Canadiens earn much-needed win with desperate effort in San Jose
Tuesday’s win over the Sharks was anything but a Picasso from the Canadiens. But the Canadiens didn’t need to post art, they needed to post a win and find their footing in a playoff race that was speeding away from them.
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Samuel Montembeault slid across his crease, sprawled out on his belly, extended his leg and glove and not only saved consecutive shots from Macklin Celebrini but also saved his Montreal Canadiens from a sixth straight loss.
It was pure desperation, and there was nothing pretty about it, and it preceded the shorthanded break Jake Evans started and Joel Armia finished to put a bow on this ugly win.
Yeah, this was far from a Picasso from the Canadiens. It wasn’t even a piece of high-quality graffiti on the side of a rundown building.
But the Canadiens didn’t need to post art on this night, they needed to post a win and find their footing in an Eastern Conference playoff race that was speeding away from them.
It didn’t matter that it came against the 32nd-placed San Jose Sharks. No opponent would be a walkover for the Canadiens — with their confidence plundered by habitually finding ways to lose over the last two weeks — and the Sharks were anything but one at SAP Center.
“They didn’t make it easy on us,” Canadiens defenceman Lane Hutson told reporters in attendance. “They never gave up, they kept going, so it’s a good win for sure.”
You’d hope this 4-3 outcome, which saw the Canadiens score on the power play, on the penalty kill and at five-on-five, would inspire some confidence for a team clearly in such desperate need of some.
Had it been there throughout the first 55 minutes of play, Montembeault’s stops on Celebrini would’ve merely been highlights rather than game-savers.
Through the first two periods, the Canadiens couldn’t hit a barn — never mind the inside of a hockey net — with the majority of their shots, as evidenced by them finishing with as many off net (20) as on net. They struck iron four times and put a lot of their 23 other attempts into shinpads in front of them.
Still, after Brendan Gallagher put them up 3-2 on the power play 2:40 into the third period, the Canadiens didn’t allow a shot to get to Montembeault for over five minutes and appeared determined to lock this down in a way they weren’t able to in a loss to the Anaheim Ducks two days ago.
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But then, boom, Arber Xhekaj got beat along the wall and took a penalty, and former Canadien Tyler Toffoli made him pay for it with 9:33 remaining in the third period.
With the score 3-3 and 6:41 to play in the frame, Jayden Struble dumped a puck over the glass to put the Canadiens in position to lose.
Montembeault refused to let it happen, though, stopping the first-overall pick in 2024 from collecting his second goal and third point of the night.
What a relief.
“We knew we needed a big win no matter how it came,” said Christian Dvorak,
“and we got exactly that.”
The Canadiens might have secured it at least a minute sooner had any one of Gallagher, Evans or Nick Suzuki been able to hit the empty net with Sharks goaltender Alexandar Georgiev on the bench in favour of an extra attacker, but they still got it in the end.
“That’s exactly what we needed,” said head coach Martin St. Louis, who added that he emphasized to the Canadiens they needed to get more aggressive and accept the risk that comes with that after some passive performances.
He got aggressive, too, putting Josh Anderson with Kirby Dach and Alex Newhook, moving Patrik Laine over to a line with Evans and Armia, and inserting Owen Beck to play with Dvorak and Gallagher.
All those moves gave the Canadiens better momentum from shift to shift and more energy to complete the game.
“It wasn’t perfect,” said St. Louis.
He’d agree it wasn’t pretty, either.
But the coach also noted the effort was there, and we think he’d also agree Montembeault’s desperate saves at the end epitomized that effort.
The Canadiens will need to couple that same level of effort with better execution against the Kings in Los Angeles Wednesday to come out with a win and return to Montreal closer to the mix they tumbled out of with this recent skid.
