Roni Hermo
You may have heard that the Montreal Canadiens have clinched their spot in the 2026 Stanley Cup Playoffs.
On top of just ending an eight-game winning streak, head coach Martin St-Louis’ club has been the 3rd-best team by points percentage in the entire NHL since the league returned from the Olympic break.
While all their underlying numbers since the Olympics don’t exactly suggest that they should’ve been winning as much as they have, Jakub Dobeš’ elite goaltending (1st in the NHL in goals saved above expected) and Cole Caufield‘s elite finishing (1st in the NHL in goals), have pulled them into conversation for finishing first in the entire Eastern Conference.
And, behind the bigger names, the bottom-six players have been doing their part in tilting the ice in the right way.
Jake Evans And Zachary Bolduc Impact
If we take a look at the raw expected goal share numbers for the Canadiens’ forwards since the Olympics, the leader is neither captain Nick Suzuki, nor Cole Caufield or Juraj Slafkovský.
It’s actually Zachary Bolduc, followed by Brendan Gallagher, and Jake Evans.
The Canadiens have controlled more than 58% of the expected goals when Bolduc’s been on the ice, a little more than 55% with Gallagher, and 53% with Evans on the ice. At the same time, the top line has struggled to suppress expected goals against, but they’ve also managed to generate a lot of expected goals for, leading Caufield controlling 49.7% of the expected goals, Suzuki 48.6% of them, and Slafkovský, only 45% of them. It’s been even more difficult for the second line, centred by Oliver Kapanen.
To visualize how different parts of the lineup have performed since the Olympics, I’ve compiled the ‘goal +/- and xGoal +/- stats of four forward duos in the chart below. I’ve done this instead of using full lines, because they have been altered during the stretch, but the duos have stayed together, for the most part, since late February.
As we can see from the chart, while both duos, Suzuki–Caufield and Evans–Bolduc, have been able to dominate their matchups in terms of goals, the Evans–Bolduc has been much more efficient at driving the play, especially because of Evans is playing arguably the best two-way hockey of his career. The veteran duo of Danault and Gallagher has also been tilting the ice efficiently, but the lack of finishing has been holding them back, while it’s been the other way round for the rookie duo of Kapanen and Demidov.
That’s of course partially because of the Suzuki–Caufield duo has been deployed against the other teams’ top players, but it’s worth noting that the quality of competition data from PuckIQ shows that Evans and Bolduc have faced as hard, if not harder, matchups as Kapanen and Demidov. And they’ve done it with a defensive zone heavy zone start deployment.
Fluke Or Reality?
While it can be stated with a decent certainty that the top duo of Suzuki–Caufield is actually excellent, one might wonder if Evans with Bolduc as his wingman has just become hot at the right time.
That’s not the case, as over their 290 minutes together this season they’ve managed to control almost 57% of the expected goals with magnificent defensive metrics (2.13 xGA/60).
What’s also noteworthy about their minutes together is that they have seem to be driving the play even better against the top-6ers and middle-6ers than the worst players of the other teams.
As the charts show, the Evans–Bolduc duo is on the positive side of dangerous unblocked attempts regardless of whether they play against the elite, middle, or ‘gritensity‘ competition. While they aren’t able to control the overall shooting against the absolute top players like Suzuki and Caufield, they still manage to control the chances at an almost same rate.
Kapanen and Demidov, on the other hand, seem to struggle at creating anything against other than the opponents’ least efficient players. Danault and Gallagher, in turn, have been able to get decent quantity-based results, but the quality has not always been following them.
Nevertheless, Evans’ success and Kapanen’s problems against the higher levels of competition raise the question: what to do with the matchups come playoff time?
Montreal Canadiens Brass Tacks
As mentioned earlier, the Suzuki line has been taking the lion’s share of the hardest matchups lately. The results also show that there’s no need the change that, but the absolute latest underlying numbers also show that lightening the workload certainly wouldn’t hurt their results in the playoffs.
It can be said with certain confidence that Demidov with Kapanen as his center can’t provide much lightening if the aim is to keep the team winning. Danault and Gallagher sadly aren’t the same players as they were in 2021, but they can still provide decent fourth line minutes.
But maybe red-hot Jake Evans, along with Zachary Bolduc, and perhaps returning Kirby Dach as his wingers could be able to take a two, three more shifts against the other teams’ top lines, to give Suzuki and company a little well-deserved ice time against easier competition.
All Montreal Canadiens statistics via Natural Stat Trick and PuckIQ.
