Canadiens can learn from suffocating style that turned Avalanche into champs

DENVER — It looked so different, and not just because the Montreal Canadiens managed to score a goal in the first period for the first time in seven games.

They were on top of the Colorado Avalanche through the opening 20 of Wednesday’s game, over which Anthony Richard scored his first in the NHL to give them a 1-0 lead.

The Canadiens clogged up the neutral zone when they needed to in order to make responsible line changes and force turnovers, they were active with a very aggressive forecheck when the opportunities presented themselves, they were playing nothing like they had through a recent three-game losing streak — and through the first 40 minutes of Monday’s fortunate win over the Arizona Coyotes — and playing very much the way Martin St. Louis wants them to.

“I talk a lot about playing defence as soon as you lose the puck,” the coach said hours before his team bent and then eventually broke in a 2-1 overtime loss at Ball Arena.

It is his greatest challenge to get the Canadiens to abide by that strategy more consistently, not only from game to game but from period to period, because if they’re going to eventually get to where the Avalanche have gone, it’s going to be with defence more suffocating than the altitude proved to be for them over the final 40 minutes and change of Wednesday’s game.

Not that the altitude wasn’t a factor.

“Everyone can see it as an excuse, but it’s a fact,” said St. Louis. “I experienced it as a player… there’s no air.”

But having time and space sucked away by the Avalanche, as the game rolled past first intermission, made it harder to deal with.

That style of play took years to build and, as coach Jared Bednar was saying earlier on Wednesday, it is at the foundation of Colorado’s most recent success.

He took over from Patrick Roy in 2016 and began laying the bricks over a season that saw the Avalanche finish in last place in the NHL.

Eventually, they were solidly in place, enabling the team to become a Stanley Cup contender, and then a champion in 2022.

To have Nathan MacKinnon, Gabriel Landeskog, Mikko Rantanen and Cale Makar — all of them superstars — at the heart of it was naturally essential.

But there’s something to be said of the Avalanche holding the Canadiens to just three shots on net over the final 32 minutes of regulation on Wednesday without the first two of those four playing, without budding star defenceman Bowen Byram available, and without defensive forwards Andrew Cogliano and Darren Helm in the lineup. It tells you how strong that foundation actually is.

For a team like the Canadiens, who are angling for sustainable success, the process starts in the same place it did for the Avalanche when Bednar took over.

The coach looked back on those early days of his tenure and said the most important thing to establish was “the commitment to check in all three zones.”

“And then being able to turn that into offence,” Bednar continued. “It kind of started for us where we built our checking game, it started to come, and then we became a really dangerous rush team and not so much in offensive-zone play. And then, eventually, we started to improve our offensive-zone play and our possession game and being dangerous with five guys in the offensive zone. So, we just kind of just kept building and building. But it started with our commitment to check and track and play the right way.”

Avalanche centre J.T. Compher was saying it took two years for the Avalanche to capitalize on the talent they felt they had to execute that type of game regularly. He was saying he understands the process the Canadiens are embarking on.

The young Canadiens are just beginning to understand it for themselves — the level of commitment required to excel in the defensive part of the game shift after shift.

They did it in the first period, but came undone over the last two before Rantanen ended the game in overtime with a shot through goaltender Jake Allen.

The Montreal goalie made 34 saves and was the biggest factor in his team not getting run out of the building.

“Did we steal a point? Probably,” said St. Louis. “It would’ve been robbery if we got two.”

The lesson they’ll take from reviewing how the Avalanche play will be more valuable in the end.

“You’ve got to take pieces from a lot of different teams, but they’re obviously one of the best,” said Allen. “They’re missing their top guns, too, so when they get those guys back, they’ll be even more of a force to reckon with.

“But yeah, you’ve gotta look at what we’re trying to build here and it’s a similar style — fast, up-tempo, with pace, a possession game that starts with them playing on top of you and not giving you any time and space, with their defence active in all of it. We’re trying to create a lot of what they have in their game.”

It'll take time, but at least that process is underway for the Canadiens. Eventually, it will lead to them looking as good as they did through the first period as the Avalanche did over the last two.