(San Jose) It was perhaps not intended, but Martin St-Louis saw fit to mention the Creole Company when leaving San Jose.
“It’s good for morale,” summarized the Canadian coach on Friday at the end of the day. It’s nothing perfect, but we will continue to correct mistakes while trying to improve. »
A 3-2 shootout victory, even if it’s against the poor Sharks, is good for morale, indeed. Especially since it makes two in a row, while the Canadian was trying to recover from a series of four defeats when he landed in California at the start of the week.
No, Josh Anderson didn’t score, but there were a few members of this team who delivered morale-boosting performances: Cole Caufield, who scored his second goal of the season at five-on-five, and his sixth overall short, and Juraj Slafkovsky, who had an assist and is becoming the player he wants to be (“It was one of his best games,” Caufield said of him). And that’s without counting Cayden Primeau, the third wheel of the carriage, who received 33 shots, and who had another good outing in front of the net.
And since we’re in the good news, it’s Jesse Ylönen, forced to skip turns in the third period these days, when the coach decides to reduce his formation, who scored the winning goal in shots dam. “He has tiring hands for a goalie… he moves fast! », summed up Martin St-Louis about him.
It would undoubtedly be tempting here to point out that the Canadian had all the trouble in the world beating the worst club in the NHL, but that would be forgetting that this Canadian is not exactly part of the league’s elite. On the other hand, the Sharks took a 2-0 lead (that includes a goal from… Mike Hoffman!), and the Montreal club was able to make up for this deficit and then snatch the victory.
“I don’t know if we took them lightly… We’re trying to regain our splendor and also our confidence, especially after the games against Vegas and Boston, which hurt us a little… I don’t think that we took them lightly. In this league, everyone can beat everyone. It’s just that we had to get our game back.”
Could all of this be collected in one beautiful afternoon here in San Jose? Maybe. You had to see the players leave the ice after the winning goal. You had to see the smiles and hear the cries of joy as all these beautiful people walked on the carpet towards the locker room.
You had to see a little of all that to understand that each victory is a pretext for celebrations and pats on the back, which is normal for a club which is on the path to respectability.
That too is good for morale.
“It’s what we have to do,” added Martin St-Louis. We have to get back to what we do well…”
