Call of the Wilde: Montreal Canadiens shock Tampa Bay with fiery 4-1 win – Montreal

With five straight wins for the first time this season, Montreal Canadiens faced a tough challenge for number six.

It’s practically their arch-nemesis to the Tampa Bay Lightning. Whenever everything seems to be going right, Lightning brings out the kryptonite.

It always seems to get away from the Canadiens when they play Tampa. Not this time though, as this Canadiens team is absolutely on fire.

Montreal won 4-1.

Wild horses

Juraj Slafkovsky turned 22 on Monday. It’s hard to believe he’s so young because it seems like he’s been around so long. His career has only just begun, but he has already put up impressive numbers on the board. This is definitely his breakout season.

He had four goals in a shortened first season, then 20, then 18. He started slowly all three years, and vowed to be ready to roll from the beginning of this year, and he was true to his word.

Slafkovsky has become the player the organization believed in when they made the bold choice not to go with consensus Shane Wright first overall. In the first period, on a five-on-three power play, it was Ivan Demidov over Slafkovsky, and he ripped his brilliant one-timer.

It was goal number 29 for Slafkovsky. He wasn’t done. In the second half, Slafkovsky went for a skate on the left side. He is learning how to protect the ball, so the defender had no chance to take it away from him. Slafkovsky then found Cole Caufield walking the sideline for an easy score.

GM Kent Hughes was hoping at age 25 that Slafkovsky would give the Canadiens a 30-goal season. He is on the brink already a day after turning 22 years old. It was an absolutely vital moment for Nick Bobrov, and the head scout was right.

Credit to Trevor Timmins for getting some picks right as well. Caufield is close to the top pick from the 2019 draft taken at 15. Caufield’s marker was his 47th of the season. He has eight games to score three goals. The last time a Canadiens player hit the 50-goal plateau was Stephane Richer in 1990.

It was another stellar night in net for NHL First Star of the Week Jakub Dobes. He has answered the call as the team’s number one in an amazing way. He’s winning some of these games almost single-handedly. His last two starts he was a 2.84 goals-against-expectation against Columbus, then followed it up with an even more remarkable 3.79 GSAE against Carolina.

Dobes is now seventh in the league in GSAE. Team weakness is no longer weakness.

At some point, of course, he has to look human, but it wasn’t against Lightning as he kept it up. It was a GSAE of 3.09 as he stopped 36 of 37 shots.

Dobes has always been athletic, and he’s used that athleticism to make it to the NHL. However, the best shooters in the world also need technical skills and in the last month the improvements are massive.

Under Marco Marciano, the Dobes are looking completely different. His position is extraordinary. He is cutting corners intelligently. He is square to the top. He is up and down and back with incredible balance which means he is ready for a second shot.

There are times when the rebound control on long shots could be a little better, but, overall, this is a much better keeper.

Wild goats

A win over the Lightning in Tampa Bay when they are fighting for first place in the Atlantic Division is simply a remarkable achievement. No goat.

Wilde Cards

The Canadiens have lost Alexandre Carrier to an upper-body injury for the next two to four weeks. It’s an unusual announcement from the organization, considering Carrier played over 19 minutes Sunday in Carolina and didn’t miss a shift.

What is more unusual, however, is who GM Kent Hughes called up from Laval as a replacement. Carrier is a right-handed defenseman, so this was the absolutely perfect opportunity to call up David Reinbacher to make his NHL debut. Reinbacher is the only player among the top 13 picks from the 2023 draft who has yet to play an NHL game.

However, the bronze went to Adam Engstrom for the backup role. Engstrom is strong. It is not a little against him to suggest that he should not have been drafted. It’s just that Reinbacher is the obvious choice and they refused to do it.

Engstrom is a left tackle. He’s one of those defensemen who can get on the wrong side of him and still play a solid game. This has been a big theme within the Canadiens for a long time – that they need to use a player on their unnatural side of the ice to fill out the top-six.

In fact, when I tried this with Mike Matheson, it was an absolute nightmare. They’ve also tried it with Kaiden Guhle with similarly poor results. Lane Hutson is the only one who maintains some level of the same skill set when moving through the sheets.

A weaker right side is an organizational issue and is one of the reasons the Canadiens even drafted Reinbacher. They had a chance to downplay the issue on Tuesday, and they didn’t choose it.

The most likely reason to pass up the opportunity to bring up Reinbacher is that the call-up is unlikely to play much, given that Arbër Xhekaj is drawn as the sixth linebacker, leaving Engstrom in the press zone anyway. Everyone watching the proceedings this year knows that the way they feel about Jackain, Engstrom is likely to finally play in the next month.

Hughes may feel like Engstrom’s tenure in the minor leagues is over while he thinks Reinbacher can still benefit from ice time in Laval. They may not want Reinbacher to sit two to four weeks without playing. That’s a minor concern in itself, since why isn’t Reinbacher ready yet in their minds?

No one has the answer to that and no one will get that answer by asking. It’s just a matter of wait and see on Reinbacher. He is playing well in Laval. He probably wants the NHL test now, but apparently, it’s still time to plant, not time to reap in this pick.

Brian Wilde, a Montreal-based sports writer, brings you Call of the Wilde on globalnews.ca after every Canadiens game.

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