It was a big point in the standings, earned against a desperate Edmonton Oilers team that needed the best player in the world to make the best play of the game to end it.
Connor McDavid found Evan Bouchard all alone with eight seconds left in overtime and put his team back in the win column for just the second time in their last eight games while taking the Canadiens out of it for the first time in six games.
But considering all the other teams in the Eastern Conference playoff chase lost in regulation earlier in the night, it didn’t feel entirely like a loss for the visiting team to Rogers Place.
A big reason it wasn’t one through the first 60 minutes was the play of two players who had more cause than anyone else in a Canadiens uniform to be distracted.
Less than 24 hours from the trade deadline, Joel Armia and David Savard didn’t allow preoccupation to settle in. They were both instrumental in helping the Canadiens kill off an early five-on-three opportunity for the Oilers — helping the Canadiens wrestle back the momentum that led to Cole Caufield’s 31st goal of the season — and they both followed that up with the type of veteran performances that outlined why they both hold value to their team.
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Armia had a goal, three shots on net, and spent nearly half his 12:48 at five-on-five putting a blanket over McDavid and his line. Savard was mostly kept away from McDavid but played almost half of his even-strength time on ice against Leon Draisaitl and finished even on the night — and with a game-high seven blocked shots.
Both players are pending unrestricted free agents with questionable long-term futures in Montreal. Heck, neither of them came into the game with a guarantee they’d be Canadiens after Friday’s 3 p.m. ET. deadline passes.
But Armia and Savard successfully did what would have been particularly hard to do for any player in their situations.
Jake Evans was another player who had a great game, even if he found himself on the ice when McDavid completed that pass to Bouchard to give the Oilers a 3-2 win. He won 12 of 16 faceoffs he took and helped Armia and linemate Emil Heineman make the rest of the evening difficult on McDavid, Zach Hyman and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, and he essentially played exactly how he hadn’t been able to play over the last week of trade speculation hanging over his head like a noose.
Upon arriving in Edmonton with a brand new four-year, $11.4-million contract in-hand — and that trade speculation officially buried — on Tuesday, Evans talked about how relieved he was and about how the intensity of the preceding days had been difficult to navigate.
Evans didn’t really need to confirm it, though. Watching him uncharacteristically cough up pucks for goals in home-at-home games against the Buffalo Sabres after a less-than-Jake performance against the San Jose Sharks revealed to what extent distraction had settled in. He had avoided it all season, but it became unavoidable with the deadline nearing.
To see Armia and Savard avoid it to the degree they did so close to that deadline was not only impressive; it was also vital for the Canadiens. It helped keep their point streak alive and reinforced their importance to the team.
That’s something Canadiens executive vice president of hockey operations Jeff Gorton and general manager Kent Hughes must weigh against offers that come in for both players between now and the deadline. Their team is the second-youngest one in the NHL, it is fighting ferociously in this unforgiving battle for an Eastern Conference playoff berth, and they can’t accept anything less than overpayment to consider handicapping it by removing one or both stabilizing veterans.
Despite taking 11 of the last 12 points available to them in the standings, the Canadiens are still one point out of a playoff spot with 20 games to go. It’s not a position that would have Gorton and Hughes sacrifice first- or second-round picks or key prospects for rentals, so it’s also not a position where they should turn away from those types of returns for their own pending unrestricted free agents.
But short of that of that kind of return for 31-year-old Armia or 34-year-old Savard, you’d think they’d hold on. They have four third-round and four fourth-round picks spread over the next two drafts and adding one or two more doesn’t seem worth the cost of losing either of these players at this juncture, even if it’s possible — if not probable — they move on from both come July.
The Canadiens can thank both players for helping them get to this point, and for helping them get a big point in the standings Thursday.
