Canadiens' power play finally fearsome, at heart of shutout over Ducks

MONTREAL — They were two minutes that set the tone for this game but also illuminated just how much one aspect of play has developed over this critical transition year for the Montreal Canadiens.

To see Nick Suzuki, Cole Caufield, Juraj Slafkovsky, Mike Matheson and Alex Newhook go so confidently to work on the power play 18 seconds in, after Anaheim Ducks forward Mason McTavish was placed in the penalty box for holding, was really something. They created dangerous look after dangerous look, working the puck around like they were playing a game of hot potato and moving so efficiently, fluidly and harmoniously that they had the Ducks drowning.

They had five shots on net during that sequence.

No goals, but no big deal.

Over the next five power plays, this unit combined for eight shots and two goals and extended a run that’s seen them produce at a higher level than all but seven other ones in the 32-team NHL over the last two months, leaving us with one firm conclusion we won’t back down from: The Canadiens finally have a power-play unit to fear.

It’s been years since we could say that, but the sample size is now big enough to state that definitively. And there’s no downplaying what that means.

“It’s a big part of the game,” said Canadiens coach Martin St. Louis. “When we’re ready to turn the corner and be a consistent team that’s winning, it’s going to be a big part of that.”

It’s an element of play that can bail you out of a bad game or make the difference in a good one, and finally having it is essential.

Not that any aspect of the Canadiens’ play during Tuesday’s 5-0 drubbing of the Ducks should be overblown.

The Ducks were pitiful. They were outplayed in every facet of the game, and they were figuratively — and quite literally — beat to a pulp by the Canadiens, with Suzuki, Caufield and Slafkovsky twisting them into a knot in their own zone and Arber Xhekaj, Johnathan Kovacevic, Kaiden Guhle and Jayden Struble punching them up and leaving them bloodied all over the rest of the ice.

It could be argued they offered the worst performance of a team visiting the Bell Centre since the building opened in 1996.

Oh, some other teams have had some real stinkers here. The Detroit Red Wings and Colorado Avalanche both lost games in this building by more than a touchdown, uncharacteristically embarrassing themselves in the process.

But the Ducks could’ve lost by two touchdowns Tuesday had Lukas Dostal not stood on his head and made 33 saves.

By the end of it, they notched just 13 shots on net. They failed to beat Cayden Primeau with any of them, making this the first shutout of his NHL career. And they limped off the ice, after surrendering Brandon Gignac’s first NHL goal, having lost nearly every battle and every fight.

In a word, according to one reporter who ventured over to Anaheim’s locker room after the game, Cam Fowler said his team was “terrible.”

The Ducks haven’t been much better than that since the start of the season.

Only one team has lost more in regulation than they have and, if they play more games like this one, there may not be any ahead of them in that category by the end of the season.

So yeah, keep all of that in perspective in evaluating what the Canadiens did.

But what we saw from their top power-play unit was merely a continuance of dominance, capping a run that’s had them produce at a 24.3-per-cent clip in 25 games since Dec. 13.

Slafkovsky's emergence — not only as a shooting threat — has changed the dynamic as much as anything. He’s varied the attack and rendered it that much more versatile with his shot, his reach, his range, his puck pursuit and his poise.

The familiarity between him and everyone else on the unit, even with Alex Newhook swapping in for recently traded centre Sean Monahan, has reached a whole new level.

You consistently see it on the entry, where Suzuki carries and dishes to Caufield over the line while Matheson gets into the only position he can be in to give Caufield his best drop-pass option. And you see it just the same in the way players cover the boards to intercept missed shots so they can extend the time on attack.

“It’s starting to feel automatic,” said Slafkovsky. “We know where we are and where we’re going to be. We can think ahead and put pucks into places where we know someone’s going to be and it allows us to play faster and make the other team have to react.”

St. Louis compared it earlier in the day to making music, with all five players coming in on the same beat.

He and his assistants are knocking the opposition out of rhythm, slotting Suzuki as a rover, using Slafkovsky on the halfwall at times and in front of the net at other times, and pushing Caufield to the goal line when he’s not in the one-time position on the left. Depending on what penalty-killing structure the Canadiens are facing, their coaches are helping them find different ways to pierce through.

“We’re working on it,” said St. Louis. “It’s an every-day thing, it’s game to game, and we’re learning how to beat different defensive schemes — the rules, so to speak, of what goes well of whatever they bring — and they clearly understand the concepts that we’re talking about, and then they just make reads off that.”

You could see just how much it’s evolved right at the start of this game, and the unit’s performance only reinforced to what end the Canadiens have something to rely on moving forward.

They don’t have a second unit yet.

But just think about the one they’ll have not too far down the line, with a healthy Kirby Dach, and with Joshua Roy, Lane Hutson and Logan Mailloux emerging.

“It’s something to really be encouraged about,” said Caufield.

His line with Suzuki and Slafkovsky is another, with the three of them becoming a force to be reckoned with at five-on-five as well.

The rest is a work in progress, which is what you expect from a team in transition.