(Columbus) Was it the California air? Getting together with friends for ten days away from home? Or, flatly, facing teams at the back of the rankings?
Still, like any good episode of Scoody-Doo, this long journey of the Canadian had a most unexpected outcome.
Unexpected because, it should be remembered, this series of five games on foreign ice rinks began with a fiasco in Boston, at the end of which Martin St-Louis described his team as “soft”. The adjective is rarely a compliment; it is, at best, purely descriptive when used to describe a mattress or an ice cream.
However, this same team, on Wednesday, was able to afford to play I Won’t Back Down, by Tom Petty, in its locker room. The mood was such that even the ultra shy Joel Armia appeared in front of the cameras and stayed there for a good three minutes. He was no longer a tribune, but nevertheless displayed a broad smile.
Even Cole Caufield, not always talkative after games, stayed to talk. He was grinning when asked about a three-on-two surge he took advantage of with his line when the Blue Jackets completely botched a change. “It was weird. I had no idea what happened! I asked Martin to tell me what happened,” Caufield said.
Such was the mood in the locker room of the team that had just won 4-2 over the Blue Jackets. Montreal concludes its five-game road series with a 3-2-0 record. Purists will point out that this wasn’t a five-game trip per se, as they returned home after the beating they suffered in Boston.
These are three victories in four outings since they left Brossard, but we note that these three victories were signed against Columbus, Anaheim and San Jose, among the six worst teams in the NHL in the standings.
“The important thing is victory,” Caufield proclaimed, clearly not in the camp of those in favor of the process. You have to find ways to win. We come back with a good record, even if we have things to correct. We have to do it again [this Thursday]. »
However, collectively and individually, the team took advantage of the strange schedule at its disposal to perfect its work. Rare are trips, like this one, where a team enjoys four full practices.
“In recent days, we have worked on things that gave us trouble in California, in backcheck [defensive fallback], to not give too many cross-field passes, and I think that helped,” noted Samuel Montembeault .
“We worked a lot on our forecheck and we were strong,” added Mike Matheson. Wednesday resulted in a team that was able to bottleneck the Jackets for a few long stretches. During one of them, Juraj Slafkovsky found himself right in the middle of the slot with two high-quality shot opportunities. If he was slow on the first, he drew at full speed the second time, again an element that had been worked on in training in recent weeks.
Speaking of Slafkovsky, here’s one who has taken steps in the right direction. During the famous match in Boston, he was one of the worst players in his camp, even if he finished the evening with two points. He was employed alongside Sean Monahan and things never really took off.
Now he has just spent the last four games with Caufield and Christian Dvorak. It’s not exactly Marchand-Bergeron-Pastrnak, but the very first pick in the 2022 draft had a good week overall. Against Columbus, he made the zone exit which led to Caufield’s goal.
At 22, Alex Newhook is one of the young guys, even if his experience suggests otherwise. He returns to Montreal with three goals in his last four outings. “He is making good progress, he is integrating into the team, into our concepts. He still has a lot to learn, but I like his commitment,” praised St-Louis.
Kaiden Guhle continues to play with impressive aplomb for a guy who was in his 62nd NHL game on Wednesday. Justin Barron ate up minutes while limiting blatant blunders. Even Jayden Struble, in a more discreet role, had good sequences on Wednesday. He returns to town with his first four matches under his belt.
However, it will be interesting to see how the veterans react over the next few days, because if there are any who are dragging their feet, it is within this group. Some must have left Columbus encouraged. Monahan, for example, skillfully set up Armia’s winning goal by calmly controlling the puck, as he did so well in October. Armia himself undoubtedly enjoyed his end of the evening, with this somewhat lucky goal, we hear, then an important play in the back of the territory which led to the insurance goal in an empty net.
However, it also remains enigmatic for Josh Anderson, whom St-Louis tried to energize by delegating him with the first trio to start the match against his former team.
We will have the answers before long, because CH gets back to work this Thursday evening against the Panthers.
