MONTREAL — The icebreaker couldn’t have been more appropriate.
When Jake Evans opened the scoring for the Montreal Canadiens on Saturday night, it came off an excellent shot that beat St. Louis Blues goaltender Jordan Binnington clean, high on the short side. But before that, it came off a play in the defensive zone, a play by Evans, helping Mike Matheson win a puck battle with Dylan Holloway below the goal line.
The play came at the end of a penalty kill but was technically at five-on-five, and it encapsulated so much of what the Canadiens spent the previous two practices working on: a hard one-on-one battle and identifying points where a teammate can quickly come in and help win that battle.
Evans did that, and he got rewarded for it at the other end with his first goal of the season.
Jake Evans gives Montreal the lead with a beauty hold and finish! 🎯 pic.twitter.com/wgiB78trUW
— Sportsnet (@Sportsnet) October 26, 2024
Canadiens coach Martin St. Louis spent every waking minute since a 7-2 loss to the New York Rangers on Tuesday working on his team’s play in the defensive zone. The first portion of practice Friday was spent working specifically on one-on-one battles, and his players went at it. It was a very physical set of drills.
And perhaps that should have been a tell.
Defenceman Arber Xhekaj said this week that his head was messing with him when he was on the ice. He had too much informational traffic in there, creating gridlock in his synapses when it came to his decision-making in the defensive zone.
When St. Louis announced Friday that Xhekaj would be re-entering the lineup with Justin Barron injured, he bluntly stated what he expected from Xhekaj.
“I expect a better version,” St. Louis said. “It means staying alert, consistent.”
When asked about Xhekaj’s mental gridlock — playing with the fear of making mistakes — St. Louis doubled down.
“I mean, you should be worried about making some mistakes, right?” he said. “He’s not a rookie anymore, so you should be like, ‘I’ve got to be better.’ Very simple. It’s not like we nitpick everything he does. But he’s got to be better. I expect Xhekaj to be a better version.”
There is nothing there that was overly harsh. It was just true. Xhekaj’s defensive game had been an issue since the start of training camp. Everyone could see it, even Xhekaj. And yet, for some reason, this assessment created a ridiculous overreaction from many online Friday.
Before Saturday’s game, Xhekaj had a conversation with St. Louis. A good conversation. It helped immensely.
Anyone who thought St. Louis hated Xhekaj based on those comments Friday should probably hear Xhekaj talk about that conversation himself.
“I had a good talk with Marty, and it was, just, relax. I was overthinking things. I was too worried about things I couldn’t control. Just clear my mind. I know I’m a good player, so just play the game. And it went well,” Xhekaj said. “He definitely helps me a lot and definitely tells me, like, ‘Just play, man. You know what to do out there. Don’t worry about anything, just play.’
“It feels good to hear that from your coach. So it definitely helped my game.”
Xhekaj’s game Saturday was not perfect, but it was undoubtedly a better version. And ultimately, that came as a result of another decision from his coach.
“I know how to play, and I know the systems we do. There are certain times when you’re on certain parts of the ice where you know what to do. So you don’t really need to overthink things,” Xhekaj said. “We simplified our D-zone a little bit, and I think it helped.”
It looked like the Canadiens were playing more man-to-man in their defensive zone against the Blues. Not a straight man-to-man system, but more of it within the hybrid defensive zone system they use. Was that it?
“Yeah,” Xhekaj said. “We simplified.”
That word, “simplified,” resonates. Toward the end of training camp, St. Louis was asked if he should simplify his defensive zone scheme, and he bristled.
“Simplify? No. I wouldn’t say simplify because if you want to do something simple, you don’t do anything. You just stand still,” he said then. “To me, we don’t have the puck. It’s not time to be simple; it’s time to be calculated together.”
Lane Hutson, however, agrees with Xhekaj’s assessment of the defensive zone adjustments the Canadiens made against the Blues, adjustments that contributed greatly to their 5-2 win, with relatively little time spent chasing the puck in their own zone and defending for long stretches at a time. The Canadiens wanted to kill plays more aggressively, and they did that, but they did that on a bit more of an individual level.
Just like they were doing at the opening of practice Friday.
“Yeah, we wanted to kill more plays and generate opportunities from that. So yeah, a little bit more (man-to-man),” Hutson said. “We were trying just to not give them much space at all. But obviously, breakdowns happen, so if you see a breakdown, you leave your man and try to help the play. It definitely helped. I felt like we killed way more plays.”
St. Louis liked the results of the adjustments he made to how they played in the defensive zone. Saturday morning he said he expected to see improvement in that area; he didn’t expect perfection but improvement.
That’s exactly what he got.
“I thought we were harder to play against,” he said. “I felt there was less space, and when there was some space, there was pressure into that space right away and everybody reads off one another. I thought we were able to kill more plays in the yellow, on the boards, like, anticipating kills and then bringing numbers and breaking the puck out together.
“Like I said, there’s no bulletproof system, but I felt the way we played it tonight, we raised the percentage of us winning.”
When asked if he made a compromise in what he was asking his team to do defensively, whether he incorporated more man-to-man into his hybrid scheme, whether he simplified it somewhat, St. Louis didn’t necessarily disagree. He didn’t bristle when he heard the word “simplify.”
“Against the Rangers, we had zero defensive pace,” he said. “So if you don’t take early actions with pace, everybody’s like, ‘Who’s got who?’ So, when you bring pace with some early action, it’s very clear and we’re harder to play against.”
It was only one game, but it was also perhaps a window into how St. Louis will apply accountability this season.
Friday after practice he vehemently defended his defensive zone system, sounding rigid in applying a high standard of hockey intelligence to his young players, some of whom were struggling to meet that standard. Young players such as Xhekaj, yes, but others as well.
St. Louis has said he would be more demanding of his players when it came to the details of the game this season. The organization’s expectations have begun to climb northward in hopes of exiting the cycle of consistent losing that has defined the Canadiens for the entirety of St. Louis’ time as head coach.
But there has to be an understanding of the reality of his team, one that is still in the throes of a rebuild and is still very young. You want to build up those young players to the point they can think the game at an NHL level, and perhaps taking a tiny step back — simplifying just a little — is a way to move forward in that process.
Xhekaj was feeling good about himself after the game. He played north of 20 minutes, and his most usage came in the third period. He played on the penalty kill — the only defenceman who played more than him down a man was David Savard — and got the sense his coach trusts him. And that was because he earned his coach’s trust.
“I thought he was excellent, and throughout the game,” St. Louis said. “There wasn’t some inconsistency throughout the game with his actions on the ice. … The stuff that we were talking about that kept him out, tonight I felt like he was very engaged in applying everything that we’ve been working on, talking with (him about). So, I’m happy for him.”
St. Louis set a high standard for what he expected from Xhekaj in his return to the lineup, but he also made the adjustments tactically that allowed him and the team to meet that standard, adjustments that seemed distasteful to him at the start of the season.
Reaching the ultimate goal of making this a contending team will probably require similar adjustments along the way. It is never a linear climb, St. Louis loves to say. Saturday, St. Louis demonstrated he is able and willing to take a step back to make a leap forward.
(Photo of Jayden Struble defending Zack Bolduc: Minas Panagiotakis / Getty Images)
