Call of the Wilde: Montreal Canadiens win first two in four game road trip shading the Winnipeg Jets in the Heritage Classic

The Montreal Canadiens continued their four game road trip in Winnipeg with a Heritage Classic outdoors at the home of the Blue Bombers. Over 30 thousand in attendance as the Canadiens edged the Jets 2-1.

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Jacob Fowler shone again in the Montreal net. He is one of the strongest goalies in the NHL right now. What is interesting about Fowler is he made 34 saves, but only one, a glove save off Mark Scheifele, looked spectacular.

Fowler is so positionally sound and technically strong that he’s in front of the shots so well, almost nothing looks amazing. Even on the rebound, he makes it look easy. He’s down in the butterfly, and up so quickly, with such perfect balance, that the second shot doesn’t look all that challenging either.

That is when there is a rebound. Most of the time, it is kicked into the corner perfectly. Fowler is also operating at about 50 beats per minute. He makes everyone feel relaxed around him because he is so calm.

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Fowler frustrated the Jets all night. He stopped 34 of 35 shots for a .971 save percentage. His Goals Saved Above Expected was a sparkling 2.93.  He moves to 6.3 GSAE for the season. Fowler moves into fifth place in that category in the league.

This was a match-up between the fourth ranked Corsi team in the league and the 22nd. Montreal should have had the advantage in possession, and they did when three of the four Winnipeg lines were on the ice.

It took over 27 minutes for the first goal thanks to the combination of Noah Dobson and Lane Hutson put back together for this contest. It was Dobson with a gorgeous cross-crease pass to Hutson for his third goal of the season.

This was the best pair on the club last season in analytics. The best pair recently is Alexandre Carrier with Kaiden Guhle, but they were broken up with the return of Mike Matheson on Friday.

The issue is one that hasn’t occurred to the coaching staff just yet: The best pairings on the team leave Matheson on the third pair with Arber Xhekaj. That’s the best construction of the pairings according to analytics and it’s not even close.

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Friday, they broke up Hutson and Dobson. Sunday, they broke up Carrier and Guhle. This is done to accommodate Matheson. It will be a stronger team when they don’t accommodate him at all, but allow Xhekaj more minutes in order to have three strong pairs.

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Incidentally, Xhekaj and Carrier had a xx Expected Goals share. Xhekaj is playing tremendous this season, and it’s starting to become apparent that Xhekaj’s biggest challenge most of this season has been his partner not holding up their end for him. With a strong partner, Xhekaj is putting in strong performances.

Guhle got the second marker for the Canadiens on a seeing-eye shot through a maze of bodies. The set-up was Cole Caufield’s as he earned his second point of the night. The top line was plus-two on the night, and that’s exactly what his needed from Oliver Kapanen.

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The success rate of breakaways in the NHL is 31 per cent. Essentially, the shooter counts on one of three. However, it feels like with the Canadiens the success rate is zero. The last successful breakaway for the club was an overtime winner for Caufield against the Sabres last week.

Sine then, it feels like Josh Anderson misses one a night. In this one, it was Alex Newhook who fired wide on his breakaway attempt, and even Caufield missed the net with his solo effort.

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The strange aspect of the breakaway woes for Montreal is that they are perfect in the shootout this season winning both games they have had in the skills competition. That’s more a credit to Fowler though as in the Detroit game he stopped all six shots he faced.

The Jets are a one line hockey team, but what a line. Scheifele centres Cole Perfetti and Kyle Connor, and they are a handful. In the first period, the Jets had ten shots and the Scheifele line had eight of them. Early, it was the Alex Newhook line with Chris Kreider and Josh Anderson trying to stop the line. They did poorly.

The construction of a Stanley Cup winning team has a shutdown line, because late in the playoffs, there will be a massively talented line still competing for the title. The best version of a shutdown line for the Canadiens is when they match strength-for-strength with their Selke Award winning centre Nick Suzuki.

Without Suzuki, there are no viable solutions. The best construction of a team that can contend for the cup in Montreal is a Suzuki line and a true shutdown line that can handle the best lines in the league. They are not there yet, but guaranteed, when the trophy is being hoisted in Montreal, there will be a shutdown line in the construction.

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The Canadiens had the game in hand with four minutes left, but then they neglected to follow a Martin St. Louis axiom. He made the comment last week that the players have to understand ‘what does the game need from you’.

Caufield forgot the axiom to make for a anxious finish. He saw some open ice and he got on the wrong side of the puck. A player has to have defensive instincts in defensive spots. Caufield was inside his own blue line, and he must make sure that he is on the defensive side of the puck to make sure the play doesn’t funnel toward the net.

After that, the other half of the axiom from the head coach. That is to not take penalties that are unnecessary. Anderson took a penalty with 1:32 left when there were four defenders behind him to get the job done, if he didn’t. These are the small margins that decide wins versus losses. They survived it this time, but it’s what they have to work on.

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It was a concerning start for Alexander Zharovsky this season, and there were worries of regression, or at least stagnation to his game. However, Zharovsky has now started to take off to lift the spirits of the organization about this draft pick at 34th overall in 2025.

It was expected that the Canadiens stole another star from the draft thanks to the deep roots in Russia of Head Scout Nick Bobrov. Zharovsky was on pace to break points-per-game records for a rookie in the KHL. However, he finished poorly last season, and then he started poorly this season.

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Thanks to a recent spurt, everyone is back to feeling calm and excited about this pick. Zharovsky has recorded five points in his last three games, including a thrilling end-to-end goal.

Zharovsky is essentially now on the same pace as last season with 14 points in 20 games on five goals and nine assists. He also recently recorded a three point game. He’s a fluid skater with a long stride who makes it look effortless when he is powering his way through defenders in the KHL.

It’s always a mystery how it will translate to the NHL as space isn’t that easily won in North America as it is in Russia, and Zharovsky does need to put some bulk on his frame.  However, it looks good for him so far.

This season, it appears on the Canadiens roster that it drops off at forward 11, and adding some talent would help overall. Some also believe that Zharovsky must play as a top-six to find success, so he may be trade bait to acquire a second-line centre.

Whatever his future, talent will find its worth and Zharovsky is talented.

Brian Wilde, a Montreal-based sportswriter, brings you Call of the Wilde on globalnews.ca after each Canadiens game.