TORONTO — It was the dominant topic of conversation about these Montreal Canadiens over the last three-and-a-half weeks of training camp — a constant murmur about how the team had gained a year of precious and valuable experience, of how it survived the trials and tribulations of being the NHL’s most injury-plagued team from September of 2022 through March of 2023 and emerged hardened, wiser and healthier—and it was once again broached with coach Martin St. Louis just two hours before this season got underway here on Wednesday.
“Yes, we’re older,” he acknowledged in his pregame scrum. “But we’re still young.”
Boy, his words sure became more and more relevant as the night wore on and the Canadiens squandered 2-0 and 5-3 leads and eventually lost 6-5 in a shootout against the Toronto Maple Leafs. They held this one in their hands thrice and let it slip away each time, conceding a hat trick to Auston Matthews and far too many quality chances to the rest of the more experienced, and more talented, Maple Leafs along the way. Stuff like that can happen to any team but definitely happens to young teams.
The Canadiens may not have any rookies, but they still have seven sophomores at the heart of their lineup and several young players at the top of it, and they’re still going to experience growing pains as a group this season.
Some came on right away, after the Canadiens thought they had opened a 3-0 lead with a power-play goal that got rescinded on a successful coach’s challenge for offside by Toronto’s Sheldon Keefe. It was 5:50 into the second period and they were easily knocked out of the driver’s seat by the first bump in the road.
The frame ended with the Canadiens down 3-2.
They had a rocky start to the third period, survived it, scored two goals in a span of 1:22 and added one more with 8:05 to go.
Keefe pulled goaltender Ilya Samsonov for an extra attacker with 4:45 remaining in the third, Matthews scored his second of the game 13 seconds later, and the Canadiens couldn’t stop him from scoring No. 303 of his career with 1:07 remaining.
They had three chances to clear the puck and failed.
And then in overtime, the Canadiens had a 4-on-3 advantage for the last 1:47 of play — a glorious chance to bury this one once and for all — and whiffed on it completely.
Captain Nick Suzuki, who scored on five of seven attempts last season, didn’t even get a shot away in the shootout. Cole Caufield grazed the post with his and Kirby Dach was stopped by Samsonov after Mitch Marner scored for the Leafs, and the Canadiens retreated to their room to digest it all.
“That’s not easy to be up 3-0 and then next thing you know, you’re down 3-2 all in one period,” said veteran defenceman Mike Matheson. “That’s kinda what we talked about in the second period — this is a test, and how are we going to respond? And I thought we responded great. We had a two-goal lead with six, seven minutes left, whatever it was, and that’s a big learning experience. It’s not an easy pill to swallow, but definitely one that we have to take.”
What’s the lesson?
“Just to close out a game,” Matheson continued. “Throughout the whole game, we gave them opportunities to put their best players in situations to make a difference in the game — whether it was penalties or whatever the case may be. Just little things in a game that, against a team like that, it’s hard to win if you’re doing that. So, things to learn.”
The Canadiens will have to figure out how to take a psychological edge from seeing the puck enter the net on a beautiful play on the power play, even if the goal gets called back and they lose the edge of demoralizing their opponents with it. They can still learn how to capture momentum off that perfectly executed play instead of falling flat for the remainder of that power play and then allowing a goal right afterwards.
They’ll learn to not get overly excited about a late two-goal lead and learn to take care of the little details to prevent squandering it.
The Canadiens learned a lot over the last year to put themselves in the premium positions they found themselves in to win this game, but there were reminders — both before and during play — that there are still many lessons for them to absorb this season.
“It doesn’t happen overnight,” said the 29-year-old Matheson. “I think you talk about the second year and what’s difficult about the second year, especially after a year where so many of the young guys had great first years and, all of a sudden, in your mind, it’s like, ‘Oh, OK, second year should be easier.’ No, it’s still the NHL and it’s still a really hard league. So, whether it’s your first year, second year, eighth year, there’s always things to learn and I think our goal shouldn’t be — whether it’s a guy like (a young player) or a guy like me (a veteran) — it shouldn’t be to be 50 per cent better in Game 1; it’s gotta be three per cent, four per cent better, and incrementally keep building off where we were last year.”
The process continues in Montreal Saturday, with Connor Bedard and the Chicago Blackhawks visiting the Bell Centre for Game 2.
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