Call of the Wilde: Montreal Canadiens extend winning streak to 3 with win over Bruins

With two straight wins over the defending Stanley Cup champion Florida Panthers, the final 10-game segment of the schedule has started well for the Montreal Canadiens.

Montreal has the advantage in the final stretch, but that can change in a hurry with losses instead of wins. The Boston Bruins are one of the coldest clubs in hockey, and the Canadiens extended their winless run to 10 with a 4-1 win.

Nick Suzuki is the first Canadiens player to hit the 80-point plateau since Alex Kovalev in 2008. Suzuki hit the mark with world-class execution on Montreal’s second goal of the night. It was a two-on-one with Cole Caufield. It’s difficult for most to slow down the play to let the defender commit.

Suzuki waited for the angle to change, so Caufield would move into a passing lane. He then toe-dragged beyond the defenceman to a wide-open Caufield. Jeremy Swayman also had to commit to Suzuki, he handled the moment so perfectly. Caufield had an open net for the 35th goal of his season.

It may be difficult for Caufield to hit the plateau of 40 goals with only seven games left, but Suzuki is all but guaranteed to hit that points-per-game plateau for the first time in his career as he added an empty-netter for goal 26 and point 81.

The Canadiens’ opening goal was more excellence from the third line. All three players are contributing with their best hockey of the season and perhaps for two of them, Josh Anderson and Christian Dvorak, their best hockey in their entire tenure in Montreal.

It’s a goal-per-game for the line since the Four Nations break. In this instance, it was Dvorak who picked up a puck in the slot, wheeled and fired into the corner low for his 11th of the year. Brendan Gallagher added a third period marker for insurance.

Beyond the goals, it was a stellar performance defensively for Montreal. The Bruins had only two shots in the second period, and their first wasn’t until the 12th minute. Montreal had 17 shots in that second frame.

Kaiden Guhle was a wrecking ball for Montreal levelling Bruins so often and powerfully that they grew sick of it challenging him to a fight after another perfectly legitimate bone-crushing hit.

Jayden Struble had another strong contest. Struble’s improvement from last year to this is the biggest on the team. The rebuild has another guaranteed NHL defender for many years with Struble’s advancement.

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The Canadiens are being mostly quiet on the developing situation with defenceman David Reinbacher. The former fifth pick overall is playing outstanding hockey when he is playing. The concern is he is mostly not playing.

Reinbacher did not accompany the Laval Rocket on their swing out west. He missed a fifth consecutive game in Manitoba on Wednesday night. He will miss seven straight games, at least, when all is totalled and the road trip ends. The next major moment will be if Reinbacher plays when the Rocket are back home.

No one in upper management is speaking, but the head coach in Laval has to meet the media after each game, so he ends up taking the brunt of the load of pointed questions.

Pascal Vincent said that he has directives on what to do with Reinbacher. Vincent said that he is doing what the doctors tell him to do, and that they are working with Reinbacher in Brossard. Vincent went on to say that he is just following orders and Reinbacher is officially listed as day to day.

No one will use the word ‘setback’ like Kirby Dach had that ultimately led to another surgery. However, the facts are stark. Reinbacher played six of the first seven games with only one moment of caution taken by the medical staff to rest him.

The coin has been completely flipped to now when he is not playing at all.

It’s been fairly secretive from the Canadiens overall in this affair. It has never been revealed exactly what was the nature of Reinbacher’s knee surgery, last fall, in the first place.

The initial speculation was that it was an ACL injury and that is why the timeline was the entire season. When he returned so quickly, that essentially meant it almost 100 per cent could not have been an ACL injury with a recovery that rapid.

On the plus side, when Reinbacher plays he exhibits no issues. In fact, it has been startling how outstanding his play has been. Usually, you’ll see some flexing of a knee that an athlete cannot help but do as he tests it for mobility and range.

Reinbacher has looked happy to be on the ice. He has not shown suffering in any capacity. No flexing. No grimaces. No looking down at it as if there were weakness or discomfort.

Some clarity on the case would be welcomed, but sometimes a fan base doesn’t receive any clarity, and that’s the right of the organization. There is nothing mandated in the NHL rulebook or the CBA that says any information beyond lower-body injury or upper-body injury has to be shared with anyone.

For now, we all must wait patiently for his healthy return. Reinbacher’s waiting as well. The wait for Reinbacher must be infinitely more difficult with so much of his future riding on how this knee behaves over time.

Off the ice, there was also a big positive on Thursday as Jacob Fowler made a commitment to the Canadiens organization by signing an amateur-tryout. It’s a bit of a surprise in that this is the contract that Fowler reports to Laval for the rest of the Rocket season.

Usually, a player of Fowler’s pedigree signs after his college season with the NHL club to start the first season of an entry-level contract. The advantage for the player is significant as they begin year one of a seven year commitment with the drafting team as per CBA rules. This gives the player the chance to earn big money sooner as they approach restricted free-agency and then unrestricted free-agency earlier.

It’s an indication that what Fowler is most concerned with is becoming the best goalie that he can be immediately, because if he took the Canadiens route he may have gotten only a single game in. With Laval, he has a chance for a long playoff run sharing the net with Cayden Primeau.

With a skating defenceman or forward like Lane Hutson and Sean Farrell, who chose the ELC path, a head coach can find a hiding place for the player if it is not going well in the NHL. With a goalie, there is no hiding place, and that’s a major concern considering the Canadiens cannot afford to take a chance with a playoff spot on the line.

It works out perfectly for the Canadiens as the ELC starts next season for Fowler, when he begins the battle for the backup job in Montreal with Primeau and Jakub Dobes. No one should think they have the inside track there. The winner of the net will be who has the best camp.

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