Jack Todd: Searching for hope amid Canadiens' brutal 5-0 loss to Ottawa

If you’re a hockey fan enduring a Canadian winter, there is little that is more dispiriting than getting rolled under the Zamboni by a rival team on a late January evening, with a week of glass-shattering cold ahead.

If you can find the positives in the Canadiens’ 5-0 whitewash at the hands of a disappointing Ottawa Senators team, then my first impulse is that I want some of what you’re smoking.

But like the minus-27 temps that lie ahead, there is something comforting even in a brutal loss. Frigid weather is a reminder of the old-time winters before climate change — and 5-0 losses during a rebuilding season are part of the plan.

Not that such losses don’t test fan resolve. It was hard to watch that spiritless display and believe that the organization is on track — but it is. There’s the emergence of Kirby Dach as a centreman, the best young defence corps since the Young Guns group that was a key element in the 1993 Stanley Cup drive, and the near certainty that a healthy Cole Caufield will be a reliable 40- to 50-goal scorer in the future.

Then there’s Nick Suzuki. The young captain has gone from sizzling hot to colder than next weekend’s weather forecast. Suzuki, already mired in a slump before Caufield went down, has struggled even more without his wingman.

Like all sports, hockey is a relentless leveller. To spin the hockey player’s favourite cliché, you are what you are. If you’re a career 15-goal scorer and you have eight goals by mid-November, that probably means you have seven more left in your stick for the balance of the season.

When someone is hot early, you inevitably hear the “on pace for” stuff, which means somewhere between diddly and squat. If you doubled Suzuki’s point total now, he would be tied with Leon Draisaitl, a mere 16 points behind the untouchable Connor McDavid — but McDavid is the best player in the league by so wide a margin that comparisons are pointless.

The question is whether you need an offensive powerhouse like McDavid to contend in the NHL. The experience of the McDavid/Draisaitl duo in Edmonton and the Auston Matthews/Mitch Marner pair in Toronto would say no — but the big guns in Tampa and Colorado say yes.

As of this writing, Suzuki is tied for 89th in scoring with a bunch of pretty fine players including Patrice Bergeron, Jordan Eberle, Matt Duchene, Nazem Kadri and our old friend Mark “Microfracture” Stone. Suzuki is too smart and tough to remain in a slump forever — but at some point in this rebuild, the Canadiens are going to need a centreman who is also a point machine.

Hence the importance of Dach’s emergence and of the 2023 draft — the one good thing about a brutal loss in January.

Don’t look now, but … Jaro Halak has won five straight starts and six of his last seven games for the Rangers, his seventh NHL team. When the 37-year-old stopped 33 of 34 shots in a 4-1 win over Las Vegas Friday night he logged his 291st NHL victory, a remarkable total for a goalie who has spent much of his career as a backup.

Halak will surely join Carey Price in the 300-win club, possibly as early as this season. He has a career 2.50 goals-against and a .916 save percentage, compared with Price’s 2.51 goals-against, .917 save percentage and 361 wins. Makes you wonder.

Lies, rumours &&&& vicious innuendo: So the dysfunctional Vancouver Canucks organization has followed the awkward mess of the Bruce Boudreau firing by hiring Rick “Toxic” Tocchet, who pleaded guilty in New Jersey in 2007 to charges of promoting gambling and conspiring to promote gambling. What could possibly go wrong? …

Best chant of the hockey season: Canuck fans in Seattle welcoming Tocchet with “BRUCE! There it is!” in honour of Boudreau. …

Cowardly decision by the New York Rangers to back away from the planned Pride Night display. They refused to say who was responsible for what Larry Brooks called “the Immaculate Decision.” …

Jordan Binnington really needs to get a grip. Either that, or the league needs to get a grip on the Blues goaltender. …

Not buying Novak Djokovic’s claim that his father was ambushed into a Down Under photo op by a bunch of pro-Putin Serbs. Everyone in Eastern Europe knows what the “Z” T-shirts are about. Ditto the Wagner Group gear. Srdjan Djokovic knew what he was doing. …

Bit embarrassing when Aussie chair umpire Tom Sweeney couldn’t pronounce the name of Australian Open finalist Elena Rybakina. With the new high-tech line judges and no rulings to make, what else does he have to do? …

Finally, the Tank Tops did their job. The powder-blue retro-reverse jerseys were good for all of one point of a possible 12 from six home games. Draft lottery, here we come!

Heroes: Kirby Dach, Rafaël Harvey-Pinard, Mike Pezzetta, Rem Pitlick, Aryna Sabalenka, Elena Rybakina, Lucia Stafford, Artur Beterbiev &&&& last but not least, Samuel Montembeault.

Zeros: Rick Tocchet, Jim Rutherford, Francesco Aquilini, Jordan Binnington, Ivan Provorov, Gary Stern, FanDuel, Claude Brochu, David Samson &&&& last but not least, Jeffrey Loria.

Now and forever.

jacktodd46@yahoo.com

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