Kevin Bieksa goes after the Montreal Canadiens in massive rant

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Julien Trekker
November 3, 2024 (3:01 PM)

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The former NHLer and current Hockey Night in Canada analyst Kevin Bieksa went after the Montreal Canadiens in a massive rant last night.

After the Canadiens' tough 3-1 loss against the Pittsburgh Penguins, their third straight defeat, many people are making the same observation: the Canadiens are in it for another season of struggles.

With management raising expectations for the team, saying in the training camp that they wanted to be "playing meaningful games to be in the playoff mix" this year, fans were hoping to see the team have a great start to the season.

Unfortunately, that's not what's happening in Montreal. With a 4-7-1 record, the team is last in the Atlantic Division.

The biggest off-season acquisition made by the Habs general manager Kent Hughes Patrik Laine is yet to play his first game with the team after he got injured in the preseason, and players seem to struggle with Martin St. Louis' system.

In fact, according to the former NHL player Kevin Bieksa, the team isn't progressing, it's regressing. Last night, in his post-game comments, Bieksa went after the Habs, saying the only player who continued to progress is Cole Caufield:

"For me Montreal is very concerning right now," said Bieksa. "When there's progress and you're a young team and you're losing that's fine... but what's the opposite of progress? Regression.

It seems like there is a lot of regression right now, the only guy I can think about who is progressing is Cole Caufield."

Caufield is currently leading the NHL with 10 goals, tied with New Jersey Devils' Nico Hischier and Florida Panthers' Sam Reinhart.

Bieksa added that others like Nick Suzuki, Kaiden Guhle, and Arber Xhekaj "flatlined":

"Everyone else has kind of flatlined," said Bieksa. "You think about [Kaiden] Guhle, you think about some of their young players, even [Nick] Suzuki, he's kind of flatlined."

And then there's Arber Xhekaj. A guy that I love the way he plays but he's had a really tough season... there's too many mistakes on the ice, there's too many mistakes in the game within the game."

Bieksa also shared his take on Acciari's dirty hit that took Slafkovsky out of the game. Follow this link to hear what he had to say!

With 70 games left in the season, it's still too early to start panicking in Montreal. However, if nothing changes in the coming weeks, the Canadiens will realize they are closer to being in the draft lottery mix than the playoffs'.