BOSTON — A win is a win, and the Montreal Canadiens aren’t throwing this one away.
Not at TD Garden. Not against these Boston Bruins, who came into the night on a four-game heater and in first place in the Atlantic Division.
You must do several things right to open up a 5-0 lead in this building, against this team, at this point, and that’s exactly what the Canadiens did to earn this 5-2 win.
But the most important things they should take from it—aside from the two points that put them one ahead of the Bruins and tied with the Tampa Bay Lightning atop the division—are more lessons on how to manage big leads. Because if not for Jacob Fowler, who made 16 of his 30 saves after the Canadiens went up 5-0, they’d have blown a game like this for a third time this season.
“It wasn’t our best game tonight,” said Martin St. Louis, who was happy about not having to refer to it as one of the Canadiens’ worst.
But hey, it’s mid-November, and if there was ever a time to have some tough ones that still result in victories, it’s now—with plenty of games remaining on the schedule and ample time to refine the process.
Games like these help good teams become great. They help them dig into the details, and that’s what the Canadiens need to do to ascend to the next level.
One detail of their game proved particularly elusive Thursday against the Bruins: Controlled-entry denials. The Canadiens, who have been focused on denying them much more frequently than they did last season, allowed 56 controlled entries to the Bruins, including 10 in succession through the first 10 minutes of the third period—and another eight before game’s end (according to SportLogiq).
They came into that frame up 5-1 and immediately surrendered a second goal to Casey Mittlestadt.
But continuing to surrender their own blue line was more troubling, because as Jake Evans, Nick Suzuki, Mike Matheson, Phillip Danault and St. Louis all noted afterwards, the Bruins pushed and pressed with their defencemen active in every rush.
It’s something that needs to get sorted sooner rather than later, because the Canadiens are finding themselves up several goals more and more often in games.
This was the 13th time in 18 games they were up by at least two goals. It was the third game in the five they’ve played this month that saw them get up by at least three. And given how opportunistic they’ve become early in games, they’re bound to continue placing themselves in that position.
You’d hope they find ways to manage it better, which is easier said than done—especially against a team as dangerous as the Bruins.
“It’s tough because I think the other team, they’re trying to possess more and they’re not as predictable,” said St. Louis. “Usually, it’s a four-man attack, five-man attack, so if you just turn the wrong way as an F1 sometimes, two Ds get by you, and now they have a numerical advantage up the ice. That’s taking some risk a little bit. Their risk-taking goes up. So for us, we have to really be on high alert and try to play by the same rules that are being stretched and challenged because of the amount of risk the other team is taking.”
To do it, you must remain connected and find a way to disrupt plays long before they get to your zone.
“It starts up ice,” said Suzuki. “There’s different situations where maybe you’re tracking from longer, (or there’s) quick transitions and you’ve got to be able to read and react and try to close space for the other team. If we’re tracking really well, it gives our D more confidence to hold the line and deny entries.”
And if the Canadiens aren’t, you get what you saw against the Bruins—a lot of free entries.
One of the things St. Louis was most pleased about after a Game 1 win in Toronto was how often the Canadiens denied the Maple Leafs controlled entries while protecting a lead through the final 40 minutes.
“I think after the first period they had 20 situations to cross our blue line,” he said, “and they dumped 17 of them.”
The coach was particularly proud about that because, according to SportLogiq, it had been one of his team’s biggest weaknesses the season prior, over which the Canadiens ranked 31st in the league in forcing dump-ins.
As St. Louis noted Thursday, it’s a lot harder to do up three goals rather than one or two.
But that doesn’t mean the Canadiens can’t do it better.
They’re going to need to do exactly that to progress, as they hope to as the season rolls along, all while maintaining all the good habits they’ve exhibited to get to 12-3-4 on their season.
No team has scored more than the Canadiens in the first period. They’ve started games well and, for the most part, found ways to create enough separation on the scoreboard in the middle of the game to continue earning reps protecting late leads.
The Canadiens have also regularly defended with urgency, like they did Thursday, blocking 23 shots in front of Fowler.
“When there were chances,” said Matheson, “I felt like we did a good job of getting in lanes and things like that and playing with desperation when we had to.”
But he also said the Canadiens had to “way too much.”
Avoiding that requires better puck management up the ice and better attention to detail on the forecheck and in the neutral zone to deny more clean entries to their own zone.
“It’s an area we need to be better at,” said Matheson.
Knowing is half the battle.
Now it’s time for the Canadiens to start taking care of the other half.
