Kevin Bieksa Slams the Entire Canadiens Roster in Fiery Hockey Night in Canada Rant

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Chris Gerics
November 3, 2024 (3:54 PM)

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Kevin Bieksa was known for delivering fiery hits on the ice, and now he's turned his attention to the Montreal Canadiens, calling them out in a verbal assault.

It's been a rough season so far for Martin St. Louis and the Montreal Canadiens. A dark horse candidate to make the playoffs, they have been ravaged by injuries to Patrik Laine, and Kaiden Guhle (who just recently returned) and inconsistent play from their whole team. A lot of speculation sees St. Louis on the hot seat in Montreal, and people have taken notice of how atrocious they've been.

NHL Analyst Kevin Bieksa is known for having a strong opinion, and the former long-time Canucks defenseman took time to single out the Canadiens for their play so far this season, and it wasn't a positive sentiment:

"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," said Bieksa giving Caufield his flowers.

"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."

To Bieksa's credit, he's not wrong. Cole Caufield has exploded this season to be the star of the Canadiens and has the potential to be one of the league's best goal-scorers in a couple of seasons. It's very easy to see him get 30-40 goals annually, and he's the lone bright spot in a murky Montreal season.

Bieksa also singled out Arber Xhekaj, whose name has been thrown about in trade rumors and speculation for the last several weeks with many prominent analysts predicting; or praying, for him to be traded.

"And then there's Arber Xhekaj," began Bieksa. "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."

It's the serious defensive lapses that have cost the Canadiens this season, and after such a strong start against the Maple Leafs, it feels like that was all they had for the rest of the season. They've been outscored by 15 goals this year and it doesn't matter how good your goalie is, if you consistently give up chances you're going to get scored on.

If the Montreal Canadiens can turn things around and prove Bieksa wrong, it would be a huge morale boost to be able to come out from the bottom and have a feel-good story. However, with the current trajectory and no end in sight: Montreal might be looking very different come January.