Canadiens Notebook: Caufield, Suzuki face pressure to lead offence

BROSSARD, Que. — Martin St. Louis certainly knows what it’s like to be expected to carry a team every night, to put it on his shoulders and produce every game. He’s a two-time Art Ross Trophy winner as the NHL’s top scorer, and he didn’t achieve that without putting himself under pressure to make the difference on a game-by-game basis.

But St. Louis lived very different circumstances in his prime with the Tampa Bay Lightning than the ones Cole Caufield and Nick Suzuki face every day with the Montreal Canadiens. He was 27 years old when he first took on a primary role, but they are just 22 and 24, respectively, and they’ve already been counted on to lead the team for over a year. And, as St. Louis acknowledged after his press conference Wednesday, the current Canadiens coach had superstars like Vincent Lecavalier and Brad Richards with him, and a perennial 30-goal scorer in Frederik Modin alongside him, to ease some of the burden, whereas Caufield and Suzuki don’t have anything resembling any of that around them.

They have each other, but they’ve only been paired with unproven players Rafael Harvey-Pinard and Juraj Slafkovsky this season and have spent the rest of their games next to Josh Anderson, who’s struggled with his confidence and is still searching for his first goal. And outside of Sean Monahan and Brendan Gallagher, who have been productive, they haven’t really had anyone else to lean on to ease the burden of leading the Canadiens every night they step on the ice.

Kirby Dach going down with a season-ending knee injury in just the second game has also forced both Caufield and Suzuki to take on the hardest matchups night in, night out, and it’s only increased the pressure they’re under to produce.

They put a ton of it on themselves already, and they’ve lived up to that well so far. In 12 games, Caufield has four goals and eight assists while Suzuki has four goals and six assists, and that’s more than decent production under the circumstances.

But, in speaking with both of them this week, they made it clear they're not satisfied.

“I wouldn’t say I’m pleased with everything,” Caufield said after Monday’s practice. “I think points are one thing, and having some obviously feels good, but I think, as a team, I want to be able to win more games for us in regulation and at five-on-five. I think we’re creating chances and stuff, but I think we have to be more consistent with it. That’s something that will come throughout the year. We’re learning every day, but I want to be more consistent and create more five-on-five opportunities.”

Suzuki wasn’t enamored with the start that saw him produce just three points through the first six games.

And he said on Wednesday that he still has stuff to work on despite correcting course.

“I think over the last few games I felt better,” Suzuki started. “Had a slower start, but I think my game is in a pretty good spot defensively and offensively. I just want to keep helping and getting better.”

St. Louis has emphasized with both Caufield and Suzuki that they need to be more focused on their details and on doing all the little things that enable their offensive games to shine through. And even if he had a different experience in being counted on to carry a team, he was still able to draw on his own experience to outline the mentality both players should have in handling the pressure they’re under.

“For me, honestly, of course I loved scoring goals, loved making plays, getting assists and all that stuff, but whether I scored two or didn’t score any ... I always watched my game without being result-driven,” he said. “I was watching where I went on the ice, watching my teammates, my linemates — where they went on the ice. I was watching it just with truth, whether I had produced or not, and it kept me sane because there’s games that you don’t produce and you played great and there’s games when you scored two and you played terrible.

“So, in terms of the pressure of scoring, just watch the games and have some truth in how to assess your game. I think if you do that, you don’t go into too many slumps.”

Experience helps, too.

It may be the NHL, but as Suzuki pointed out, being in this role isn’t foreign to him or Caufield.

“I feel like we’ve always done that,” he said. “I know Cole’s probably been the best player on his team for a long time. Maybe the (United States National Development Team) Program had some good players, but he’s always done it. And I feel like I’ve always done it, too — been one of the better players and produced. So, I think we want to be in those positions, we want to be the guys who get it done.”

Caufield certainly approaches it that way and enjoys that his teammates look to him and Suzuki to rise to every occasion.

“I think that’s what we want, I think that’s what the guys count on us to do, and I think it’s a good thing,” he said. “We’re not doing it alone, it’s not just one guy. It’s a couple of us. Whether he gets us on the board, or it’s me, or it’s somebody else, we’re all happy for that guy, but we’re trying to drive everybody to be better. We have to do a better job of having a group of guys bring it every night and leading the way, but it’s all about driving the team and getting us on the board so everyone else will follow.”

Returning from long-term injury “harder than people think.”

We shouldn’t forget that as Caufield navigates the challenge of helping Suzuki carry the Canadiens offensively, he’s doing so after suffering his first major injury — a shoulder dislocation that limited him to just 46 games last season and forced him under the knife for a complex procedure for the first time in his career.

Speaking with the Wisconsin native, he admitted there were mental and physical challenges to overcoming that adversity.

“It was new to me,” Caufield said. “I didn’t really know how to handle it. I think, for me, it was easy in a way that we had so many guys out at the time and had a team back home, but it was for sure tough not being on the road. Not playing games is one thing, but travel and practice and all those things that make you feel a part of the team — you miss it. It hurts a lot to miss, and you don’t feel a part of things when you’re staying at home, going to rehab and not doing much. That was tough.”

He was told by doctors he’d make a full recovery, that his shoulder would rebound stronger than ever.

But that’s a hard thing to believe in until you experience it for yourself.

“I think it’s good to hear at the time when they say that, but, at the end of the day, it’s your body and it’s about how you feel,” Caufield said. “At the start, you’re thinking, ‘How am I going to get back at 100 per cent? I can’t move it.’ It feels really slow until you hit two, three months and it’s better. It felt like it was ready to go after two, three months, but just the timing of how long you have to take it seriously that it needs to heal fully for it to come back stronger is tough. Honestly, after two months was probably the worst part because I felt like I could get back into it, but I couldn’t skate every day and do everything I wanted to do. And that’s OK, the doctors know what’s best for you.

“But it was only once I started to do upper-body work in the summer that I knew I was going to be good.”

From there, confidence starts to build.

“Just trusting it again wasn’t an issue, but just the strength part is the key,” Caufield said. “When it kind of feels stronger than the other one, you feel comfortable. Had to build it up, but once I got the strength back, it felt more in place and more comfortable. I was able to have full summer, which was huge for me, but it was tough not knowing when that time to return was going to come. I didn’t have an idea of when I’d be back and feeling 100 per cent and, when I did feel good, it was still a little weaker. So, it was all timing, and it was honestly confusing as to when I could do stuff. But the doctor was really helpful with it. We had a plan from Day 1 that was roughly followed, so that made everything easier.”

He said gaining his timing back at Canadiens training camp wasn’t much of an issue but regaining his conditioning — after missing so much game action — was a process that bled into the regular season.

“I got it back, fortunately,” said Caufield, “but missing time makes it hard to come back. I think it’s harder than people think.”

Still, the results speak for themselves.

The process appears healthy, too, with Caufield ranking ninth in the NHL in shots on net (49).

But he feels there are other key indicators of when he’s on top of his game, and he wants those to shine through more often.

“I feel like probably getting pucks back is one,” Caufield said. “Obviously, it’s easier when you start with the puck on the faceoff. But for me, transitioning and stealing the puck or feeding off turnovers is key. Getting touches is just key, too, and finding ways to create.

“Shot attempts is one thing, and I’m probably feeling good if I have some, but just getting sustained pressure is a big part of it. If you shoot, get it back and be in the o-zone for 20, 30 seconds.”

St. Louis said earlier in the week that he’s working on keeping Caufield more engaged in physical battles and likes the “jump” he has coming out of them.

And Suzuki said on Wednesday that the coach has emphasized to both him and Caufield to do the little things that will lead to big things.

“Having a good stick, disrupting plays, takeaways, blocking shots, doing things well defensively,” are the keys, according to the London, Ont., native. “When you’re not creating, you have to do other things to help the team. When you are, you’ve got to execute and put in the back of the net.

“I think we’ve done a decent job, but we can definitely be better.”

Mike Matheson knows he can be better...

And the No. 1 defenceman for the Canadiens has to be if they’re to dig their way out of the four-game winless streak they’re currently entrenched in.

Matheson wasn’t hiding from it on Wednesday.

“It’s tough right now, but talking about it doesn’t do anything,” he said. “My only answer is to work harder and do the most I can to be there each game.”

The thing is this isn’t about effort.

It’s not as if Matheson was on the ice for eight goals against over the last two games because he wasn’t applying himself.

If anything, it’s the opposite — Matheson was trying to do too much to make a difference and ended up making a difference in a negative way.

Now, the 29-year-old’s experience will have to guide him in balancing out his deep desire to make an impact with a need to simplify his game.

And it’s not going to be easy for Matheson to do, so long as his confidence is shaken.

“I think that’s one of the toughest things sometimes,” he said. “You feel like forcing it isn’t working, playing simple isn’t working, and that’s when it can get frustrating. But I think that we’re talking about confidence. It’s so easy to have confidence when things are going well. And so, when they aren’t, you have to remind yourself of what kind of player you are and know that, when things aren’t going well, that’s not you. And I think that that helps when you put it in perspective and just are able to say that’s not me and move on.”

Matheson is going to try to do that shift by shift, and he feels he’s already in that process after following up a rough first period against the Lightning on Tuesday with a solid second and third.

He hasn’t lost faith in who he is as a player, either.

“I think drawing on your experience is very important, knowing that I’ve been through a lot worse and come out the other side of it,” Matheson said. “My confidence is still there, it’s just about building back up shift by shift, and then you start feeling better and seeing successful play after successful play and things start turning the corner.”