Although the Canadiens’ management hoped to see the team take a step forward this season, the Montreal club’s players reminded us during the first month of the season that the group was still young and that this youth sometimes led to a lack of consistency.
In its first 10 games of the campaign, the Tricolore (4-5-1) has had its ups and downs. It won two games convincingly this weekend, but suffered two outright defeats before and after these two games.
“It comes with youth. Really,” head coach Martin St-Louis insisted Wednesday. “An experienced team isn’t going to beat itself. It’s going to wait for the other team to help it. We beat ourselves. Sometimes, we’re still going to get away with it, thanks to a save or a missed shot. Or we’re going to take advantage of our chances. But since I’ve been here, we’ve helped other teams too often.”
That’s the conclusion St. Louis came to after reviewing its 8-2 loss to the Seattle Kraken on Tuesday night at the Bell Centre.
He noted that his club helped the opponent in different ways: by missing a coverage on a faceoff, by not blocking a shot or by taking a bad penalty, for example.
Although St. Louis attributed these mistakes to the youth of his club, the veterans of the group, for their part, affirmed their hope that this bad trend will be corrected quickly.
“I think it’s not necessarily areas of the game where we have a lot of trouble,” Mike Matheson said. “They’re little things that are easy to fix. They’re going to help us have more consistency in our game and make it more complete, individually and collectively.”
For his part, David Savard recalled that each player must be held responsible for his actions and his preparation.
“It’s up to each guy to be focused and ready to play the full 60 minutes,” he said. “Every guy is responsible for coming in ready to play. As veterans, we can help them, but everyone is ultimately responsible.
“You have to be ready from the opening faceoff,” he added. “It’s a lot of individual mistakes that hurt us. If everybody does their job except for one player, we see what happens. Other teams make us pay the price. That’s the NHL. It’s a game of mistakes, and we have to make as few as possible.”
New trios?
St. Louis shuffled the cards in practice Wednesday, with only the trio of Jake Evans, Josh Anderson and Brendan Gallagher remaining intact.
Emil Heineman was moved alongside Nick Suzuki and Cole Caufied, Kirby Dach was placed in the middle alongside Juraj Slafkovsky and Oliver Kapanen, while Alex Newhook, Joel Armia and Christian Dvorak formed the other unit.
Dach was limited to just four third-period shifts against the Kraken, including poor coverage on faceoffs and a bad penalty that led to a Kraken goal.
St. Louis once again preached patience with Dach, who was limited to just one full game last winter with a knee injury.
“He was on his way, and then he missed all that time. He’s not back to zero, but he’s taken a step back from where he was in his progression. We have to help him get back to his level,” St-Louis said.
Reinforcements on the blue line
The Canadiens traded defenseman Logan Mailloux to the Laval Rocket before flying to Washington on Wednesday.
Justin Barron and Kaiden Guhle accompanied their teammates and everything indicates that at least one of them will return to play against the Capitals on Thursday.
“They can have a positive impact on the team,” Savard said. “After yesterday’s game [Tuesday], it feels good to bring guys with us who are excited to get back to the game.”
Mailloux has amassed one goal and two assists in five games with the Habs. However, he has a minus-4 differential.
Barron has missed the Canadiens’ last three games with an upper-body injury, after being knocked out by a hard check by Jacob Trouba of the New York Rangers on Oct. 22.
Guhle, meanwhile, has missed the last five games of his team. He injured his upper body when he went awkwardly against the boards after taking a check from Adrian Kempe on Oct. 17 against the Los Angeles Kings.
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