Canadiens can't get too high after mistake-riddled win over Predators

MONTREAL — A 3-0 win was sealed on great goaltending and brilliant special teams.

The Montreal Canadiens shouldn’t have needed to rely on that with the way they played the first half of the game at five-on-five against the Nashville Predators Thursday, but they’ll take wins however they come.

This was their 10^th of the season. It was registered in their 26^th game. So, they can’t afford to be picky.

But the Canadiens can’t lie to themselves about how it was achieved if they’re to carry some momentum into Saturday and earn their first three-game winning streak. They’ve gotten too high after some wins this season, ignoring their own pitfalls in those games and following them up with losses, and that’s a pattern they need to break between this moment and the one that will see them take to the ice to face the Metropolitan Division-leading Washington Capitals this weekend. 

Jake Evans knows. 

He had a big smile on his face discussing his role in Thursday’s game. He laughed about the shorthanded rush he scored on before talking about panicking on a shorthanded breakaway that he punted off Justus Annunen’s glove. And he was ebullient about the team’s effort on the penalty kill, lauding Canadiens goaltender Samuel Montembeault for coming up with his best stuff when it bent in front of him for two straight minutes in the second period.

Evans was less pleased what happened directly after that — through the second half of the second period all the way through the first 10 minutes of the third — and you’d hope all the Canadiens felt the same.

“We made softer plays that didn’t need to happen,” he said.

They could’ve led the Canadiens to their 17^th loss of the season, but Patrik Laine scored the team’s first five-on-three goal in two years and two days to put them up 2-0 in the second minute of the third and Joel Armia made it 3-0 with an empty-net goal in the final minute.

Coach Martin St. Louis was happy with the win, but he wasn’t at all happy with the sharp turn the team took after dominating the first 30 minutes at five-on-five.

The Canadiens came out managing the puck efficiently, putting it behind the Predators’ defencemen religiously and suffocating them on the forecheck. It led to them out-shooting and out-chancing Nashville by double.

Then the Canadiens did the opposite of that, despite only being up 1-0, and it infuriated St. Louis, who was caught on camera lacing into them on the bench 6:30 into the third period.

“You would think that you would separate yourself more in the first half,” he said after the game, “but now they hang around and you start shooting yourself in the foot. And that’s why it’s a fine line between winning and losing. We played with fire a little bit tonight, in my mind, especially when you don’t separate.”

The coach didn’t like Kirby Dach’s slashing penalty in the seventh minute of the third, but he really detested the sloppy plays that led to the Canadiens getting hemmed into their zone before Dach took it.  

Jayden Struble took a holding penalty 84 seconds later to give the Predators a five-on-three advantage, and Arber Xhekaj was given one for interference a little less than three minutes after the Canadiens killed off that five-on-three.

That part of the game has been a strength of theirs since the season began, with Thursday’s performance vaulting them into fourth place in the league on the penalty kill. 

The power play came through for a second-straight game and has also been strong since early October. It currently ranks 14^th in the NHL (at 22 per cent), but it’s been in the top 10 for most of the season and Laine’s inclusion, along with Lane Hutson’s promotion to the top unit, is likely to spike it back up in no time.

But the weaknesses that have plagued the Canadiens so far can’t persist if they’re to climb out of 30^th place in the standings and put themselves back into position they expected to be in before it all started. 

Following up excellent puck management with terrible puck management within the same game is typically a recipe for failure. Especially when you’re not capitalizing on your best scoring chances.

Evans was laughing about missing on his breakaway — as Roman Josi chased him down the ice and tried to hurry his decision — but he wasn’t happy about it. 

Christian Dvorak had one and got stopped. David Savard had one and missed the net.

When that happens as often as it has, it makes winning so much harder.

“I don’t know how many breakaways we got tonight,” said St. Louis. “We look at the data, too, sometimes and we feel like we should have more based on what we’re able to manufacture. The data’s not the whole story, it’s part of it. I feel we just lack a little bit of execution the closer we get to it, whether it’s just the pass or the actual finishing touch.”

At least the penalty kill stopped all five Predators power plays.

At least Montembeault made 29 of 29 saves for his third shutout of the season.

At least Laine made the surest play on a five-on-three we’ve seen any Canadien make since the day Kanye West was banned from Twitter, back when it was still called Twitter.

The Canadiens should be thankful for all of that, and thankful that they got a win without Kaiden Guhle, who was a last-minute scratch due to illness.

But they can’t let all that blur reality, or their focus right now. 

They’re staring at their best opportunity to go on a run and put themselves back into relevance. Even if they’ve played two more games than the New York Rangers (who are in the second wild-card position in the Eastern Conference), they’re only four points back, with five of their next eight games to be played at the Bell Centre and six of them to be played against teams currently outside of playoff positions.

If the Canadiens don’t correct what they did wrong against Nashville in a hurry, relevance will be a distant thought, and St. Louis knows it. 

Hence his tone after the game. 

Evans knows, too, and so does Savard, who also said the Canadiens “played with fire” on Thursday.

They avoided burning themselves on this night, but all of them should know by now that the way they played the second half of the game will get them fried more often than not.

It should be front of mind, even after a much-needed win.