MONTREAL— Make no mistake about it; this was still a good day for the Montreal Canadiens, even if they spoiled their own party by dropping a stink bomb at the Bell Centre.
This beautiful hockey cathedral was begging to be turned into a madhouse on Sunday, but the Canadiens’ punchless performance against the New Jersey Devils turned it into a morgue for large portions of the game.
They were structured defensively, and not terribly leaky. But they were also uncharacteristically inept offensively, leading them to get shut out for just the third time this season and leaving Cole Caufield stuck on 49 goals.
His linemates and power-play cronies forced passes to him to get him to 50, and he flubbed his shots on the ones that made it through to him.
The rest of this game boiled down to this being Montreal’s sixth contest in nine nights, coming off a perfect five-game road trip that ended Saturday and extended their longest winning streak in 10 years to eight games.
The 4-3 shootout win over these same Devils in New Jersey a night prior didn’t clinch the 100-point Canadiens a playoff spot, but the Detroit Red Wings losing to the Minnesota Wild Sunday afternoon did.
“It was great,” said captain Nick Suzuki. “Everyone was coming to the rink in a pretty good mood. It’s been our goal ever since we started camp to get back in the playoffs.”
With it accomplished, a new one was set: to chase down the Atlantic Division-leading Tampa Bay Lightning.
The pursuit just got delayed by a night.
Still, you don’t get the sense the Canadiens will treat it as a one-off after they barely swerved to win their last two games before finally crashing in this 3-0 loss. They had what happened in proper perspective afterwards and they’re determined to make the appropriate adjustments upon their return from a well-earned day off.
This day ended on a sour note, but it was still a good day because the Canadiens had their playoff ticket punched.
And that had much more to do with them and everything they did in the lead-up to this day than it did a game between the Wild and Wings in Michigan.
The Canadiens raised their already-high standard to another level with this streak.
Now they intend to hold themselves to that.
“The challenge right now is can we keep finding consistency in that,” said coach Martin St. Louis. “To me, if you have consistency in that, I think our good is good enough to keep playing hockey in April or May.”
If that seems outlandish because Sunday’s game played out more like a game between the 2001 Canadiens and Devils than the current-day editions of both teams, keep in mind the Canadiens weren’t all bad.
Aside from the stray passes and misfired shots, the Canadiens defended well and hard. They also threw 27 hits — and some haymakers.
“I think everyone’s kind of taken that role and tried to do it,” said Kaiden Guhle, and he was right about that.
Josh Anderson, who defended his own massive, late-game hit on Jack Hughes by fighting Brenden Dillon, led that charge as he always does. Several others, like Zach Bolduc, Arber Xhekaj and Jayden Struble, were expectedly right there with him.
But so was Joe Veleno, who didn’t come to the Canadiens as a banger but had a game-high six hits to add to the 143 he’d thrown through his first 57 games (third-most on the team this season).
Defending hard in the neutral zone and defensive zone kept the Devils to just 20 shots Sunday, and also played a huge part in the Canadiens winning those eight games before this inevitable loss.
It would be reaching to suggest Sunday’s flat offensive performance was a sign they’re resting on their laurels.
“I like where our standards are right now and how we’ve improved in different departments of our game, and we’ve got to stay on top of it,” said St. Louis. “We can’t just be satisfied because that part of our game is good now. We’ve got to stay on top of it. I’ve said it before: whatever part of the game, it’s never going to stay the same. It’s going to get worse or better. You’ve got to talk about it, and that’s what we’re doing.”
The Canadiens will discuss just playing the game and allowing Caufield’s 50th goal to come to him like the other 49 have.
“The guys are searching for him a lot, and I think it affects the continuity of play,” said St. Louis. “I’m very confident he’s going to score 50. I’d have liked for it to have happened tonight for many reasons, so we could move on to other things, so we could’ve given that to the crowd. It would’ve been fun to get that. I’ve lived stuff like that, and it’s normal.”
Tuesday will be one of five more opportunities Caufield and the Canadiens will have to get back to what they’ve been doing so well all season.
They dropped beneath the Buffalo Sabres, but they can still finish ahead of them to earn home-ice advantage in a first-round series. They’ve still got a crack at finishing first in the division. The Carolina Hurricanes are only four points up in first place in the Eastern Conference.
All three teams own the tiebreaker (regulation wins), but that won’t stop the Canadiens from gunning for them.
Maybe they’ll fall short, but they’re unlikely to fall as flat as they did against the Devils Sunday.
“This is the best time of the year, whether you’re fighting to get in or you’re trying to get ready for the playoffs and just playing the right way,” said Anderson. “We’re still fighting for home ice, so obviously every game matters for us. Every night you’ve got to be on it.”
It still came on a good day, and hope is still high that better ones lie ahead.
