BUFFALO, N.Y. — What is this Montreal Canadiens season really about?
It is a question we asked recently in a different context, and the answer remains the same, despite all the losses since asking that question.
It is about progression. And as the Canadiens were mired in an awful losing skid, one where progression appeared to be in the rearview mirror, we saw a glimpse of it again Monday afternoon.
It would have been easy for the Canadiens to fold after allowing goals on the very next shift after their first two goals. They had been deflated before, this was a perfect opportunity for them to be deflated again.
The number of top players who had been not only slumping but had been among the worst players on the team was a long one. But it was led by captain Nick Suzuki, followed closely by Juraj Slafkovský and Kirby Dach, three players who formed a line Monday afternoon, three players who have been thoroughly disappointing for a while, and who had been thoroughly disappointing through 39 minutes of this game against the Buffalo Sabres.
It was a game the Canadiens needed desperately to win, and through those 39 minutes, their top guys had not been their top guys, much like they had not been for the four previous games.
And then, they struck. And in 22 seconds, all that bad was washed away. At least temporarily.
Suzuki’s two goals in the final minute of the second period, each assisted by Slafkovský and Dach, gave the Canadiens life, not so much in this game — the 4-3 lead those goals gave them were quickly erased early in the third period — but more so for this season.
A day earlier, Suzuki spoke about how his lack of confidence in his game was wearing on him, how it was preventing him from being a proper leader as captain because he was worried about his own game.
Those 22 seconds might have unlocked that captaining potential.
“Suzy needed a game like tonight, so I’m happy he had that game,” coach Martin St. Louis said after the Canadiens snapped their six-game losing skid with a 7-5 win. “As a player, you need those games. Like everybody, he feels the heat a little bit. So to get that game, he can breathe a little bit, go home here.
“We have a day and a half off here before we practice and head to Minny (against the Wild). I think this team needed this outcome tonight, and I think Suzy needed that too.”
Had the Canadiens lost, which was looking to be the likely outcome before that Suzuki burst at the end of the second period, and again after the Sabres took the lead early in the third, that break Monday night and Tuesday would have felt especially long. It would have been a 36-hour period for the players to be alone with their thoughts — thoughts that could have been toxic.
Instead, despite playing an imperfect game, despite blowing three leads, the Canadiens get to spend those 36 hours feeling as though they had progressed. Whether they have progressed or not is somewhat irrelevant; when you lose six games in a row, a positive result earns the right to live in a vacuum.
“It feels good to win,” Dach said. “I think we knew if we just stuck to the right things and doing what our game plan was and playing the right way today, it would happen.
“When you go through stretches like that, you learn a lot more from the losses and what it takes to win and what we need to do on an every night compete level, structure-wise, all the intangibles that are going to make our team good. So it was nice to see that it came to fruition and we were able to get this one behind us and hopefully, we can get on a bit of a roll.”
The most important part of that quote is the first one. It feels good to win. Growth can’t happen without winning, and that is why the Canadiens made the corporate decision to publicly communicate their desire to win more this season. That hasn’t happened, and still hasn’t despite this one win, but that feeling of winning is important for growth.
Before the game, St. Louis had a chat with Slafkovský, perhaps the most important growth candidate on the team in terms of the rebuild. He had been lost for several games, and it was vitally important he found himself.
He set a new career high with three assists in the game.
“Yeah it was one of the better ones after, I don’t know how many, 13 or whatever, 12 bad games,” Slafkovský said. “It’s good that I finally had something going.”
St. Louis’ message in that chat was simple: focus on what he was telling Slafkovský and not all the other noise that was going through his head. Play direct, be physical and forecheck hard. And that’s exactly what Slafkovský did on Suzuki’s second goal.
“When you have a couple of bad games in a row, then you’re just overthinking too much,” he said. “You know actually, Marty spoke to me before the game and he said just don’t think about anything.
“Just think about having his voice in my head, but don’t listen to him. I was just trying to focus on things we’ve talked about and it was working, finally.”
It was, in other words — a progression for Slafkovský.
“Slaf’s a young player and there’s a heaviness to what we’re going through right now, collectively, but (also) individually,” St. Louis said. “Trying to touch my player, to have a conversation with him before the game and keep things in perspective.”
And ultimately, Slafkovský is not the only young person who was affected by what’s been happening. St. Louis is a young coach, and he is in the midst of his first storm, one with unmet expectations and the first questioning of his methods.
And for the first time, he admitted it was getting to him.
“It’s not an easy league,” St. Louis said. “I said this to the boys after the game, I said, listen, I remember as a player thinking sometimes I’d never have another game in the league. And once I was in the league, I thought sometimes I would never score another goal in the league. And as a young coach, I swear, there are moments recently, you tell yourself, damn, will I win another game in this league? The league is tough sometimes. And sometimes, it’s not the way you play, but it’s the results that hit you hard emotionally. We stayed together, we kept working on our issues, and we got a win we needed.
“But it’s one game.”
It is only one game, but it was a vitally important game. The Canadiens could not lose this. They had to stop the bleeding. They had to be rewarded for the good things they felt they were doing.
But in that one game, they did some things that will not lead to further wins. They blew three leads. They had lapses that were costing them games for weeks. The goaltending was once again subpar.
But for 36 hours, the Canadiens can focus on the result and feel good about it. It’s been a long time coming, and for one day at least, they can emphasize the result over the process.
(Top photo: Jeffrey T. Barnes / Associated Press)
