MONTREAL — Two moments came to mind as the Montreal Canadiens were giving up seven consecutive Toronto Maple Leafs goals to turn a 3-0 lead into an embarrassing 7-3 loss.
The first was a 4-1 loss to the Maple Leafs in Toronto on Nov. 9, also a Saturday night game on “Hockey Night in Canada,” a game that dropped the Canadiens into last overall in the NHL standings with a 4-9-2 record. The other was a 9-2 loss on home ice to the Pittsburgh Penguins on Dec. 12, a game that was 3-2 after two periods and had the Penguins pump in six consecutive goals over the final 20 minutes.
Both those games can be looked upon as starting points for the drastic turnaround of this Canadiens season. The Canadiens entered Saturday’s game with an 18-9-2 record since that loss in Toronto and an 11-3-1 record since that embarrassing loss to the Penguins at home.
This has not been the same team as the one that played in those two games. Its .655 points percentage since that loss in Toronto was sixth in the NHL entering the game, and its .767 rate since the loss to the Penguins was second in the league behind only the Edmonton Oilers.
Is this the moment everyone’s been waiting for? The moment the Canadiens’ bubble bursts, the moment that proves the past month has been a mirage, the moment this bottom-dwelling team goes back to where it belongs?
Probably not.
Because the way the Canadiens dominated over the first 30 minutes might have been the best 30 minutes of hockey they’ve played all season. They were leading 3-0 after one period, and that wasn’t even reflective of the extent to which the Canadiens were carrying play. Before the game was five minutes old, they had a point-blank opportunity alone in front for Mike Matheson and another for Jake Evans just before Kirby Dach opened the scoring.
A hockey game is 60 minutes long, yes. But we’ve had ample proof over the past month that the Canadiens fully understand that, which has earned them some benefit of the doubt, something they did not have when they got blown out of the water in the third period by the Penguins or when they fell to last place overall after that loss in Toronto.
People probably don’t want to hear about underlying numbers after a 7-3 loss, but even counting the deluge of goals the Canadiens allowed in the third period, they still controlled nearly 60 percent of the expected goals at five-on-five Saturday, were up 14-9 in high-danger chances and controlled 80 percent of the expected goals with Auston Matthews on the ice, according to Natural Stat Trick.
And even though Sam Montembeault really should have had the tying goal scored by William Nylander and the go-ahead goal scored by Oliver Ekman-Larsson early in the third period — Montembeault said he needed to make the timely saves in the third to preserve the Canadiens’ lead — he made a tremendous save on Bobby McMann immediately before the Ekman-Larsson goal and another tremendous save on Nylander alone in the slot immediately after that goal.
It’s just that Joseph Woll was better than him at the other end of the ice. He robbed Cole Caufield of a sure goal twice — once late in the first and again early in the second — and kept his team within striking distance.
Joseph Woll keeps the score 3-0 early in the second period against Cole Caufield. (Minas Panagiotakis / Getty Images)
“It was a weird game,” was the initial reaction of Canadiens coach Martin St. Louis, and it’s hard to argue with him.
St. Louis was serene about what had just transpired because his team has afforded him that luxury, which is the other big difference between this game and the last time they faced the Maple Leafs or that blowout against the Penguins.
The Canadiens showed the best version of themselves, but when things went south in a hurry, it wasn’t even the worst version of themselves. We have seen far, far worse from this team back when it had no benefit of the doubt.
But for the players, it was difficult not to get the sense that this was reminiscent of a version of themselves they hoped to have left behind over the past month or more, and the urgency to get back to the more recent version of themselves Sunday night against the New York Rangers became that much more heightened.
“I think we’ve shown enough maturity to get on the run that we’ve been on, which required a lot of ‘leave that game aside and focus for the next one,’” Matheson said. “Just because this one didn’t go well doesn’t mean we need to lose all our confidence, all our energy coming into games.
“So, definitely learn from it, but turn the page and move on, just like we would have if we’d won.”
The temptation is strong to make more out of a blowout loss than a tight loss because they hit differently emotionally, they have more impact when it seems like you didn’t compete. That was the case against the Penguins a little over a month ago but wasn’t the case here. From the first shift, the Canadiens imposed their will on the Maple Leafs. But for a team that has been so good at protecting slim leads or erasing slim deficits over this run, it hasn’t played with a big lead often, and perhaps it didn’t manage it all that well.
“I don’t think we’ve been in many situations where we were up 3, and I felt we did plenty of things early in that second to be up more than 3,” St. Louis said. “Unfortunately, we didn’t. You have to give them credit for that.”
Now, are there certain things the Canadiens did that represent trends? Yes, taking four consecutive penalties to hand the momentum back to the Maple Leafs is something the Canadiens have been getting away with for a while now because of their excellent penalty killing.
But that’s about it. Lane Hutson might have had his worst game of the season, but that is nowhere near a trend. Montembeault’s up-and-down performance is not a trend, either.
Our goal in writing off games is to extract deeper meaning from them, but it is difficult to extract deeper meaning here. As embarrassing as the score might be for the Canadiens, this was not an embarrassing loss, and it’s not indicative of a downturn in what has been an extraordinary run into the Eastern Conference playoff conversation.
At least, not yet.
“The challenge is really tomorrow,” defenceman Alexandre Carrier said. “How we can turn the page tonight, focus on the first period, how we played, how we came out and go do that tomorrow night.”
(Top photo of Lane Hutson and Auston Matthews: Minas Panagiotakis / Getty Images)
