Canadiens’ Dvorak playing his best in the shadows, deserving of spot he holds

SAN JOSE, Calif. — A customary post of the lines ahead of Montreal’s matchup with the NHL’s lowest-rank team generated 10 responses — four of them begging to break up the trio that ended up being most responsible for a come-from-behind win.

And none of those four responses were targeting Cole Caufield or Juraj Slafkovsky, who combined for the tying goal in the third period of this 3-2 shootout win for the Canadiens over the San Jose Sharks on Friday. No, they were aimed at Christian Dvorak, who in the eyes of many doesn’t fit the bill as the ideal centre for these two skilled forwards.

Sometimes your eyes deceive you, though. And sometimes your established perception can blur your vision.

That’s particularly applicable to judging Dvorak, whose body of work in Montreal has been as vanilla (for the most part) as his style of play appears.

Sure, he posted 61 points through his first 120 games in a Canadiens uniform after his steady play on a poor Coyotes team prompted this team’s previous management group to offer a first- and second-round pick to acquire him from Arizona, and that was nothing to sneeze at. But there were too many nights where his play didn’t appear to impact the result one way or the other, too many nights where nothing he did made a highlight package, and too many other nights spent on the sidelines due to injury for him to change perception of his utility to the Canadiens.

The sidelines are where the 27-year-old started this season. He was parked on long-term injury reserve for the first month as a precautionary measure — conveniently giving the Canadiens the space to keep Carey Price away from off-season LTIR and the easiest path to a cap-compliant roster — after last spring’s knee surgery. And there weren’t too many fans begging for his return to the lineup, even after Kirby Dach went down in Game 2 with a season-ending injury.

There probably aren’t too many willing to admit now that Dvorak is playing some of his best hockey as a Canadien.

He has been doing exactly that since being placed between Slafkovsky and Caufield seven games ago, and those two have certainly noticed.

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“He’s unbelievable. He does everything, every shift, the right way,” said Caufield, who knows the contribution Dvorak has made to all the scoring chances he’s gotten of late — and to the one he finally buried on Friday after not scoring in six games and two periods.

And then the 22-year-old mentioned what really hurts perception of Dvorak: “It might not be pretty…”

It most certainly isn’t. There’s no flash to Dvorak’s game, and that why his good is so easily overlooked.

“But he gets you the puck in every area, he wins battles, he plays a full 200-foot game, (his) faceoffs are unbelievable,” argued Caufield. “He does a lot of stuff for our team that probably should get a lot more notice than it does.”

Slafkovsky has benefited, as well. He said himself that some of the plays Dvorak and Caufield were making together helped build up the confidence he exhibited on Friday — perhaps the best game the first-overall pick in 2022 has played since entering the NHL two Octobers ago — and lauded his centre for also being the defensive conscience on a line that certainly needs one.

“Dvo is great,” Slafkovsky said. “I feel like Dvo is always in a good spot on both sides of the puck. He’s great defensively, he wins faceoffs … He’s always in the middle, always supporting you, talking a lot, and it’s great when you have someone on your line like this because I feel like me and Cole are going a lot on offence and, sometimes, we forget to defend. But then there’s Dvo, and he’s helping us out…”

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That’s what Dvorak has been doing for two weeks, and the points should’ve come as a reward sooner, but Caufield was snakebitten and Slafkovsky wasn’t shooting at the same volume he did in this game (he had 11 attempts, with seven coming at five-on-five).

They could be coming more the longer these three stick together, which should at least be through the rest of this road trip against the Los Angeles Kings and Columbus Blue Jackets. Over five road games together, the Slafkovsky-Dvorak-Caufield trio has controlled 55.41 per cent of the shot attempts, 61.82 per cent of the expected goals and only outscored its opposition 2-0, and breaking them up now makes no sense.

Again: Good process, marginal results.

But Caufield took some confidence from the goal he scored, Slafkovsky took some from the 100-foot pass he made that sprung Caufield free for it and from the overall game he played, and Dvorak is also feeling it.

“I think I’m playing pretty good hockey. Probably up there as the best since I’ve been here,” he said. “It took a couple of games after the injury and no camp, but I feel like I’ve got my skating legs and everything and playing with good linemates right now. We’re moving the puck. Just gotta keep going.”

Canadiens coach Martin St. Louis, who assembled the line so many disapprove of, agrees.

“One, he’s healthy,” he said of Dvorak just moments after Cayden Primeau made his last stop and Jesse Ylonen scored the shootout winner against Mackenzie Blackwood. “Obviously he’s playing with two young players, and Dvo’s a smart hockey player.

“And he’s a pass-first guy. He’s got two guys that can possess the puck and do good things with it, and Dvo understands balance on the ice and, as a group, I think we value that. I think it helps the player to be efficient on the ice when you play inside that. And he wins a lot of faceoffs, too. So, I feel he’s gotten better since last year. He’s worked on his shot. And we need him to play at that level. When you don’t have Kirby down the middle, we just need everybody else to elevate, and he’s doing that.”

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There’s nothing sexy about it. There’s nothing all that attractive about pulling back 55.6 per cent of faceoffs this season — 100 per cent of the ones Dvorak has taken on the power play, 50 per cent of them he’s taken short-handed, 62 per cent of them he’s taken in the offensive zone and 51.2 per cent of them taken in the defensive zone — but it helps players who need the puck on their stick (like Caufield and Nick Suzuki) have it.

Dvorak won 71 per cent of his 14 faceoffs against the Sharks, had two shots on net and four attempts, put the puck on his linemates’ sticks plenty, drove his line to dominate 64 per cent of the shot attempts and 58 per cent of the expected goals, and few fans will give him the credit on a day where the lights were justifiably shining bright on Slafkovsky and Caufield. It’s fitting he was the decoy on the latter’s goal, driving the net to at least make Blackwood consider him a threat.

There are no points given for that on the scoresheet, but Dvorak was right where he belonged on the play.

He was also right where he belonged to start this game.

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