MONTREAL — It wasnâ€t the outcome the Montreal Canadiens were looking for, but it might be the one that keeps them rolling through the start of their season.
Because despite playing a great first period, their last two periods against the New York Rangers Saturday didnâ€t merit a reward. They deserved to lose 4-3 in the end and staging another late comeback — after two last-second ones over the Seattle Kraken and Nashville Predators this week extended their win streak to three and improved their record to 4-1-0 — wouldâ€ve only masked issues that need to be immediately corrected.
Had Matthew Robertsonâ€s harmless-looking shot hit the post instead of beating Samuel Montembeault clean from 60 feet away in the 45th minute of play, it might have kept the Canadiens goaltender from working on a part of his game that needs work. According to NHL Edge data, he was well below NHL average on shots from long range last season, and his save percentage on those shots has dipped through the early part of this season.
Montembeault has also been off his angle on a few of the 13 goals that have gotten by him so far this season and Artemi Panarinâ€s game-winning goal, which took advantage of that weakness just 1:30 after Robertson played on the other one, will force the goalie to sharpen this part of his game as well.
At least he doesnâ€t need to practise taking accountability.
“I need to make those saves to give us a chance,†said Montembeault.
It was a good thing his teammates took accountability for putting him in a position where he needed to make some big saves in the third period.
Sure, they were missing Kirby Dach, Patrik Laine and Kaiden Guhle, which forced them to adjust their lines, defence pairings and special-teams units.
But coach Martin St. Louis said that had little to do with the Canadiens mismanaging the game and swinging momentum their opponentâ€s way.
They didnâ€t do nearly enough to gain it back, and that had as much to do with the result as Montembeaultâ€s faulty play did.
It was unforeseeable the Canadiens would falter as they did after pushing the Rangers so far back on their heels that a fall to their rear ends appeared inevitable. They came flying out of the gate, and their two goals through the first four minutes of play were just rewards for how they were playing.
The Canadiens were sharp, precise, connected, supporting each other up and down the ice and executing meticulously to seize full control and demoralize a fragile Rangers team that had scored one goal total over the course of a three-game losing streak.
But after the Canadiens carried momentum — and a 2-1 lead — through the end of the first, hubris kicked in.
“I think we got overconfident with our win streak and our lead,†said Nick Suzuki, “and they were able to get the lead.â€
He talked about forcing plays coming up the ice in the second period, about not managing the long change well, about how he and his teammates could sense in real time to what extent their game was slipping, and about how they didnâ€t adjust quickly enough and got caught in yet another situation where theyâ€d have to pull a rabbit out of the hat just to earn a point in the standings, let alone two.
The Canadiens wouldâ€ve taken them and ran.
But that might have had them running from their problems instead of focusing on them after the game so they could address them before the next one.
Thatâ€s what they need to do, because pulling off magic tricks is anything but a sustainable win strategy in a league that features as much parity as the NHL does.
Managing the puck efficiently, and supporting it is a sustainable win strategy. And doing it consistently on the way up the ice is a particular necessity, especially against teams that play as conservatively as the Kraken, Predators and Rangers did at Bell Centre this week.
The Canadiens paid for some of those errors against those first two teams, but they fought back to earn overtime wins.
The Canadiens made far too many of those errors against the Rangers and it cost them what it should and forced them to focus on fixing it.
“I donâ€t think we were too connected coming out of our zone and through the neutral zone, especially in the second period,†said Mike Matheson. “We were bringing pucks back a lot and not really being available for each other and not working to get open as well as we could, and so that created a lot of long shifts, a lot of turnovers and d-zone time.â€
As Suzuki said, itâ€s the type of bad stuff the Canadiens did religiously a few years ago. The type of bad stuff they worked hard on removing from their game over the last couple of seasons.
Now that itâ€s crept back in a bit, a momentum-sapping loss creates urgency to address it.
“Weâ€ve got to clean that up on Monday (against the Buffalo Sabres),†Suzuki concluded.
Another dramatic win wouldâ€ve had him talking about other things.
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