Ups and Downs | Three Stars of the Week, NHL, Habs, Montreal Canadiens, Tyler Toffoli, Shea Weber, Josh Anderson
ROCKET SPORTS MEDIA — Hello there, folks! Back with another edition of my three stars of the week column!
Players will earn points each time they appear as a star in this column and at the end of the year, I will award my three stars of the season.
Last week I said it looked like the Canadiens were finding some consistency, but they followed up a three-game winning streak with a three-game losing streak, so they are right back to being a difficult team to know what you will get when the puck drops. Nevertheless, here are my three stars of the week.
☆ THIRD STAR: Tyler Toffoli
Tyler Toffoli is on a six-game point streak and has continued to be a bright spot even as the Canadiens have dropped three consecutive games. I try not to focus solely on points for this column, but when a team is not winning games, it is harder to focus on guys who are not producing points.
What else is there to say about Tyler Toffoli? He came to Montreal as a free agent signing, on what is looking to be an absolute steal of a contract and has just tallied up the points. He is tied for fifth in the NHL in goal scoring with 28 goals on the season, and he has 44 points in 51 games to lead the Canadiens in points.
The Canadiens have gotten tremendous, reliable production out of Toffoli, he is used in all situations and more often than not he gives the Canadiens steadiness. Of course, sometimes he will make an error, but overall Toffoli has been a reliable contributor for the Canadiens all over the ice.
Two games remain for the Habs and Toffoli, it will be interesting to see if he can reach the 30-goal plateau, which he has done once in his career in 2015-16 for the Kings, but that was in a full 82-game season. If Toffoli were to do it in 53 games, that would be remarkable.
☆ SECOND STAR: Jeff Petry
It has been some time since I had Jeff Petry appear as one of my three stars. For a while there, the play in the Canadiens zone and particularly of the defenceman was just not good enough to warrant consideration and the play of Petry was a pretty big part of that.
After a really great start to the season, Jeff Petry’s play fell off a cliff. The offensive output dried up a little bit, he was separated from Joel Edmundson, with whom he had developed some nice chemistry and as a result he was looking nothing like the defenceman who many were including in Norris trophy conversations earlier this season.
But he has found his form again and it has come at an opportune time. He has ten points in his last eight games and has been logging some big minutes in the absence of Shea Weber. He assisted on all three goals in the Canadiens overtime win over the Leafs earlier in the week and set up Cole Caufield for both his overtime winners.
The Canadiens will need Petry to find some consistency as they head toward the playoffs, they cannot afford for Petry to have a repeat of the middle of the season. When Weber returns, Petry will not be tasked with as many demanding minutes as he has been getting of late, so the Canadiens will need the offensive output and relative steadiness in his own end to stay.
☆ FIRST STAR: Nick Suzuki
Why not run it back with another first star for Nick Suzuki? I generally like to go with a different first star each week, but the Canadiens performance this week, particularly the last three games, simply was not good enough and nobody stepped up to take it from him so here is Suzuki once again.
Obviously, much of what I said last week still applies here, but to update, he now has 12 points in his last nine games. He, like Petry, assisted on all three goals in the Canadiens win over the Leafs earlier in the week and picked up one of the Canadiens goals in Saturday night’s loss to those same Leafs.
That Saturday night loss it was easy to notice Suzuki on the ice for good reason, he looked to have really nice jump in that game, he was using change of pace to beat defenders, looking really shifty and hard to contain for the Leafs.
Another thing I have been keeping track of for Suzuki is his work in the faceoff circle. In the Canadiens 5-1 loss to the Senators, not much went right except for a Joel Edmundson goal that was made possible by a won faceoff by Suzuki. That came in an otherwise rough night of faceoffs for Suzuki, but his performance since that game has been better.
As the Canadiens season is coming to a close, it will be interesting to see if Suzuki can maintain this level of play for the Habs. They will certainly need more of this type of play out of the young centerman.
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