Convincing loss to Blues serves as wake-up call for Canadiens

The shots were 11-3 for the St. Louis Blues when Jordan Kyrou put them up 1-0 in the 18^th minute of the first period, and if you were thinking the Montreal Canadiens had finally woken up when Nick Suzuki scored a goal 47 seconds later, you were mistaken. 

By the time the first period was through, they were down 2-1, on their way to falling to 4-1 before 30 minutes had expired, and the Canadiens didn’t summon the energy or focus they had been lacking until the game was essentially out of reach.

This was the fourth straight game they were chasing, but it was the first one that cost them both points in the standings. If you’re a Canadiens fan, you’ll have to hope they’ll treat it as an alarm bell because this isn’t a pattern you’d want this team to extend coming into the final turn of this long, winding regular-season road. 

It’s a tough one to break.

You think about the energy expended late in the comeback win the Canadiens had over the Ottawa Senators last week and draw a direct line to their slow start against the New York Islanders last Thursday. They fought hard and clawed back two goals late in that one just to eke out a point in an overtime loss, but it left them depleted to start the next game against the Colorado Avalanche.

Still, the Canadiens erased a 4-1 lead the Avalanche built up Saturday and earned a point in a shootout loss.

But it wasn’t surprising to see 4-1 turn into 6-1 against the Blues, who came into Tuesday’s game as the NHL’s hottest team and came out of it with a seventh consecutive win.

How the Canadiens come out of it will help determine their fate in the Eastern Conference wild-card race, and they must face that reality head-on.

Losing as badly as they did should keep them from turning away from it.

“I feel like I heard this saying the other day: It’s not failure tonight… it’s fertilizer,” said Canadiens coach Martin St. Louis to reporters at Enterprise Center. 

“That’s what it needs to be,” St. Louis added.

He’s right. This is a growth opportunity — like many the Canadiens have been presented with so far this season — and it needs to be one they pounce on quicker than the ones that have come before it.

Maybe it helps that there’s actual urgency to the matter versus the urgency they tried but failed to manufacture heading into the break for the 4 Nations Face-Off.

Back then, the Canadiens’ tough schedule depleted their energy and forced them to rely on their B-game, and the deficiencies in their B-game turned what was supposed to be a chase to the break into a tumble down the standings with eight losses in nine games. They entered that stretch with 35 games to go, with the goal ultimately too far out of reach for them to summon the appropriate urgency to stop the bleeding.

But now, with 12 games remaining? That goal the Canadiens have been chasing all season is at least within view, and it should provide the energy and focus that would otherwise be compromised by the physical and mental tax paid to climb back into the race over these past few weeks.

“I think it’s just a different situation in that sense, naturally, to know that we are fighting for a spot and it’s right there helps,” said Mike Matheson before the Canadiens left for St. Louis. “That’s very exciting and motivating.”

Seeing their hold on that spot becomes more tenuous after losses to the Avalanche and Blues should urgently force the Canadiens into solutions mode ahead of games in Philadelphia, Carolina and Florida between now and Sunday.

They know.

“This time of year, it’s going to get harder and harder to win and, physically, you have to be engaged,” said Brendan Gallagher after Tuesday’s loss. “It’s not that this group doesn’t want it. It’s just a night where I think they beat us in stuff we talked about doing. When we’ve won, it’s stuff we’ve done well, and they definitely executed it better than we did tonight.”

The Avalanche did that, too, for most of Saturday’s game.

The Canadiens lacked focus and execution to start that one but found it late.

In this one against the Blues, they came out sleepy, complicated the game for themselves, and never really woke up and simplified it.

“We had a lot of turnovers that gave them momentum,” said David Savard, “and they kept it all the way through the game.”

Now, the Canadiens must respond right away because the situation demands it.

“I feel the clock is ticking faster right now,” St. Louis said before the Avalanche game. “We’re chasing a goal, like many other teams, and the games are coming fast. Because the finish line is a lot closer, you’ve got to stay sharper. You can’t have letdowns, and I would say that in February, January, you have a bad game, you feel you have time to correct yourself.”

Now, in late-March, time is fleeting.

As St. Louis said, corrections must come within games, and the Canadiens have done a much better job of late. 

They weren’t able to do it against the Blues, though, so you’d expect them to have a constructive talk, walk through a pointed video session, and make good use of practice time in St. Louis on Wednesday so that they don’t force themselves to correct themselves in-game against the Flyers on Thursday.

“Down the stretch, we’ve had a lot of great starts,” said Nick Suzuki. “Now we keep getting behind, and we’re not going to come back in every single game, so we’ve got to do a much better job of getting a lead and not being down two or three goals.”

That’s Step 1.

The alarm bell should be going off now, and not 18 minutes into the next game.

More from Sportsnet

Montembeault pulled in Canadiens’ loss to Blues

Canadiens’ Guhle progressing, but won’t be rushed back to game action