Canadian-Islanders | Mystery and gumball on Long Island

(GARDEN CITY, New York) Will the Canadian be without Mike Matheson in addition to Kaiden Guhle? Will Juraj Slafkovsky be able to play despite his left arm problem? Has Jayden Struble’s turn finally arrived? But where is Carnior?

The answers to these questions, at least three of them, will only come around 6:45 p.m. on Saturday, because Martin St-Louis did not wish to give details, Saturday noon, on the training that he will deploy in evening against the Islanders at UBS Arena.

In fact, he confirmed that Cayden Primeau will defend the Montreal net because “it’s his turn to play.” But for the rest, pre-match decisions will be made because several players are dealing with “sores”. All 22 players who made the trip will take part in the warm-up, we’re told, which suggests the doubt cases don’t have one foot in the grave either.

Slafkovsky was one of the injured, having left Friday’s training due to pain that seemed rather severe.

See the sequence

The Slovak accompanied his teammates to Long Island and seemed rather relaxed when we saw him strolling through the corridors of the hotel where the Habs were meeting the media. That said, there was no Casey Cizikas in said corridors ready to check Slafkovsky at any moment, unless of course the Islanders forward decided to be really smart on that bright Saturday morning.

Matheson represents another doubtful case, while Guhle’s absence is already confirmed. If both have to be absent, it will be the opportunity for Jayden Struble and Logan Mailloux to play their first match with CH this season. If Matheson can play, St. Louis will have to choose between the two young guards.

This therefore leaves a squad very uncertain to bounce back after two successive poor performances from the Habs, lost by a combined score of 10-4. But St. Louis expects better.

When results matter

Both among the players and the head coach, the impatience is palpable even though the season is only five games old.

“We feel it, I feel it. It’s changed a lot this year, believes forward Alex Newhook. There weren’t many issues left for us at the end of last season. We therefore feel that the matches early in the calendar count for a lot and can hurt us in the end. We know that it is unacceptable to lose matches due to details. This is our mentality. »

The players had made it clear at the team’s golf tournament that they were aiming for a playoff appearance, even if management remained much more cautious. And St-Louis therefore expresses itself differently.

Thus, at his morning press briefing, a banal question on the differential statistic triggered a long explanation from the coach. The question was specifically about Newhook, who had just commented on his -6 record after five games. In the preamble to the question, it was suggested that St. Louis is a coach who values ​​process more than results.

“We are in transition from talking about results,” objected St-Louis. There is always a process. But as a team, as a staff, we learn to win and the next level is to win. Before this year, I was trying to build an identity. You can’t come to your first day with a manual and say: read this, we’ll play like this tomorrow. You build this. And when you’re building an identity, it’s hard to teach while winning. If you focus on winning, you don’t give your team time to adapt to the transformation we’re trying to make. Transformation takes time. »

It is now up to this team to show that it is indeed ready to begin this transition.

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