It’s American Thanksgiving and the CH is last in the East.
I say that because every year, we hear this old classic only once the Thanksgiving American arrival, we can take the ranking and see who has a chance of making the series.
And the ranking doesn’t exactly favor CH at the moment.
Even if we try to make ourselves believe that “the club is only five points from the playoffs” or that the Penguins have a lower percentage of points than the CH, the fact remains that the club is last in the East.
Do Martin St-Louis’ men have what it takes to overtake eight teams in the standings? The answer is no.
We saw it in the last matches: the Canadian has only four wins in his last 13 matches. And even if he won yesterday (in overtime against a bad club), that doesn’t erase everything.
Those who listened to the coach’s press briefing last night, after the match, saw that no, he did not seem fully satisfied. His answers were short.
At the same time, it is still logical since despite the 4-3 victory, there are still aspects that need to be corrected. Not everything was perfect during yesterday’s meeting.
What do I take away from all this?
1. Justin Barron is playing with fire. Yesterday, he had no choice in being in the lineup because Mike Matheson still wasn’t able to play… but let’s just say he was struggling defensively.
Covering your man, in a man-to-man system, should not be an option.
2. Cayden Primeau had a lot of pressure and he wasn’t naughty. He didn’t hurt his club, but he didn’t get up either. He did enough to get the victory with 21 saves on 24 shots.
CH scored four times on 23 shots. This is 10 more than the day before.
3. Juraj Slafkovsky has been whipped by playing on the fourth line recently. And after the few messages received over the last few weeks, he finally understood.
Besides his goal, he played better yesterday. If CH wants to win matches, it will take this Slaf more often… which has not been the case regularly since the start of the season.
4. Brendan Gallagher didn’t just inspire Slaf: he also inspired all of his teammates by fighting against Zach Werenski. He has guts and he does everything to inspire others.
It has its effect.
5. The chain landed for the CH in 2022-2023 when Sean Monahan was injured. In 2023-2024? When he was traded. And this year, the channel never really got on board.
Watching the veteran play last night in Columbus, we understand a little better why. He takes the little details seriously.
Prolongation
Yesterday, after the match, the Canadian players headed to New York, where they will play on Saturday. But today, it will be a complete holiday for the men of Martin St-Louis. #ActionDeGrâce
Tomorrow it will be back to training.
We will therefore have to wait until tomorrow to hear from Mike Matheson. We know he’s banged up (he missed two games in a row, after all), but we don’t know to what extent.
Will he play on Saturday? It’s too early to tell.
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