Canadiens' lack of discipline inexcusable in loss to Senators

Let’s leave the cause behind for a second, because it’s not necessary for every game to offer some sort of profound lesson to this young Canadiens team in development. 

We know, we know: The results are secondary this year, the growth of the kids primary, and every experience on the ice can—and should—provide lasting value if objectives are going to be met down the road. That the Canadiens have already learned and grown as much as they have this season puts them miles ahead of where they were likely to be at this stage.

But let’s not pretend there’s great value in a completely self-defeating loss like the one the Canadiens had in Ottawa on Wednesday. The players may be inexperienced at this level, but they’ve all played the game long enough to know that they can’t do the things they did against the Senators and expect to win.

If the Canadiens are going to take anything from this game, it’s fuel from the sheer disappointment of it. 

They had five Grade-A scoring chances in a lopsided first period and didn’t capitalize on any of them. They had to know that was likely to burn them—perhaps as early as the beginning of the second—and they still came out completely unprepared for the push back that was unquestionably coming from the Senators after 20 minutes.

The Canadiens should be angry with the way they lost this one before 40 minutes were even complete; with the way they gave a team operating at close to 30 per cent on the power play since the beginning of November five opportunities to bury them in the second period alone—and with (mostly) totally needless penalties. They should be burning about being outscored 3-0 and out-shot 16-3 in that middle frame.

We suspect they were over what turned out to be a productive third period, over which they were forced to play with reckless abandon to have any chance of salvaging some kind of positive result. 

That the Canadiens were a Josh Anderson shot from the goalmouth from tying the game, after Christian Dvorak scored a clutch goal to follow Kirby Dach busting a 14-game drought to notch his fifth goal of the season and his 20^th point in just his 29^th game as a member of the team, confirms it.

But Dach taking an abuse-of-officials penalty at the end of the second because he disagreed with being called for interference on Brady Tkachuk, after he had taken one of the four consecutive bad penalties the Canadiens were called for between the last six minutes of the first and the first seven minutes of the second, was inexcusable.

“He can’t do that,” said Canadiens coach Martin St. Louis to reporters at Canadian Tire Centre after the game before insinuating the two calls made against Dach were questionable. 

He was visibly perturbed by the officiating in this game, deflecting questions about it by asking reporters if they watched the same spectacle he did. It was as angry as he’s appeared at any point since being appointed to the bench last season. 

We figure the call on Jordan Harris—a clear stick lift that was considered a hook with just over three minutes remaining—while the Canadiens were mounting a comeback was the one that really stuck with St. Louis as the reporters and cameras ended up in front of him. 

But at least he acknowledged that his team was most responsible for the outcome.

“It’s frustrating the result tonight,” he said. “Five-on-five, I loved our game. The penalties cost us.”

St. Louis admitted the one on Arber Xhekaj, for roughing Mark Kastlelic, surrendered much of the momentum the Canadiens had gained through the first 14 minutes of the game. He didn’t have to say Chris Wideman’s trip on Drake Batherson was totally unnecessary, especially since it came seconds after Shane Pinto took advantage of the Canadiens’ sleepiness to start the second period.

It was fairly evident.

Three minutes later, Dach took two chops at Thomas Chabot’s stick and got called for one of them, and he was barking at the officials all the way to the box. 

Dach got away with that, but not the penalty—with Drake Batherson making it 2-0 Senators 10 seconds into the winger’s minor.

Less than a minute-and-a-half later Juraj Slafkovsky closed his hand on the puck 200 feet from his own net and sent the Senators back to the power play. 

Tkachuk scored.

He was probably laughing when Dach lost his composure with just over three minutes remaining in the second, knowing the Canadiens would be left with just under 20 minutes (not really enough time) to make a game of it.

“You’ve got to control your emotions in those moments,” said St. Louis. 

He controlled his emotions as best he could after the game.

But the coach was frustrated, and it’s hard to believe it was just because of the officiating. 

The Canadiens came into this contest averaging the eighth-most penalties per game in the NHL and came out of it having moved into seventh on the list. Their lack of discipline has almost certainly been a focal point of internal discussions going into games and had to have been one before this game.

But the result was putting one of the NHL’s hottest power plays to work seven times.

So no, there isn’t some big lesson to take out of this specific game that carries the Canadiens forward in their development. There’s just some anger that couldn’t have fully dissipated after a strong third period, which they’ll have to hope carries over and is properly channeled against the Anaheim Ducks at the Bell Centre on Thursday.