After the 7-2 loss to the New York Rangers on Tuesday night at the Bell Centre, head coach Martin St-Louis said he would review the game once he got home and prepare a plan for the coming days.
St-Louis began executing that plan Wednesday morning, emphasizing defensive zone aggression during the team’s practice at the CN Sports Complex.
“We don’t take enough plays quickly, we’re too slow to react,” St. Louis said of his group’s deficiencies in the defensive zone. “We react when the pass is made.
“You have to anticipate the play and when the guy touches the puck and sends it to someone else, you have to prevent him from being able to touch it again,” he continued.
As he did after the game against the Rangers, St-Louis hammered home the point that his players are too often content to simply be positioned between the net and the player in possession of the puck. He wants to see his troops be a little more aggressive in order to stifle the play more quickly.
“Sometimes if you’re too aggressive you can get out of position and that’s what maybe worries guys and leads to them not applying enough pressure,” said defenceman Lane Hutson. “But we have to apply pressure to get the puck back and get on the attack.”
The Canadiens will resume action only on Saturday, when they host the St. Louis Blues at the Bell Centre. They will then visit the Philadelphia Flyers on Sunday.
St. Louis still has two days to get the train back on track, even if the team decided to take Thursday off. He also compared Tuesday night’s loss to the Rangers to the 5-2 loss to the Bruins in Boston on Nov. 18, 2023.
“It made us understand that we had to put the emphasis on the forecheck,” St-Louis said. “If I compare it to this season, I think yesterday’s game [Tuesday] made me understand that we really have to put the emphasis on the defensive zone.”
Defensive woes haven’t helped the Canadiens’ goaltending look good since Samuel Montembeault’s brilliant performance in a 1-0 win over the Toronto Maple Leafs to open the season.
St-Louis reminded us once again that “everything is connected.” Montembeault explained a little better the impact that defensive setbacks can have on the game of Cayden Primeau and him.
“We have to stay a little deeper in our net, because if we get too far forward and there are a lot of lateral passes, we’re going to be late,” said the Quebec goalie. “So we have to not go out too much, read the play well and push to be ready to receive the shot.”
Day by day for Barron
Forwards Joel Armia and Christian Dvorak, as well as defensemen Mike Matheson and Justin Barron did not participate in the Canadiens’ practice Wednesday morning at the CN Sports Complex.
The team said Armia, Dvorak and Matheson were getting a day of treatment, while Barron has an upper-body injury and will be reassessed daily.
Barron didn’t finish the game against the Rangers, the victim of a hard body check from Jacob Trouba midway through the third period. The Nova Scotian was knocked out on the play and needed help getting off the ice.
Matheson also saw his match end in the sequence, as he came to blows with Trouba and received a game misconduct for instigating the fight.
Armia and Dvorak finished the match.
Forward Juraj Slafkovsky, who did not play against the Rangers, practiced before his teammates on Wednesday morning. He went through several shooting drills.
Slafkovsky has an upper-body injury and is not expected to return until next week. He left practice last Friday after about 10 minutes, appearing to have left shoulder discomfort.
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