith-Pelly’s brief showing in the playoffs at this level see him with a shooting percentage into double digits. Whether or not that will keep up through this year or the remainder of his career remains to be seen and may not be the highest of likelihoods but if anything in this neighborhood should surface this year, it will be considered a grand success.

The multitask ahead of him is that expectations and optimism of playoff performers increase when they bring so many things to the table. However, it does open up the mindset of “he may not be scoring but at least he has been throwing hits.”

Devante Smith-Pelly must keep it simple but diverse. He opens up a whole different dimension of attack and against a one-dimensional Senators squad, he could be a gamebreaker.

When placing question marks on this team, put the biggest one here but put a gold star on it.

Sergei Gonchar

Stabilizing veteran force. Sergei Gonchar at the ripe old age of forty-one is still a capable playing piece in the event of the need for capable and experienced depth in the back end. That right there sounds like a winning piece of any given championship formula. At the very least, he is in the room and able to provide championship winning experience to his cohorts. All of these young and impressionable minds would be wise to listen to, learn from and reap the benefits of Gonchar if they should hope to do what he has done in having his name written on Lord Stanley’s mug.

His contributions must be equal or greater in the room to what they are on the ice. Having an extra hand on deck to settle the nerves that have already been experienced in the big dance could make or break not just a series but an entire run. Gonchar knows what it’s like to play on a team with grand expectations placed upon them. He also knows what it’s like to succeed through it all.

Greg Pateryn

A reasonably big shutdown defender that stands up the opposition at the blue line or trying to cut into the slot. This guy, in the event that he should get his rightful spot on the ice in this series, could see some critical shifts and larger than usual minutes in an effort to shut down an Ottawa squad that will do two things: fly at their opposition and fly at them again.

It is no secret that Pateryn has developed well ahead of schedule and it has shown this year. Projected an easy year or two yet away from being even close to where he is now, Pateryn has surpassed expectations in the skills already attained and he has helped address any potential requirement for size and sandpaper. If Pateryn has made this kind of progress and could be ready for full time big league action by this coming October, the thought of Jarred Tinordi hopefully becoming a full time big leaguer on the left side would pose a devastating blue line combination. That, unfortunately, is unlikely to be seen in these playoffs.

What becomes of a young, capable, potential riddled player that is fighting not just for regular deployment on the main roster of his team but is also fighting for a playoff reputation and a Stanley Cup at a stage so early in his career? One of two things: he tries to do too much and ends up doing too little or he simply refuses to stop until his appetite has been satisfied.

Montreal hopes that Greg is ready for the proverbial meal of a lifetime. Those “unimportant” positions at lower ends of a team’s depth suddenly become game changers.

Tom Gilbert & Jeff Petry

Two former Edmonton Oilers found greener pastures when they left the “City of Champions” for the greatest dynasty in hockey history; Gilbert of course took a brief vacation to the warm shores of Florida. Tom Gilbert had a split jury analyzing him at the season’s start with half saying “What was this guy signed for? They should have kept Gorges” and the other half saying “Wow, he does the little things so well and so productively but no one seems to notice that.”

The reason they signed him was because he the team obviously felt that they needed a more versatile threat. Gilbert showed glimmers of exactly that throughout the season but those glimmers got brighter and more frequent as the season went on, namely with the arrival of Jeff Petry.

The reason Jeff Petry was acquired was simply because they needed more of what Gilbert brought to the table. Both being right side defencemen with right hand shots, the transition may have seemed odd in placing Gilbert at Petry’s left on a few occasions but it seemed to do the trick. After all, it is a considerable upgrade to go from having to think for/worry about Alexei Emelin and how to bail him out all the way to having a partner that can zip a pass through seemingly any number of defenders. Not to mention it took some ridiculous stretch of time (spanning into weeks or even months) before Gilbert even saw an offensive zone start. Forgive the man for being cut off at the knees.

Petry is full of tricks and he caught fire at just the right time, ending much of the season on a tremendous point streak. Marc Bergevin is right: “you can never have too much depth on defence” and it can be assumed that he was referring in no small part to adding another credible threat to the top four unit. Now with Gilbert having one year remaining on his deal and Petry being a pending unrestricted free agent, Gilbert has to show the long run value of keeping him on board while Petry has to showcase why he should be made a very rich man come July 1st.

These two men will need to play a strong possession game, making the quick and correct first pass. Off the glass and out is not going to yield great results, nor will throwing the puck into the corner and hoping to retrieve it. This team seems its best possession when they approach the line, make the other team assume that they will dump it down, zip it back to their defencemen and allow them to come in and create a scoring threat. These are just two of the very mobile puck moving defencemen that this team boasts. If Subban is left to do it himself, shades of 2013, this run will not be a long one. These guys have a big workload in front of them.

The reason for optimism: Gorges/Emelin sounds a lot less threatening than Gilbert/Petry. This must showcase itself as an upgrade. It certainly looks as such.

Every player knows their role. Knowledge, however, without execution fails to become wisdom.

Execute.

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Extra special thanks to Steven Irwin aka Bats Naslund for the featured image of this column.