Less than 24 hours after their win over the Toronto Maple Leafs, the Montreal Canadiens were back in action at the Bell Centre as they hosted the St. Louis Blues, who were also playing a second game in as many days after taking on the Ottawa Senators on Saturday.
Much of the talk in town on Sunday had been about who would be manning the net for Montreal, and in the end, with the Canadiens recalling Kaapo Kahkonen because Samuel Montembeault was ill, Jakub got a third start in a row, and a second in two days. The organization didn’t provide any details on the Becancour native’s sudden illness, after he had acted as backup on Saturday night in Toronto. In his post-game presser, Martin St-Louis confirmed that the initial plan was to start Montembeault.
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The Battle Of The Exes
Two players must have had that game circled on their calendar: Logan Mailloux and Zachary Bolduc, as they were traded against one another over the summer. The Canadiens’ faithful didn’t react much to Mailloux; there were the odd boos here and there and a few “Loooogan” during the night, but the crowd opted to bother goaltender Jordan Binnington instead.
Mailloux certainly didn’t have the start he hoped for, taking a hooking penalty on his first shift, but Bolduc followed him in the box minutes later. Before the end of the first frame, however, Bolduc manufactured the Habs’ first goal with a perfect pass to Lane Hutson, who was entering the slot all alone. It’s already Hutson’s fifth goal this season, after he had just six in 82 games in his rookie season. The fact that he’s already taken 44 shots might have something to do with it.
In the end, Bolduc had more of an impact on the game, even if he didn’t get a single shot on net. Meanwhile, Mailloux logged 15:35 of ice time, took a shot, landed two hits and blocked a couple of shots.
A Recurring Issue
After two games in which the Canadiens handled themselves well in the second frame, their aversion to the middle stanza was back in full force on Sunday night. By the end of the first period, the Canadiens looked completely in control; they had allowed only four shots to the Blues and were playing a good collective game, but it all came crashing down in 65 seconds.
Brayden Schenn and Dylan Holloway came through the Canadiens’ defence like a hot knife through butter while the Oliver Kapanen line was on the ice and tied up the game on a two-on-one 26 seconds into the frame. Then, with the first line and the first pairing on the ice, the man-to-man system malfunctioned and Pavel Buchnevich found himself all alone on Dobes, a chance he wasn’t about to miss. The result? Three Blues goals on just six shots, and they can’t just be hung at Dobes’ door.
As things stand, there’s only one team with a worse differential than the Habs in the second frame: the Blues, who are minus-14, while Montreal is minus-14, followed by the Utah Mammoth at minus-10 and the Chicago Blackhawks at minus-9. This has got to be a concern at this stage: to have looked so in control one minute and then completely lose it the next could end up being very costly for the Canadiens.
Asked what happened in those 39 seconds in which St.Louis scored twice, the bench boss said:
It was a little bit of everything, but no, it was that we were tired. Something did stand out, but I’ll correct it.
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Clearly, he didn’t feel the need to share that that was, or how he would fix it.
The Coach Was Satisfied
When it was suggested to him that his team lacked pace tonight, St-Louis refused to agree:
No, not at all. We didn’t give them much, but when we did, they were quality opportunities. I believe we played a good enough game to go and get two points tonight, but it’s those two minutes in the second frame that hurt us.
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While there’s no arguing that those two minutes were the Canadiens’ downfall, there were aspects of the game that just weren’t good enough. Lately, the Habs have had a lot of trouble winning faceoffs, and tonight, its four centermen had a below 45% success rate. Nick Suzuki was at 42%, Jake Evans at 25%, Joe Veleno at 40% and Oliver Kapanen at 33%.
In a league where puck possession is so important, you can’t afford to start without it so often, because then you have to waste a lot of time and energy chasing it. Furthermore, the Habs started the third frame down by one goal, and yet, they didn’t have a single shot until there was only 11:11 remaining in the game, and it came less than a minute after the Blues had taken a two-goal lead. There wasn’t much urgency up to that point. In the end, in a period where the Habs were chasing the game, they only took seven shots in the last 20 minutes; that’s just not good enough.
On the bright side, Lane Hutson has really taken a shine to shooting, and it’s making him much more dangerous. On Sunday night, he had eight shot attempts, five of which reached the net, accounting for 20% of the team’s shot total. As for Noah Dobson, he had seven shot attempts, and four of them reached the net. It’s no wonder he finished his evening with a couple of points. Of course, he was guilty of five giveaways, but given how hard he tried to generate some offence, it was hardly surprising.
As for sniper Cole Caufield, he kept his point streak going and now has a point in his last 11 games, which is just one short of Suzuki’s 12-game point streak at the beginning of the season.
After the game, the Canadiens sent Kaapo Kakko back down to the Laval Rocket. The move isn’t surprising since they have a day off tomorrow, but it will be interesting to see if they need to call him back up for Tuesday night’s game against the Tampa Bay Lightning.
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