If you think Mike Matheson has been looking a bit more elusive lately, breaking a few more ankles with sudden turns, working his edges to the limits of gravity, your eyes do not deceive you.
When asked this very question after the Canadiens’ 5-2 win over the Blackhawks in Chicago on Friday, Matheson didn’t disagree.
He’s feeling it right now.
“I think I’ve just been feeling the game well, feeling when I have time and when I don’t have time,” Matheson said. “I think that always just comes with playing more and playing a lot. We’ve kind of been playing every other day for a good stretch of time, so I think I’ve just been feeling confident with the puck and having a good sense of when I have time to maybe make somebody miss, and when I’ve got nothing and you’ve got to move it.”
This is just one example of his heightened shiftiness right now.
Sweet moves by Matheson. He's been playing excellent hockey for the last stretch. #GoHabsGo pic.twitter.com/DdEhTVroXr
— Marc Dumont (@MarcPDumont) December 23, 2023
There was another instance in that Blackhawks game that was even more impressive. Matheson got the puck in the neutral zone and seemed to be surrounded by three opponents. Until he wasn’t.
Suddenly, Matheson was in space. It didn’t lead to an offensive opportunity, but the move allowed the Canadiens to get a full change in without giving up any territory.
“I think that one kind of surprises guys sometimes, where they’re thinking I’m a defenceman and he’s just going to go D-to-D, and all of a sudden you tight turn on them,” Matheson explained. “I think there’s a time and place for it, but if you have a puck in the corner, you tight turn on somebody and that’s hard to defend, so why wouldn’t it be hard to defend there too?”
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It’s difficult not to see the return of David Savard to Matheson’s right side on Dec. 10 as having an influence on his willingness to add a little bit of risk into his game, knowing he has some defensive shelter next to him. But what is really shining is Matheson identifying when to incorporate that risk and when not to. That’s long been his struggle, finding that balance to allow his elite skating and vision to shine brightest without putting his team in trouble.
It’s a delicate measurement, but Matheson’s gauge is well-calibrated right now.
Lane Hutson’s defensive game is improving
It’s world junior hockey championship season, and for Canadiens prospect Lane Hutson a lot of people are wondering if he’ll be able to break the single-tournament record of 14 points by a defenceman playing a big role for Team USA.
It doesn’t hurt when you do stuff like this before the tournament even starts (sorry, Owen Beck).
Another look at Lane Hutson's OT winner 🔥#WorldJuniors pic.twitter.com/4yST0MgCQM
— TSN (@TSN_Sports) December 23, 2023
But Hutson’s offensive ability has never been in doubt. It’s the defensive side of things that leave fans, scouts, and frankly, even Canadiens management wondering if Hutson will be able to get by at the NHL level. Because that’s the bar for Hutson to be able to play in the NHL, let’s be clear. He doesn’t need to be a dominant defender, he just needs to be adequate, because the offence should more than compensate.
Hutson’s head coach at Boston University, Jay Pandolfo, thinks Hutson’s defensive game has taken great steps this season.
“I think defensively for him, he’s gotten a lot better,” Pandolfo said last week. “It’s kind of in all areas, with his gaps defensively, his closing and ending plays much better. He takes great angles; he’s using smarts against the other players. His stick has gotten a lot better. He’s much better separating the man from the puck, getting under guys with his stick.
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“He’s obviously not the biggest guy, so he’s smart, he knows he’s not going to try to outmuscle a guy that’s, you know, 30 or 40 pounds heavier than him. So he uses that stick, he uses angles, he’s gotten so much better at that. I think that’s where the big improvement has come.”
Pandolfo said that early every Monday morning, Hutson and assistant coach Kim Brandvold meet to review that weekend’s games, and the focus of those video sessions is on the defensive end of the ice. It is on gap control and closing defensively and body and stick positioning — the details that will help that transition to the next level.
“He is so coachable, that’s the other part of it too,” Pandolfo said. “He wants to learn. It’s great.”
On that, Pandolfo has some familiarity with Canadiens coach Martin St. Louis. Pandolfo played against him in the NCAA and the NHL, they spent a summer working out together at the same Boston-area gym, and so on. The hockey world is not very big. And the potential compatibility between Hutson and St. Louis seems obvious to Pandolfo.
“The stuff Marty had to overcome to become the player he became, which is pretty incredible, obviously, being an undersized guy, I think he’ll really, really enjoy coaching Lane. I really do,” Pandolfo said. “I think he’ll have a lot of respect for the way he plays the game, and I think that certainly could help Lane as well.”
The one thing with Hutson, Pandolfo points out, is that his offence can help his defence. He is so good in transition, extending offensive-zone possessions and other parts of the game that make sure the puck is in the offensive zone that he doesn’t need to defend as often as other defencemen. But it is his mental strength, his adaptability that Hutson should be able to use on his defensive game as a professional, whether that’s in Laval or Montreal, a transition that could — and likely will — happen at the end of his season with BU.
“I just think with his intelligence,” Pandolfo said, “he’s going to figure out a way to do it.”
So while watching Hutson over the holidays, it will be fine to be dazzled by what he can do with a puck on his stick, but it is what he does without the puck that is worth watching the most, because that is what is more likely to determine how quickly he can make the transition to the NHL.
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A snapshot from practice
Last Wednesday in Minnesota, as is normally the case, the Canadiens’ three goalies hit the ice roughly half an hour before practice to get some work in with goaltending coach Éric Raymond. Those goalies need two shooters to help work them out, and one of them is almost always Jesse Ylönen. It’s a way for him to get some extra shots in while being a good team guy at the same time.
Ylönen was out there early again Wednesday, except this time he had some unexpected company. St. Louis was out there as well and took Ylönen over to the other end of the ice to work with him.
What you are seeing there is St. Louis teaching a detail. A very specific one. He is teaching Ylönen a different way to take pucks off the wall on rims, both in the offensive and defensive zone. It is worth noticing in the video that St. Louis is a lefty shooter, but he’s holding his stick as if he is a righty, because that’s the way Ylönen shoots. The principle being taught here is that instead of taking the puck off wall by pinning your skate against the boards and using it to stop the puck, you can position your body in such a way as to take that puck off the wall with your stick instead, thereby eliminating the part where you have to get the puck up to your stick from your skate.
Eliminating that step, St. Louis believes, gives you a greater rate of success for that very specific play.
“Because if you lose that second, you’ve got to re-start, or you have to win a battle,” he explained. “So don’t give them a battle.”
St. Louis has spent time with other forwards working on this skill, something he considers an art more than a skill. Last season, it was Josh Anderson receiving this instruction, and later that same evening he pulled it off in a game against the New Jersey Devils.
When St. Louis was continually being asked what it would take for Ylönen to play further up the lineup, for him to get more offensive opportunities at five-on-five, he consistently said he needed to improve the details in his game. But he didn’t leave it at that. He went out there and worked on at least one of those details with him, taking 10 or 15 minutes before practice to give a fourth-line player his undivided attention.
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And if you watch St. Louis in that video, he is not going through the motions. He is intense and specific about what he is teaching. He provided that same intensity and focus the following day when he explained what he was doing to a few reporters at the team hotel prior to facing the Wild later that evening. He didn’t seem all that eager to get into the details of what he was teaching at first, but once he did, he went all in. That love of coaching and of the game kicked in, and we were treated to about 10 minutes of instruction on this hyper-specific detail and why it’s important.
It was a great glimpse into why his players love playing for and learning from St. Louis.
The use of data to manage practice
One of the drills at that practice Wednesday was a somewhat complicated, 200-foot drill that incorporated several components of how the Canadiens want to play. Mainly, it forced the players to handle rush defence, their arrivals into the defensive zone on a rush, and then defending their zone. In other words, the full defensive progression from losing the puck to getting it back.
It involved a lot of skating, and with the Canadiens playing a game the next night, St. Louis wanted to make sure he didn’t push his players too hard.
Luckily for him, that is not a subjective determination. St. Louis has access to real-time data to help him.
Sitting on the bench at every practice, home or road, is Canadiens sports science and performance director Adam Douglas, and if it’s not him, it is strength and conditioning coach Dale Lablans. They have access to data coming in from the Catapult wearable tech monitoring the players’ physical output during practice, and relay that to St. Louis whenever he asks for it.
“So we have a level of intensity we want to reach, and with science today, I know exactly at what level we’re pushing the guys,” St. Louis said. “We have that data live on the bench, I know how hard I’m pushing my team or if I’m not pushing them hard enough. So we can always adjust during the practice.
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“I always skate by the bench, where are we? He gives me a number, and that number tells me where we are.”
That number is a load metric, and that metric can be delivered for individual players or for the group as a whole, essentially telling St. Louis in real time how much his players have left to give while not jeopardizing their energy level the next day.
“Sometimes I’ll add a drill, sometimes I’ll take a drill out,” St. Louis said. “We have a goal we’re trying to hit, like a pocket, and I build practice based on that information before, and then as we’re trying to execute the practice, I keep an eye on that too.”
This is another area where the Canadiens have modernized their approach, and it helps having a coach who embraces that. This wearable tech was first introduced when Claude Julien was coaching the Canadiens, and while he appreciated the information it provided, he also said he wouldn’t let the data dictate his decisions.
Times have clearly changed.
“It helps us navigate how we attack the day,” St. Louis said.
(Top photo of Mike Matheson: Michael Reaves / Getty Images)