Canadiens' role players ensure Allen’s heroics aren’t wasted in win over Wings

This was a big night for the supporting cast, even if the main characters had a say in it being successful.

Yes, Cole Caufield and Nick Suzuki, who have carried the Montreal Canadiens to a surprising 6-6-1 record to start the season, came up with the only goals for their side in the shootout to help snap a three-game winless streak with a 3-2 win over the Detroit Red Wings on Tuesday.

And yes, starting goaltender Jake Allen made 15 saves in the first period (including on a Dylan Larkin breakaway and a Larkin penalty shot), made his best ones in the second and third and came up with three saves in overtime before stopping two of three in the shootout.

But on a night when Allen needed plenty of help from his defence, and on one when neither Caufield nor Suzuki hit the scoreboard in regulation or in OT after combining with linemate Kirby Dach for 22 points over their last four games, the Canadiens were still able to beat a Red Wings team that came in hot on a three-game winning streak.

They did it in part with secondary scoring Mike Hoffman provided and tremendous penalty-killing from their role players.

They also did it with Jake Evans winning 11 of 15 faceoffs and helping his line, with Joel Armia and Juraj Slafkovsky (for most of the night), control 60 per cent of the shot attempts at 5-on-5. And they did it with Johnathan Kovacevic coming off the sidelines as a healthy scratch, rebounding with a defence-leading four shots on net through nearly 21 minutes of mostly excellent hockey to mark perhaps his best game in a Canadiens uniform.

Brendan Gallagher had two assists and Christian Dvorak had one, with both skating on what was Montreal’s third-most-used line at 5-on-5, providing the key depth they’re expected to provide.

The Canadiens are going to need more from these types of players as this thing rolls along.

Samuel Montembeault, who will start for Montreal against the Vancouver Canucks at the Bell Centre Wednesday, has already done his backup job more than admirably behind Allen.

But the Canadiens need other players to step out of the shadows.

Two in particular – who have been scratched from multiple games this season but were spared the embarrassment of being waived on Monday to cut the roster down – played on a line together on Tuesday and struggled mightily.

That has to change.

The Canadiens need finish from Jonathan Drouin and Evgenii Dadonov, with the former missing on a shootout opportunity and the latter spending his only shift of 3-on-3 overtime chasing the puck around his own end.

They’re players on expiring contracts being given opportunities to increase their value, and they started the game like they finished it. On the opening shift, with Sean Monahan, Drouin and Dadonov got washed through the spin cycle by the Red Wings.

Canadiens coach Martin St. Louis said on both Monday and Tuesday that he wanted to see Dadonov’s tenacity and energy shine through.

That didn’t happen after Dadonov was scratched from a 7-4 win in St. Louis on Oct. 29 and placed on IR with a virus for a week. He was reinserted into this game – into the starting lineup, no less – and the 33-year-old was once again held scoreless for a ninth straight time. Dadonov, who had 20 goals and 23 assists last season, didn’t even register a shot attempt at Little Caesars Arena.

For Drouin, who through 10 games has just two assists and zero goals, a night without a shot attempt could’ve been offset had he finished off the beautiful move he made on Red Wings goaltender Ville Husso in the shootout.

It’s not as if he and Dadonov aren’t trying.

The Canadiens just have to hope they find their place in the internal competition, which was stoked by Hoffman, Gallagher and Dvorak in this game.

Their line had a 67 per cent share of the expected goals at 5-on-5. Hoffman came close to completing the hat trick on more than one occasion after scoring his two in the first period.

Evans and Armia were doing well with Slafkovsky before the six-foot-four rookie boarded Matt Luff and got ejected from the game with 5:32 remaining in the third period. Then Evans once again helped the Canadiens' penalty-kill stop the Red Wings for the sixth out of what would be seven times in the game.

Kovacevic blocked two shots while primary shot-blocker David Savard was serving a second-period penalty. And the rest of Montreal’s supporting cast came up huge while Savard served a 10-minute unsportsmanlike penalty to start the third.

Allen was deservedly the first star of the game. And Caufield and Suzuki executed in the skills competition.

But the Canadiens snapped their winless streak also relying on depth scoring and a gutsy team effort in Detroit, and that’s something they’ll need to replicate more often as the season wears on and style of the game tightens.