It was not the candy that caused indigestion in Martin St-Louis on this Halloween evening, Thursday, but rather the performance of his players.
The head coach of the Montreal Canadiens appeared before journalists after another crushing defeat, this time 6-3 to the Washington Capitals, and his message was clear.
After a first period with closed play, his team was able to maintain the rhythm of the Caps in the second so that there was a tie of 3 to 3 after 40 minutes of play. Everything changed in the last third and St-Louis there thus went from this image to illustrate the collapse of his team during the last third which ended with three goals in the Caps camp.
“We played a first team period on the road. We didn’t give much, but we didn’t get much. It was a period we wanted. In the second, there was nothing perfect, there were mistakes on both sides, and in the third, we vomited on each other,” he said.
“It’s certain that we have a fragile group at the moment. We do it to ourselves too. We stick our fingers down our throats. Do you understand? We’re not talking about food poisoning,” St-Louis added a little later, speaking to a journalist.
The Canadian’s defensive problems have caused reactions since the start of the season. We only have to think of the 7 to 2 defeats against the New York Rangers and Tuesday against the Seattle Kraken, this one by a score of 8 to 2. Defenseman Mike Matheson would have liked his group to follow up with the same concentration after the first two engagements.
“We played well for two periods and it was still small things that caused us to lose in the third period,” said defenseman Mike Matheson. It’s very frustrating. »
If the players are aware that a third period like they played Thursday is unacceptable, St-Louis had this message for them:
“They know it, but it would be good if they knew it before the third started,” he told our colleague Patrick Friolet.
The Habs also had opportunities to close the gap in the third with a long 5-on-3 power play. However, they came out of this situation scoreless and with only one goal in six opportunities during the evening on the power play. . Once again, the Canadian driver had a simple answer to explain how much his team needed this goal.
“When you vomit on yourself, you have to score,” he said.
Will the coach’s message get through? The answer will come Saturday with the matchup against the Pittsburgh Penguins.
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