MONTREAL — Joe Veleno took off down the wing and hit the speed burst button right as he was crossing the offensive blue line. The television broadcast clocked him double-clutching from second gear to fourth, going from 26 kilometres per hour up to 34 to open up the space that might enable him to do something special.
Instead, Veleno just did what the situation called for. He had started the play one-on-two and only marginally improved his odds after stepping on the gas, so when he got into that space, he used it to just get a simple shot on net.
This five second sequence was among several solid ones Veleno had in Montrealâ€s final exhibition game. It was the type of sequence that secured his job with the Canadiens months after he signed a one-year deal with them worth a fraction more than the league minimum.
That $900,000-deal came 15 days after unrestricted free agency started, and all it really represented was a lifeline for the former first-round pickâ€s NHL career.
Veleno came to Canadiens camp having to grab that lifeline and pull himself up, and the way he managed to do that was by doing exactly what the game asked of him each time he stepped on the ice.
“I thought he was excellent tonight,†said coach Martin St. Louis after the Canadiens lost 3-1 to the Ottawa Senators.
The game sheet read: Joe Veleno: zero goals, zero assists, zero points, even.
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But the game sheet doesnâ€t track calculated decisions that increase the percentage of your line winning a shift.
Itâ€s what St. Louis has been emphasizing to the Canadiens for the better part of a year.
Itâ€s what he talked about with reporters who attended Saturday morningâ€s skate, and also what he repeated following Saturday nightâ€s game.
“I think they understand what weâ€re looking for,†said the coach after he was asked in the morning about the endgame for fringe players still pushing for roster spots with the Canadiens. “I think we communicate that every day in the kind of meetings we have. We do video, weâ€re not showing highlight reels; weâ€re talking about the details of the game, the ordinary things that you have to do over and over. Every now and then you get extraordinary things, but itâ€s not one extraordinary thing thatâ€s going to get you inside the door. Itâ€s how many ordinary actions can you do that helps the collective game and that raises the percentages of us being successful knowing that youâ€re going to have those moments every now and then that youâ€re going to do an extraordinary thing. But you canâ€t just look for extraordinary things. The game is not like that. It happens, but I donâ€t know when itâ€s going to give you that.â€
What the game always gives you are situations that force you to make quick calculations. And what it forces you to calculate is just how much risk you can afford to take.
Veleno consistently making those calculations correctly throughout camp pumped oxygen into his NHL career.
If he continues to make them correctly as the season rolls along, heâ€ll go from surviving to thriving in a way the Detroit Red Wings hoped he would when they selected him 30th overall in the 2018 Draft.
It may have taken the 25-year-old 306 NHL games to truly understand what it takes to make his mark in this league, but at least he figured it out.
“I think experience is probably the biggest thing, youâ€re going to need to learn certain things, in terms of details, knowing where youâ€re going to be, knowing guys’ tendencies, who youâ€re playing against and who youâ€re playing with,†Veleno said. “It comes naturally once you get this many games under your belt, so Iâ€ve really grown from my experiences.â€
But many of these young Canadiens have grown from their experiences.
If that wasnâ€t apparent through this final pre-season game — which Brendan Gallagher qualified as one in which the Canadiens didnâ€t have “A-execution or A-effort†— itâ€s been patently obvious through the rest of their camp.
And camp has been an extension of what we saw from the Canadiens through the end of 2024 and opening months of 2025, with the whole team embracing detailed, “ordinary hockey,†and maturing.
“You could tell there was a switch from December on and it just got really contagious,†said St. Louis. “You make a push, get into the playoffs, get through that first round, you understand how much thatâ€s important. When camp started, we didnâ€t start over. Thereâ€s a continuity. The guys really took that to heart. We started camp with that kind of mindset.â€
The Canadiens are finishing camp with it, too.
Even the guys not finishing camp with the Canadiens displayed to what extent theyâ€ve adopted the mindset St. Louis wants them to have.
Cuts will be announced Sunday. Theyâ€re almost certain to include Florian Xhekaj, Owen Beck and Adam Engstrom. And while all three of those players would be justified to feel disappointed about their dreams not being realized, St. Louis pointed out they shouldnâ€t feel as though they failed.
Engstrom did anything but fail. His only path to a job on the Canadiens†blue line was an injury to one of the players locked into one, but he didnâ€t allow that to stop him from proving heâ€s ready for one right now.
“Heâ€s a gamer,†said St. Louis. “Heâ€s going to play (NHL) hockey. He played a good game tonight, showed he has everything it takes to play in this league. Wonâ€t be surprised if he has a long career.â€
No one should be surprised if it starts for the young Swede at some point this season.
Beck has already played 13 games at this level, and his 14th will come soon enough.
Xhekajâ€s first might come a little further down the road, but any doubt that heâ€ll play it sooner than anyone thought he would when he was drafted — 101st overall in 2023 — was erased by his performance in this camp.
Still, the details must be sharpened, and the calculations made more precisely — and not just for an unpolished stone like Xhekaj, but also for the most varnished veterans of the Canadiens.
A player like Patrik Laine must ritually execute the ordinary more than he did through exhibition. Heâ€s a player capable of extraordinary things but also a player who often complicates the ordinary.
And what is “the ordinary?â€
“Itâ€s F3 on the forecheck, how you arrive in our zone if they get deep pucks, how you deal with the rush as the first forward back,†said St. Louis. “Every team has different ways to play certain situations; do you understand how we want to play it, and can you do these ordinary things over and over thatâ€s going to allow us to kill more plays, get more pucks and now raise the percentages to be able to do extraordinary things?â€
Oliver Kapanen and Samuel Blais did, too, and the former already made this team.
Donâ€t be surprised if the latter, who had five hits against the Senators, also sticks around after Sundayâ€s cuts.
Then the real fun begins, and itâ€ll be anything but ordinary.
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