MONTREAL — It was a fifth straight win for the Montreal Canadiens, and the way it was earned had higher reinforce the lesson this group has already been served too many occasions this season.
“You begin feeling comfy on this league,” mentioned captain Nick Suzuki, “and it’ll come proper again at you.”
Contemplating how issues had gone for the Canadiens by the primary 60 video games, you’d have thought they already knew.
They put themselves within the least comfy place potential by dropping 13 of their first 17 video games. Then they gained 19 of their subsequent 30 video games and kicked their ft up, solely to have them knocked proper off the desk by their competitors, which beat them in eight of 9 video games main as much as the 4 Nations Face-Off break. And so they shouldn’t have been settling again into the recliner after rattling off 4 wins and incomes a 3-0 lead on this fifth one, which inevitably put them one level again of a playoff spot.
The Canadiens need to preserve enjoying significant video games from right here to the tip. They need to preserve progressing. They need to make the playoffs.
However they need to know none of these issues are going to occur in the event that they don’t discover a higher stability between video games — and inside them.
Monday’s sport must be the final of its form for this group between now and mid-April.
The Canadiens had been up within the clouds after Juraj Slafkovsky made it 3-0 in opposition to the Buffalo Sabres within the 14th minute of play. They practically got here crashing down by the ice by the point they allowed the tying purpose with 1:01 to go within the third. Finally, they had been fortunate Mike Matheson cushioned their touchdown by scoring the winner 1:21 into extra time.
He is aware of they had been fortunate.
“After the primary, we went from making an attempt to win the sport to making an attempt to not lose it,” Matheson mentioned.
Earlier within the day, he talked about how the Canadiens have grown this season by recalibrating sooner to reassert themselves after they begin to slip.
“Earlier on, we’d let it bleed for too lengthy,” Matheson mentioned. “However we’ve carried out a significantly better job of resetting and discovering our sport once more.”
However in opposition to the Sabres, the Canadiens did the other of that. They let the Sabres take over for 45 minutes between their third purpose and Matheson’s game-winner, they usually can’t enable the consequence to blur how lucky they had been to return out on prime.
The Canadiens can’t afford to play any of their remaining 21 video games that method.
“We’ve got to grasp the video games, on the whole, are going to turn into tighter and that we must be extra exact, extra calculated, extra opportunistic. Our goaltenders are going to should expand saves, our particular groups are going to should be there,” mentioned Canadiens coach Martin St. Louis. “These are all issues that’ll be vital, and we’re making an attempt to verify every field. We’d be delusional if we thought we’d be excellent in all that till the tip of the yr, however we’ve got to discover a solution to win.”
What the Canadiens want to seek out is consistency of their effort and focus from shift to shift and sport to sport.
They’re lucky to be nonetheless standing on the height at this second and may’t afford to fall again into one other deep valley, and a efficiency like Monday’s may push them into it in the event that they don’t course of it correctly.
Cole Caufield, who scored his 30th purpose within the sport, mentioned the Canadiens simply should take issues one sport at time.
Suzuki, who put up 4 factors to present him 13 over this five-game run, mentioned that despite the fact that it’s arduous to do as a group that’s “fairly process-driven,” the Canadiens ought to simply run with the 2 factors.
However as St. Louis mentioned, the Canadiens can’t afford to only put this sport away with out taking that means from it.
He has overseen all of the dramatic highs and lows this season and doesn’t need to see extra from right here to the tip.
“I feel we’ve simply obtained to be extra demanding of one another. We’ve obtained to be extra accountable to one another,” he mentioned. “I’ve realized, too, as a coach going by this. I feel I’m higher ready now once I see that subsequent one coming perhaps, for which we don’t have time. It’s crucial that we don’t go on these (lengthy profitable stretches adopted by lengthy dropping stretches). We will’t try this proper now. The clock’s ticking. We’ve obtained to play arduous. I’ve obtained to educate arduous. We’ve obtained to be engaged.”
If the Canadiens can try this persistently in a method they haven’t but this season, it’ll be a giant leap amongst a number of small steps ahead they’ve taken.
