It’s been about two weeks since Martin St-Louis worked with his players on the Canadian’s offensive game. The head coach plans to put out the fires one at a time, and it was especially in his zone that he saw them burning. The offense was going to suffer while waiting for lasting fixes to be made on defense, but St. Louis was ready to live with that.
Under the circumstances, seeing the Canadian play such a good first period against the Flames of Calgary – without scoring a goal – and holding a 2-1 lead with less than three minutes in the match can be seen as an encouraging sign: the CH did not give too much to the visitors and, had it not been an offside signal after Brendan Gallagher’s second goal of the match, he would have done enough in attack to win.
He came so close.
A nice move from Matt Coronato at the end of the third period, however, stunned Jake Evans and Nick Suzuki before his shot in heavy traffic fooled Samuel Montembeault to tie the game.
This same Coronato, the former accomplice of prospect Sean Farrell in the USHL and at Harvard University, then scored the winning goal just seven seconds into overtime.
Being more able to finish would have helped us, but at least I like what I see (defensively)
said St-Louis after the meeting.
The Canadian was trying to slow down its three-game losing streak by welcoming the Flames to the Bell Center.
Photo: Getty Images / Minas Panagiotakis
Nobody likes moral victories in hockey. Players and coaches are in a hurry to no longer accept them. But the Canadian will have to continue to take the positive where it is, because he does not yet seem ready to convert his good actions into two points in the standings.
The fact remains that having better applied what was required in defense did not comfort the players. They had victory at their fingertips and they let it slip away. To have scored 16 shots during an impeccable first period and to have limited the dangerous chances of the Flames during the entire meeting was not enough for them.
At the moment we are fighting, we are working hard, we are looking for results, but it is not easy, it is a difficult league. Once we find solutions, we will be better off, but we can’t let too much time pass either.
The opponent doesn’t matter
Let us understand: the Flames do not form a formidable hockey machine. The Canadian has still not won a single match after conceding the first goal (0-6-1), but the Flames were that kind of opponent against whom it would have been possible to break the trend.
However, it is as if the identity of the adversary does not matter at this moment. The number of times we hear the expression shoot yourself in the foot
in the Canadian’s locker room, we understand that it is his own actions that must be corrected, otherwise anyone will be able to… correct him, precisely.
Proof of this is the 8-2 thaw suffered last week at the hands of the Seattle Kraken.
The priority was therefore to eliminate actions likely to help the other team, to better manage risks and even to avoid taking risks if such a thing is possible.
If we take into account Saturday’s game in Pittsburgh, that makes two games in a row where the Canadian shows signs of progress in this area. We are slowly starting to plug the gaps.
One day, being better than the previous match will end up being enough to win.
Anderson praised Gallagher
The second youngest team in the National League is trying to move forward by advancing its core of young leaders, but Tuesday’s game showed us that its veterans, even those we tend to dissociate from the long-term project, have a role to play in helping the team progress.
Take Gallagher, who scored his fifth goal of the season in this game and who for a moment thought he had scored another following an unorthodox zone entry from Josh Anderson.
The one that many Canadian fans have condemned for a long time has not slowed down during the first 13 games of the season. In a team where there has recently been talk of immaturity due to certain actions that it must rid itself of, Gallagher continues to be – within its means – an example to follow for its teammates.
I think he’s been our most consistent player,” Anderson said of Gallagher. He works very hard in every practice and every game and he is rewarded. You have to give him credit because he is in the thick of the battle every night and he gives everything he has. We wish he could have got the second goal, but such is life.
Anderson, Gallagher and Christian Dvorak were brought together in a trio that perhaps offered the best opposition to the Flames over the course of 60 minutes.
Remember that before the season even started, St-Louis went to see Anderson and Dvorak to warn them that different roles awaited them this season. Given that the core of young forwards would continue to gain ground in offensive roles, Anderson and Dvorak should expect to be primarily entrusted with defensive mandates.
The first took the bull by the horns by playing more responsibly and more involved than last year. Anderson has become an important cog in the penalty kill unit and, even if he doesn’t have the offensive statistics to confirm his effectiveness, his contribution is obvious.
Dvorak seemed to get bogged down at the start of the year.
We will not repeat history by reminding you that the former management brought him to Montreal so that he could replace Phillip Danault. We know how it all turned out.
But arriving in the final year of his contract, and asked to fulfill even more sober tasks this year, Dvorak seemed to evaporate and cease for a moment to be a viable candidate for the second and third lines. A tougher Jake Evans overtook him in the hierarchy while he was relegated to the fourth line, projecting on certain evenings the image of an indifferent player.
After its poor performance in Washington last week, however, the American center bounced back against the Penguins of Pittsburgh on Saturday, and he continued his momentum on Tuesday by being placed back in the third unit.
Dvorak saw an opportunity tonight, St-Louis noted. He was pretty good in Pittsburgh and he was even better tonight. This is not his first year in the league, he understands the role he has been placed in this season. It’s not easy, but I wouldn’t blame him for trying to raise his rank. It was a good match for him.
It’s important that veterans feel part of what the CH is trying to accomplish. Dvorak probably won’t be there next year, but the contracts Anderson and Gallagher have hanging around suggest they will still be in Montreal for a while.
So it’s encouraging that they want to claim their place and help set the tone. Anderson didn’t do it last year, and this newfound momentum benefits the team as much as his career.
When a young team is finding its way in the dark, the more experienced ones must agree to hold the lantern from time to time.
This trio tried to do it against the Flamesbut it just wasn’t enough.
