MONTREAL — Learning how to win is not so simple, as it turns out.
Jake Evans was elevated into a second-line role by Montreal Canadiens coach Martin St. Louis because he could provide offence responsibly.
And by and large, Evans did that in a 3-2 loss to the Calgary Flames on Tuesday night.
Except for one fleeting moment, a defensive-zone situation in which Evans turned left instead of right, and that was enough. A blip in Evans’ strong night at the office turned into Matt Coronato’s walking into the slot and wiring the tying goal past Sam Montembeault with 2:46 to play in regulation.
THE BISON 🦬 pic.twitter.com/LvzEngD8jN
— Calgary Flames (@NHLFlames) November 6, 2024
“It was just a weird play,” Evans said. “I don’t know. We’ll figure it out. I probably could have stayed with the guy. I didn’t think I was supposed to, but looking at it again, I should have stayed with him.
“So, I just screwed up.”
The Canadiens have been focused on their defensive-zone play, or their defensive play in general, off and on since the first day of training camp. It’s been a priority for the better part of two months now, and again, by and large, they defended well Tuesday.
Is it fair to focus on one of the only blips in that defensive performance? Probably not. Is it fair to pin that on Evans when his line with Juraj Slafkovský and Alex Newhook generally had a good night? Probably not.
But when a team is moving from a development phase to a learning-how-to-win phase, as St. Louis stated Monday after practice, is it fair to scrutinize the play that cost the Canadiens a win they were less than three minutes away from securing?
Yes, it is.
The Canadiens say their standard is rising. This is part of a rising standard. It’s not fair to pin the loss on Evans, but it is fair to note that every play matters, because that is what St. Louis himself said his team’s mindset needs to be.
And sometimes in the NHL, all it takes is one moment when you make a wrong turn and you lose.
If the Canadiens were in a stage of their development where results didn’t matter, as they were last season, it would be easy to place the focus elsewhere. Because there were so many positives to take from this game, albeit against a Flames team coming off five losses in six games, one that was reeling much like the Canadiens were and still are.
The Canadiens themselves stating they are no longer in that stage makes focusing on that one play, that one mistake, a natural consequence of the standards they want to set for themselves. More so than the strong first period they had, more than the scoring chances they created in that first period and simply didn’t finish, more than Lane Hutson’s exceptional play, more than Kirby Dach looking closer to himself and being the best player on his line with Cole Caufield and Nick Suzuki, more than Christian Dvorak looking more competitive and impactful than he has all season, the play that cost them the game naturally becomes the most important talking point because that’s how the Canadiens want it to be.
They are in a learning-how-to-win stage, they said so themselves, and therefore not winning a game they led with less than three minutes remaining becomes the most important part of the game.
“We’re done with that,” Brendan Gallagher said. “We have young players, but guys that have been in the league long enough. We have expectations on ourselves, and we’re not going to use these excuses of age. We have to understand that we have to learn quick. The league doesn’t wait around. It gets tougher every game.”
It would be unbecoming of a professional athlete, a professional coach or a professional sports organization, to dial back expectations, to realize that perhaps it’s still in a development phase, that perhaps it is not ready to move up the standings, that perhaps its timing was just a bit off.
The Canadiens saw their loss Saturday night against the Pittsburgh Penguins as a step in the right direction. They saw Tuesday’s loss the same way.
“I think they’re a good step,” St. Louis said of those two games. “We gave ourselves a chance.”
But the reality is the Canadiens had two very winnable games against two teams that were struggling, and they lost both games. The reality is the Canadiens followed up that strong first period Tuesday with two tepid periods of hockey in which they surrendered territorial control to the Flames and failed to build on those strong opening 20 minutes.
Moral victories are supposed to be a thing of the past. And yet here we are, looking for moral victories from two games that should have been actual victories.
St. Louis said his team threw up all over itself last Thursday at the Washington Capitals. He didn’t go quite that far after this game.
“We didn’t throw up all over ourselves tonight,” he said. “It just caused a bit of nausea.”
After 13 games, eight at home, the Canadiens have four victories. That’s the story until the Canadiens tell us otherwise, until their expectations for themselves are recalibrated to the current reality, or until they change that current reality.
The season is still early enough for either scenario, and St. Louis appears to be holding out hope his team will choose to change the reality instead of lowering the expectations.
“Hungry. I want them to leave this game hungry,” St. Louis said. “And if I were in their shoes, I would want to play tomorrow.”
Luckily for the Canadiens, they don’t play Wednesday. They have practice instead. They have more work to do.
(Photo of Matt Coronato’s goal against Sam Montembeault: Eric Bolte / Imagn Images)
