Canadiens complete perfect road trip without Suzuki

No Nick Suzuki, no Ivan Demidov, no Mike Matheson, no functional power play, no problem for the Montreal Canadiens.

They beat the Dallas Stars 5-2 Thursday to cap a perfect road trip against all odds, and did it exactly as suggested they’d have to in the absence of their captain — and other key players and components.

“Just fall back on the collective game,” said coach Martin St. Louis before the Canadiens left for Chicago sans Suzuki one week ago. “We’re just going to keep going. It’s a big piece, but we’ll be ready… And we’re always going to fall back on our collective game.”

Sure, it was nowhere to be found in St. Louis on Tuesday, when Jacob Fowler came up with a miraculous 46-save shutout to steal away two points from the Blues.

But the collective game was there throughout the rest of this 4-0-0 road trip, with several different players stepping up to fill the massive void left by Suzuki.

The Canadiens already had one big hole to patch, deprived of Demidov’s services since Game 3 of their season. But they at least got Matheson back for that first game against the Blackhawks after he missed four with a lower-body injury.

That one at United Center belonged to Jake Evans, who scored two goals in a 4-1 win that kicked this trip off in style.

Fowler was then excellent in Sunday’s Heritage Classic against the Winnipeg Jets, but he wasn’t alone. Defencemen Kaiden Guhle and Lane Hutson came up with the goals that gave the Canadiens a lead they’d never relinquish.

They blew two-goal leads in three of four games before hitting the road but notched them in each of these four games and held on to win all four in regulation, with this one in Dallas — sans Matheson — a sign of how far they’ve come to buck that trend.

“You’ve got to continue to play the right way, but also, you’ve got to continue to play, and I felt we did a good job of that tonight,” said Noah Dobson to reporters at American Airlines Center, and he was bang on.

Against a Stars team desperate to avoid losing a second consecutive game, the Canadiens played the right way and pressured all over the ice in the third period, clamping down at five-on-five, denying Dallas a chance to get to Jakub Dobes with more than two shots on net.

He stopped them easily and made an incredible penalty-kill save on Wyatt Johnston on a carbon-copy play that Johnston scored on during a first-period Stars power play. Dobes also made two other penalty-kill saves on Jason Robertson a period earlier.

But he wasn’t forced to make any tough ones at five-on-five, thanks to a mature and responsible performance from the entire group in front of him.

It was a confidence builder for the Canadiens. This whole trip was.

We suggested it would be determinant for their season, and we didn’t feel that to be hyperbolic considering the challenge of not only playing without their most complete player but also having to do so under the pressure of starting the season 4-3-2, in sixth place in the Atlantic Division and 20th place in the NHL.

“We came together a lot during this road trip to find results and protect leads and find ways to win,” said Alex Newhook, who had two goals against the Stars.

Cole Caufield also picked up two, and Phillip Danault’s empty-netter felt like a just reward for how incredibly he played in these four games without Suzuki.

Without Suzuki and Demidov, the power play was a dysfunctional mess, going 0-for-10 on this trip and plummeting to 30th in the league in the category.

But the penalty kill went 12-for-12 through games in Chicago, Winnipeg and St. Louis before losing Matheson — the player who averages the most time on ice on the penalty kill in the NHL — and allowing only one goal on four Stars opportunities. When Newhook says the Canadiens came together, the evidence was right there —also at five-on-five, and in how the team played to secure leads.

Now the Canadiens are coming home 8-3-2, with the second-best points percentage (.692) in the Atlantic and fourth-best one in the league.

They’ll be greeted by Suzuki, who’s skating hard and hoping to return from his hand injury as early as this time next week.

It could take him up to two more weeks before he actually gets back, though.

It won’t take Demidov as long. He should be trading in his walking boot for a skate any day now, as he nears the end of what was supposed to be a maximum of four weeks on the sidelines.

That should revive the power play, but at least nothing else needs a rescue breath for now.

Who’d have thought that’d be the case one week ago?

Apparently at least one person.

“I’d have said it was possible,” St. Louis explained. “I think everything is possible when you believe in yourself and what you do. I know we were missing big pieces, but our collective game carries us.”

So far, it’s done exactly that.