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In Hainsight: The Habs Brass Took a Trustfall and it's Working |
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Follow me @KarineHains for all updates about the Montreal Canadiens and women's hockey
If the result wasn’t a surprise last night, the fact that the Canadiens managed to hang in there for 40 minutes against the red hot Hurricanes definitely was. Sure, even though the score was 2-2 after the second frame, the Canes were dominating and both the finale score of 6-2 and the shots tally of 41-23 are testament to that.
Even though the Canadiens couldn’t manage to get a 4th win in a row, this wasn’t a bad game to watch and it showed how Martin St-Louis is putting his stamp on this team. When Kent Hughes and Jeff Gorton decided to appoint a rookie coach who had never held even an assistant-coach position as bench boss, they took a trust fall. Whatever Martin St-Louis said convinced them that he was the man to deliver the kind of hockey the new regime wants the Habs to play. And the doubled down on that by not giving in to the temptation of appointing a more experience assistant coach to help St-Louis this summer.
As a result, we’re seeing a team that’s putting St-Louis’ concepts into practice, trying to move the puck quickly just like he did when he was a player. As the head coach told Sportsnet’s Eric Engels, when he played, he moved the puck quickly because when he didn’t have the puck, he couldn’t be hit, which makes sense for a player of such a small stature. St-Louis had great instincts though and not everyone has that, especially not a team that’s missing many of its more talented and promising players, still, lately, we’ve seen that someone like Harvey-Pinard can fit in just fine working with the coach’s concepts.
However, against a fast-paced team who puts on suffocating forecheck on its opponent, it was evident that the Canadiens are still getting to grips with St-Louis’ teachings, but they will get there. On a good team, there’s no way Rafael Harvey-Pinard plays on the top line, but he’s shown shortly after his recall that he could perform just as well on the 4th line alongside depth players as he can in the limelight with Suzuki and Anderson. His performance and emergence are a very bright spot in what promises to be a very tough end to the season.
Last night’s duel was a really challenging match-up for Montreal, especially considering how full the infirmary is right now and with Kirby Dach’s last-minute illness related scratching, at least it’s not covid related. Hopefully, there won’t be any lasting damage to Justin Barron after his awkward fall in the boards after that Svechnikov cross-check.
The Canadiens are now headed to Toronto to take on the Leafs in a classic Saturday night match-up. The Leafs won their last game and now have Auston Matthews back in their line-up, which should make matters even more complicated for the Bleu, Blanc, Rouge.
Montreal Canadiens Blogger • 
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