After a successful road trip despite the humiliating loss suffered in Denver, the Montreal Canadiens were back home to face Ottawa Senators at the Bell Center. Just like Montreal, Ottawa was wiped out in its last game and was also looking to bounce back.
Given how heated this rivalry has become, everyone expected a fiery match with a lot of tough stuff going on. Yet visitors were clearly asked to focus on hockey rather than devoting too much time and energy to extracurricular activities. As a result, the Habs dominated in the hits column, but it was their only victory of the evening.
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Even if it’s nothing new, it’s impossible to talk about this match without mentioning Samuel Montembeault. After having had a good match against the Vegas Golden Knights Last week, we hoped that the Bécancour native would be on the way back, but tonight’s match dashed those hopes.
After 40 minutes, he had allowed four goals on 21 shots for a save percentage of .810, but beyond the statistics, it was his behavior in front of the net that was most worrying. Without Mike Matheson and the post help, he would have scored two more goals.
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It’s hard to say why, but the puck seems to be a hot potato for him these days. Either his glove is too slow to catch shots or it feels like they’re burning him, for some reason he’s dropping an incredible number of shots. Worse yet, once he drops them, he’s not fast enough to retrieve the puck and freeze it.
Sure, the rest of the team could help by clearing pucks he stopped, but a few times Tuesday night he had more than enough time to get the puck back, and he couldn’t do it.
Tom Cochrane sang “Life Is A Highway,” and tonight that’s precisely what the Canadians’ slot was. Somehow, in a game where Montreal threw 33 hits and had a good forecheck, Ottawa was able to easily get into the crease and take shots from dangerous areas. After the match, Martin St-Louis clearly explained what the problem was:
The other team defended much harder than us; we lost a lot of battles, and defensively, we weren’t there. The other team just defended better than us.
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However, the bench coach refused to attribute it to the system his men play in:
I won’t talk about the system. You can play on any system, but you must be careful; the system has nothing to do with it.
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When asked why this performance happened tonight, the coach said he had no idea why they could be so good at something one night and then so bad at the same thing another night. He added:
If I show clips, they can all see, they could teach it themselves, they know the rules, they know everything you know. So it’s an attitude.
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It was clear tonight that St. Louis was irritated by his men’s performance and didn’t have an answer as to how to solve what appears to be the problem. He said problems like this start with individuals. As for Nick Suzuki, he talked about mental errors, and ultimately, that’s what it comes down to. You can understand the system perfectly, but if you make a bad read due to lack of concentration, you will find yourself in trouble and put your team in trouble as well.
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There’s no denying that the Senators captain has his number down to a T. He gets into the Canadiens’ shoes, and most of the time, he does it without being sent to the box for it. Additionally, he consistently contributes offensively.
In the first period, he set up the Senators’ second goal while fighting hard near the boards and even though he more or less had Jayden Struble on his back, he managed to send a perfect no-look pass to Artem Zub in the slot, who only had to push the puck past an unsuspecting Montembeault. Then, in the final third, he scored Ottawa’s fifth goal, the one that sucked out the little air that remained at the Bell Center and sent many fans towards the exit.
Throughout the evening, he mingled with the Habs players and escaped unscathed. In the second quarter, as he tried to get off the ice, Struble tied him up. He turned the situation around by holding on tightly to the defender’s stick and forcing him to return to play without a twig, which is hardly suitable for a defender. Then, early in the third, with the Canadiens desperately needing a goal, he dropped onto Suzuki who was already on the ice and stayed there for what seemed like an eternity, effectively eliminating the Habs captain from the game.
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This 5-2 defeat, following the collapse of Colorado, must hurt. Alexandre Carrier said after the match that the important thing was how they would react on Wednesday against the Winnipeg Jets. Still, the fact is they didn’t respond after their bad game in Colorado, and that should be concerning.
St. Louis can say until he’s blue in the face that he doesn’t care about how few shots his team takes, but when your goaltenders regularly give up four or five goals, you have to score more, and in the NHL, that’s not going to happen with minimal shots. The goalies in the league are professionals, and if you don’t overload them with shots, chances are they won’t make many mistakes.
Follow Karine on @KarineHains Blue sky @karinehains.bsky.social and son @karinehains.
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