Why Can’t The Habs Produce At 5-on-3?

On Tuesday night, former Habs centre and weekly collaborator on the Sick Podcast post-game for Tuesday nights, Maxime Lapierre, went into detail about what the Habs are trying to do on every 2-man advantage. Essentially, their goal is to set up either Noah Dobson or Cole Caufield for a one-timer shot. Unfortunately, one-timers are not what works for Caufield, as nearly all of his goals over the past 2 seasons seem to be from a weird angle by catching goalies cheating on their posts or by crushing a wrister while on the rush.

This is why Caufield isn’t a typical power play scorer, as when he isn’t in movement, his shot is not nearly as deadly. In fact, his attempt at a one-timer at 5-on-3 ended with him hitting the outside of the net. The Habs will look at that option, but the Caufield one-timer is rarely available, and even when it happens, not With that being said, this leaves Dobson’s one-timer as the main shot option. This is why many people believe that his shot seems to be the only plan they have for scoring.

The puck gets passed around as they look for Dobson, who, by the time he gets the puck, always has someone who has pushed Juraj Slafkovsky away from the front of the net, or there just isn’t anyone screening the goaltender, allowing the opposing netminder to easily see each one-timer fairly clearly. The fact that they keep going for the one-timers again and again, despite them not working that well for the majority of the power plays, is because those set plays have become too predictable when that’s all they look for.

Considering the Habs always go for the one-timer shots, it makes sense why Dobson has been used on the 5-on-3s instead of Lane Hutson. With Hutson on the ice with Ivan Demidov, Nick Suzuki, Slafkovsky, and Caufield, there wouldn’t really be a proper one-time option that would work the way it could with Dobson. However, maybe one-time shots should no longer be the go-to game plan, and they should try something else. It should also be noted that Dobson hadn’t scored a single power play goal this season until Monday night against the Vancouver Canucks, where he skated into a screened wrist shot and didn’t use his one-timer to get it.

With Hutson you get an elite passer that can get his teammates the puck in high-danger areas, which will only help for potential scoring chances. The fact that Martin St. Louis hasn’t seen this as an option for 5-on-3s just shows that he hasn’t had the chance to fix this issue at all this season. Considering all the questions about the 2-man advantage, it’s crazy how he hasn’t made a single change to his 5-on-3 personnel when they continuously seem to disappoint. There have been 2 losses that could have been prevented had they just executed on the 2-man advantage just once (vs. Bruins on November 15th and Tuesday night vs. the Capitals) and other times that their failure to execute may have played a role in losing the game.

For Eric Belanger, who was on the French version of the podcast on Wednesday morning, he doesn’t understand how the Habs can keep their best offensive defenseman off the 5-on-3 power plays continuously. It honestly wouldn’t be surprising if just Hutson in for Dobson could change the dynamic, which finally led to 5-on-3 goals.

All in all, it’s time that something needs to change, and putting Hutson on the 5-on-3 instead of Dobson with his faster puck movement could be exactly what the Habs need to finally have success. It can’t be much worse than what it is now, so why not give it a try?

Who would be on the ice if you were in charge of power plays for 5-on-3 situations?