“I just want them to play the game in front of them,” said Martin St. Louis.
Those were the instructions the coach of the Montreal Canadiens’ told reporters he was giving his charges hours before they finally figured out precisely what that was against the Tampa Bay Lightning — a team that rarely allows you to play the game you want to play.
You can’t force it, which is something the Canadiens only appeared to realize after surrendering a 2-0 lead.
For the first 25 minutes on Thursday, they wanted to possess the puck in all three zones but instead played straight into the Lightning’s hands and paid dearly for it — habitually falling into the traps in the middle of the ice, giving away pucks at both blue lines and watching two-time Stanley Cup champions Alex Killorn and Brayden Point bury them — before they found any type of footing in the game.
The Canadiens made adjustments. From the five-minute mark of the second period onward they moved the puck in straighter lines coming out of their own end, chipped more of them into the corners of the offensive zone, retrieved them and attempted to generate offence from below the goal line, and they even tested Lightning goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy with some legitimate scoring chances.
But it was too late.
Against a Tampa team so seasoned in locking down leads, one that came into the game 13-0 on the season after establishing leads in the first period, the next mistake the Canadiens made cost them another goal and rendered any hope of a third-period comeback about as unlikely as the type of snowstorm that hit Buffalo last week touching down outside Amalie Arena.
The Canadiens lost 4-1, suffering their seventh loss since Dec. 9, and failing to score more than two goals for a ninth consecutive game.
We have a couple of takeaways.
Justin Barron played well but wasn’t optimized
This was anything but an easy assignment — coming in for your first NHL game of the season to make it the first time a team has dressed five rookie defencemen in a game since 2007, doing so on the road, where you’re not in control of the matchups, and against arguably the most experienced team in the NHL — and Justin Barron handled it as well as he could.
It was curious, however, that the coaching staff didn’t.
It’s easy to understand them wanting to ease Barron in. But holding the player who leads all AHL defencemen in power-play goals off a man-advantage that came into the game having scored on just two of its last 32 chances made about as much sense as plugging him into the penalty kill against one of the most lethal power plays of all time.
There Barron was, watching helplessly as Point settled into the slot and rifled a shot past Canadiens goaltender Jake Allen on Tampa’s only power play of the game. There he was again, watching helplessly from the bench as the Canadiens stumbled and fumbled through their own five power plays.
They looked about as graceful with the extra man as Jennifer Coolidge’s character appeared jumping off that yacht in the Season 2 finale of The White Lotus.
That’s how the Canadiens’ power play has looked since early December, and maybe the coaching staff didn’t want Barron feeling like it was up to him to play saviour in his first game at this level since being sent down to the minors after a disappointing preseason.
But it felt like an opportunity lost, especially early on, when the game was still in reach, and we doubt they’ll hesitate to put him there against the Florida Panthers.
If Barron plays one second on the power play on Thursday, it’ll be one more than he played in Wednesday’s loss.
The good thing is there was a lot to like about the 15:05 he played at even strength. Starting early in the game, when Barron closed the gap quickly on the ever-dangerous Nikita Kucherov just seconds after initiating a rush opportunity for Cole Caufield on one of his first shifts.
The 21-year-old made heady passes on the breakout and played responsibly on a pairing with fellow rookie Jordan Harris. He didn’t have anything to do with Point’s first-period goal and was as caught as anyone else on his side on a long third-period shift that led to an icing and Tampa’s fourth goal of the game.
“I thought he played well,” St. Louis told reporters after. “I thought he gave us some solid minutes, I thought he made some good reads, I thought he defended pretty good, exited the puck pretty well. I was pleased.”
If Barron sticks to his strengths, he’ll get an extended look with the Canadiens. And they shouldn’t wait any longer to see him where he excels most — on the damn power play.
Juraj Slafkovsky going through necessary steps at NHL level
Go back to the first game of this road trip and watch Juraj Slafkovsky in isolation.
Not that we expect you to actually rewatch a 3-2 win over the Arizona Coyotes from Dec. 19. But if you did and zeroed in on the 18-year-old winger, you’d notice him shaking his head at the end of most his shifts.
Slafkovsky managed his emotions much better in an up-and-down game against the Lightning Wednesday — in which he was responsible for a turnover costing a goal but also strong in screening Vasilevskiy on Kaiden Guhle’s marker — than he did in that win over the Coyotes.
We talked to Slafkovsky about it two days later in Denver, ahead of Montreal’s loss to the Avalanche.
“Usually it’s not a big problem, but that game it was tough,” he admitted. “For the first time, it felt like I was making big mistakes and was really hard on myself. Usually, it’s not that bad. I expected something else than what was happening for myself.”
Slafkovsky was able to, with hindsight being 20-20, recognize he can’t dwell on mistakes within a game, no matter how big they may seem in the moment. And he said he had forgotten about them once the game is over.
Valuable lesson.
“It’s good that we won, because I would’ve felt more guilty if we didn’t,” he said. “But once it’s over you play almost every second day, so you just start to focus on the other game. You make mistakes but focus on what’s next instead of what’s behind you in the NHL.”
It was good to see Slafkovsky do that after giving the puck away to Point on Tampa’s third goal Wednesday.
He’s working hard on some other things in his game, and this is the place for him to do it, even if we’re certain Canadiens fans were watching Slovakia beat USA earlier in the day at the world junior championship and thinking Slafkovsky would’ve been well served to have been a part of that.
It’s not from there that he’s going to be able to fix the main thing he’s currently working on at this level.
Because at the junior level, and even at the pro level in Europe, Slafkovsky was able to charge through the middle of the ice whenever he wanted and take advantage of the physical gifts and skill he possesses to practically create scoring chances at will, but he’s learning he can’t do that up here.
He brought that habit to the NHL, after past coaches constantly encouraged him to take the puck to the middle of the ice, but he’s realizing it works far less often in a league filled with the best defencemen in the world who are paid a premium to take that area away.
What Slafkovsky’s working on now is picking his spots, and it’s going to take a lot of repetition for him to figure out how to pick them right.
“Of course, it’s always about creating and making plays,” Slafkovsky said, “but at the moment, it’s about really making sure those little things are good. And I’m working on those small things so that the goals and assists will come. To be honest, I have to start making smarter decisions on when to chip pucks in and go get them.
“If I think about last year, I had so much space up the middle and I made my habits last year playing at a lower level. Now I have to change those habits, make the defencemen cheat on the puck if they see me chipping more pucks just so I can make more plays through the middle. If I do that, when I cut the middle, it’ll be more open, because it’s not open if I try it every single time.”
It’s a hard thing to sort out in the NHL, but knowing is half the battle.
As for Slafkovsky potentially working on it in the AHL in the near future, that’s not something currently in the Canadiens’ plans, a member of management told Sportsnet recently.
The Canadiens have legitimate concerns about Slafkovsky becoming a target in that league — without an Arber Xhekaj playing for the Laval Rocket — and aren’t interested in seeing them realized. They also feel he’s navigating the ups and downs of playing at this level with confidence and maturity, and they’re keeping close tabs on him to make sure neither of those things are affected.
The Canadiens aren’t ruling out putting Slafkovsky in the minors at some point if they feel he’ll benefit from it. They’ve said from the start they will do what’s best for his development, and they know that could be it when push comes to shove.
But right now, the feeling is Slafkovsky’s best way to learn how to be an NHL player is by gaining the experience he’s gaining with the Canadiens on a daily basis. Navigating the ups and downs of a given game the way he did on Wednesday is proof positive of that.
