There is a temptation we see often in the NHL, to watch a young player thrive in limited minutes and assume he would thrive even more with increased minutes and better linemates.
We are seeing that temptation play out with Montreal Canadiens rookie Emil Heineman now.
He has six goals in 26 games, tied for fourth on the team with Alex Newhook, and also fourth in the NHL among rookies (all stats prior to Monday’s game).
Except Newhook is playing on the top line right now, north of 15 minutes of ice time per game, while Heineman has produced those goals playing largely on the fourth line, at just under 11 minutes per game. Logically, it would be tempting to see what Heineman could do with Newhook’s minutes, playing with Newhook’s linemates.
In all situations, Heineman is second on the team in goals per 60 minutes of ice time at 1.29; Newhook is fourth at 0.88, according to Natural Stat Trick.
Except that’s not always how it works.
For example, with improved linemates on the top line comes more difficult matchups across from you. There are a whole series of circumstances that change when you are bumped up the lineup, and those new circumstances can sometimes hinder the continued success of a young player.
“I think the chair he’s sitting in right now, I think it’s perfect for his growth,” coach Martin St. Louis said last week. “I think he’s playing with players that really fit his style, so to speak. I don’t think they’re doing it with skilling it up the ice, they’re doing it with simplicity, and over and over and over. They’re doing ordinary things over and over and over, and they understand each other’s game, they really work well off the puck together.
“Could he play more of a skill game, so to speak? I don’t know. I don’t know if that would be as comfortable as the game he gets to play right now. With that line, I think he gets to play to his identity. Now, does his identity grow eventually? Possibly, and time will tell. But I really like what I see right now.”
St. Louis always mentions three elements of Heineman’s game he likes: his speed, his heaviness, his shot. He is getting consistent use on the Canadiens’ second power-play unit, where that shot is most useful.
But at five-on-five, it is the speed and heaviness that is helping to bring Heineman success, and it’s difficult to bring quite as effectively when your minutes go up. For example, Heineman is 17th among NHL forwards (minimum 20 games played) in hits per 60 minutes of ice time. Of the top 20 players on that list, none play more than 15 minutes per game, and only eight play more than 12 minutes per game.
And while Heineman sees himself one day playing a bigger role on the team, for now, playing on a line with Jake Evans and Joel Armia is suiting him just fine.
“I think one big reason why we’ve been quite successful on our line is because of our chemistry. I think it’s a big part of it,” Heineman said Sunday after practice. “To be successful you’ve got to have that chemistry. So I guess, if we mixed it up, it would take some time to get going. But all I’m trying to think of is to be the best I can and to take what I get.”
And that’s the other thing. Heineman is a rookie, he’s played every game except one when he sat out the second game of the season in Boston. He’s earned the trust of his coach and his teammates. Everything is going very well, and sometimes when things are going well for a rookie, it might be better to just leave that rookie alone and let him continue to do what he’s doing well.
And Heineman is very happy with how things are going.
“I mean, yeah,” he said with a big smile, “I’m playing in the NHL.”
The opportunity ahead of Montembeault
Sam Montembeault was on the Canadiens bus leaving TD Garden in Boston last Sunday when his phone rang. It was Tampa Bay Lightning general manager Julien BriseBois calling to tell him he had made Team Canada for the 4 Nations Face-Off.
Montembeault didn’t take the call.
“I figured I would call him back when we got off the bus,” he said.
Of course, sitting on that same bus was his captain, Nick Suzuki, who did not get that same call. That would have been awkward, especially since, as Montembeault described it, the bus was so silent you could hear a fly on the wall. Considering how the Canadiens had just played in a 6-2 loss to the Bruins, that was understandable.
Suzuki was disappointed to hear the news, which he received from Canadiens general manager Kent Hughes and not from Team Canada management, which is notable since Toronto Maple Leafs forward John Tavares did get a call informing him he wasn’t selected. When Suzuki was asked if he’d done enough to merit inclusion on that team, he recognized he got off to a slow start to the season — which he couldn’t really afford to do given the Dec. 2 deadline for roster submission — but felt his game had improved in the final weeks before the deadline.
He’s not wrong. The choice of Nov. 11 as a cutoff here is admittedly favourable to Suzuki because he had two goals and two assists that day against the Buffalo Sabres, but still, he did make a late charge.
Top Canadian scorers since Nov. 11
Still, Suzuki can recognize he needed to make it very difficult for Team Canada to leave him off the roster, and he didn’t do that.
“It’s our job as players to make it tough on them,” he said.
As for Montembeault, the same could probably be said of him, that he did not make it tough enough for Team Canada to leave him at home. But they took him anyway.
His backstopping Canada to a gold medal at the 2023 World Championship undoubtedly helped the management team feel comfortable with how Montembeault can handle tournament hockey, where there is no margin for error. Much like Jordan Binnington and Adin Hill each having a Stanley Cup ring played in their favour.
But with none of Montembeault, Binnington or Hill really staking a claim to the starting job, and with the extremely short tournament schedule likely meaning only one goalie will play, there is an open canvas ahead of all three of them between now and the start of the tournament on Feb. 12.
“I’m going to have to play well between now and then, a lot can happen,” Montembeault said. “They’ll probably go with the hottest goalie when the tournament starts. We won’t have a lot of practice time, so it’ll probably be the goalie that’s rolling at the time who will start the tournament. It’s up to me to play some good hockey up to then.”
Sam Montembeault walks to his spot at the front of the line before a game in Toronto. (Bruce Bennett / Getty Images)
Montembeault’s rituals explained
Whenever you attend a game at the Bell Centre, just before the Canadiens hit the ice for warmup and the start of each period, the scoreboard shows an image of the players lined up in the dressing room waiting to hit the ice. The routine is precise, with each player having a spot in the line and certain players having their own pregame rituals — like the one Juraj Slafkovský had with Sean Monahan where they would remove their gloves and give each other a formal handshake.
At the front of the shot is always Montembeault, a vision of intensity, waiting for his cue.
Eventually, Montembeault turns his head to see if that cue is coming, and Brendan Gallagher makes his way up the line and taps Montembeault on the backside. Then Montembeault does a hard twist of his torso to his right and heads out of the tunnel toward the ice.
It is like this every time.
“I just did that a few years ago, just give it a swing like, ‘Let’s go! We’re going!’” Montembeault said. “So I’ve just been doing that ever since.”
The look on his face during that wait for Gallagher is often a bit frightening, especially with only his eyes visible through his goalie mask. Montembeault laughed when told this.
“I’m just thinking about the game, trying to visualize stuff in my head,” he said. “Once (Gallagher) starts walking I hear the guys saying, ‘We’re going! We’re going!’ So I look back for him to give me a little tap on the back.”
Another time Montembeault is extremely focused and thinking about the game is during TV timeouts. He will generally skate to the end of the Canadiens’ bench, right near where Cayden Primeau sits as his backup, and towel off or drink water. But he’s a vision of focus. This was Montembeault on Saturday night.
No one is talking to him and he isn’t talking to anyone, like a pitcher pitching a perfect game — Montembeault hadn’t allowed a goal to the Washington Capitals at this point.
When Montembeault was shown the video, he laughed again.
“I talk to (Primeau) a little bit, but not very often,” he said. “I think I talked to him twice last night. But he doesn’t talk much. I know when he plays, when he comes to the bench, I always talk to him.”
And there is no rule about players talking to him during the break.
“Yeah, they can, I don’t mind,” he said.
But they generally don’t.
The one part of the TV timeout that is a ritual for Montembeault is just before leaving his spot on the bench, after toweling off and drinking his water, he resets before skating back to his net.
“At the end, I take three big breaths,” he said. “I just want to stay relaxed.”
(Top photo of Emil Heineman and Sam Montembeault: Minas Panagiotakis / Getty Images)
