This game was won in the trenches, on the forecheck, which the Buffalo Sabres established with regularity to grind the Montreal Canadiens down.
And the one line built to reverse that for the Canadiens didn’t find a way to do it at any point during the game, prompting the need for a change that ultimately never came.
But Canadiens coach Martin St. Louis shouldn’t wait another minute to make that adjustment, because he needs a third line that can do what the Sabres did to his team on Thursday night.
He hasn’t consistently had one since the start of the season, with injuries to several middle-to-bottom-six forwards depriving him of one, and the results Zachary Bolduc, Phillip Danault and Josh Anderson produced over their first five games in the role together weren’t particularly convincing before they were downright disappointing in this sixth one.
“I think with Bolduc and Anderson, who brings so much speed, they can be a line that forechecks,” St. Louis said after the line’s fifth game together, in Washington two nights prior.
Against the Sabres, the trio didn’t do it at all.
Bolduc, Danault and Anderson got worked at the other end, surrendering an 0-5 advantage in five-on-five shot attempts through the first period before failing to turn the tide through the next two, and they gave up a goal (and 69 per cent of the expected ones) in this 5-3 loss.
The Sabres earned what they got. They were more desperate, even if St. Louis told reporters at KeyBank Center he felt it was a game either team could’ve won.
Earlier in the day, the coach said he wanted to see his top line of Nick Suzuki, Cole Caufield and Alex Texier win more battles and play more on the inside.
At least they responded. Caufield broke a four-game goal drought with his 22nd of the season to open the scoring, Suzuki scored his first in eight games later on the power play, and, with Texier’s help, Montreal’s top line produced eight five-on-five scoring chances and four high-danger attempts to Buffalo’s one when they were on the ice.
The Canadiens’ second line of Juraj Slafkovsky, Oliver Kapanen and Ivan Demidov has been more productive than many top lines in the NHL over the past six weeks. They’ve combined for 15 five-on-five goals since Dec. 1. And though they didn’t find the back of the net in this one — even if Demidov did on a five-on-three power play for his 40th point of the season — they kept the Sabres off the board and were in control of a team-leading 75 per cent of the expected goals.
Line 4, with Brendan Gallagher, Joe Veleno and Samuel Blais, also did its part, earning a 66 per cent share of the expected goals while keeping the Sabres from scoring.
But when the Canadiens were under pressure, their third line succumbed to it and did nothing to change the momentum.
A season ago, when the Canadiens’ second line couldn’t score and often cost them momentum, it was their third line that got it back. It was Anderson and Gallagher, with Christian Dvorak between them, driving the puck north and cycling it below the opposing net to knock their opponents from their toes to their heels. The line was so good, St. Louis constantly referred to it as the Canadiens’ “identity line.”
Without it, they’d have not sniffed an improbable playoff berth last spring, and if they don’t carve out a new “identity line” immediately, their tenuous grip on one of the top three spots in the Atlantic Division could loosen even more than it already has.
A finger came off with this loss to the Sabres — and with the Boston Bruins also winning and clawing their way to within three points of the Canadiens in the standings — and making a change to this part of the lineup could help them put it firmly back in place.
One was probably coming regardless, with Kirby Dach nearing a return from a fracture in his foot that’s kept him sidelined for the past eight weeks.
But even if Dach can’t play against the Senators in Ottawa on Saturday, a tweak to Montreal’s third line must be made.
Gallagher, who had so much success with Dvorak and Anderson — and so much past success with Danault — feels like a logical choice to replace Bolduc there. While some would argue the 33-year-old would be better placed in the press box, he showed against Buffalo that he still brings the elements conducive to getting the job done that isn’t being done by Bolduc.
And while it’s a popular opinion that Gallagher can no longer score at a third-line rate, we don’t share that opinion. He produced 16 five-on-five goals from the third line just last season and part of the reason he’s stuck on just three at five-on-five through 48 games of this season is that he’s played mainly on the fourth line.
It’s a line that hasn’t had as clear an identity as the one Gallagher would make up with Danault and Anderson, a line that’s been used too sparingly for him to play in rhythm the way he always has.
We won’t argue against the notion that Gallagher slowed down some, but he wasn’t much faster last season — even if he appeared so — while playing the role the Canadiens desperately need to fill right now to near perfection.
Bolduc might be great for it someday. He’s only 22, and he’s already shown he has a physical dimension to his game that would lend well to becoming a good forechecker.
The Quebec native has also produced 24 of his 34 goals in the league over his last 82 games.
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But Bolduc only has 145 games of experience, and his last 11 — over which he’s produced zero goals, one assist and a minus-5 rating — have shown he needs a lot more of it to figure out how get to the right spots at the right time at both ends of the ice.
The Canadiens need three guys doing that regularly from their third line, even if Gallagher isn’t given the chance to be one of them.
Maybe Owen Beck, who came out of the lineup when Anderson returned from a five-game absence on Tuesday, could be an option for at least one night. Perhaps Blais could be another until Dach returns.
But a change that should’ve been made after the first period of Thursday’s game must be made before the first period of Saturday’s game.
