Canadiens' win over Blue Jackets a step forward in maturation process

MONTREAL— With just under two minutes left in a game the Montreal Canadiens were leading 5-1, Emil Heineman was assessed a penalty for roughing. 

It was an unselfish penalty. He was sticking up for a teammate.

The Canadiens responded by sticking up for him. 

They held the Columbus Blue Jackets power play to zero shots on net. Joel Armia and Jayden Struble stepped in front of pucks to prevent them from getting to goaltender Samuel Montembeault. And the score remained the same when all was said and done. 

Small stuff, sure. 

Important stuff, though. The kind that takes a team that’s learning how to win further along in its process.

“I think it just shows that we’re committed to getting better and figuring out how we’re going to play and get back into the season,” said Mike Matheson, who opened the scoring Saturday with his first goal of the campaign. “Regardless of what the score is, we need to continue building the way we’re going to play, and to do that you can’t decide when that will be and when that won’t be.”

That is what maturing is all about, and the Canadiens might finally be doing a bit of it after being taught several harsh lessons through a 6-10-2 start to the season.

They were awful defensively through the first two weeks. They spent the next two focusing exclusively on fixing it. And they’ve steadily progressed in that aspect of the game over the last week and change while trying to build out the rest.

The Canadiens took a big step forward without the puck in a 3-0 loss to the Minnesota Wild on Thursday.

They took another one both with and without it on Saturday.

Jake Evans (who scored Montreal’s fourth goal against Columbus and his 100^th point in the NHL, making him the first seventh-round pick in franchise history to reach the mark) knows why. 

“I think just urgency and being competitive down low and being tight on guys,” he said. “I think just urgency is a big thing in our d-zone and just jumping on guys and not giving them time.”

Doing it all over the ice was a pivotal factor in a rested Canadiens team taking advantage of a Blue Jackets team that registered a 6-2 win at home over the Pittsburgh Penguins Friday.

The Canadiens flew out of the gate, notching a season-high in first-period shots (16) and taking a 1-0 lead. They were responsible with the puck, determined to get it back as soon as they lost it, and they were calculated and patient to generate their scoring chances.

What happened after that was also part of the maturation process. Both for team and coach.

The Canadiens began taking their lead for granted, they started straying from their game plan, and they allowed the Blue Jackets to tie the game 1-1 in the eighth minute of the second period. 

That’s when coach Martin St. Louis pushed some buttons. 

He pulled Juraj Slafkvosky off the top line and replaced him with Joel Armia. He voiced his displeasure with the rest of the group on the bench. 

And then the Canadiens reset and got back to playing the way they needed to.

“I was annoyed,” said St. Louis. “A lot of the guys on the bench were annoyed, too. We had a tough time getting pucks behind them, and we had a lot of opportunities to do that. We had simple plays coming out of our zone and we’re trying to go cross-ice. We just couldn’t execute. It comes to a point where the next line just has to simplify, get a deep puck, trust the forecheck and start our o-zone, and they did that.”

When St. Louis was asked how he’d have handled the same situation last year or the year before — when the Canadiens were in their first two phases of their rebuild — he said, “Probably a little differently.”

But St. Louis handled it the way he needed to, and the way the Canadiens feel he needs to handle things moving forward.

“He’s being a lot harder, he’s treating us like we’re grown up. And we need that right now,” said Evans. “Doesn’t matter if you’re older or younger, you need to stick to the game plan, be a good team player first and things will open up. And if you’re not, you need to be told that.”

Or shown, like Slafkovsky was through the end of the second period and beginning of the third.

He was then reunited with Nick Suzuki and Kirby Dach following Armia’s penalty 1:19 into the final frame.

The 20-year-old didn’t like his time away from them. He appeared to be pouting on the end of the bench as time was expiring in the second period.

That’s when Suzuki intervened and showed a little bit of his own maturity as a young captain.

“I talked to (Slafkovsky). I didn’t love that (he was pouting),” the 25-year-old Suzuki said. “You can’t just get dejected like that. I was just telling him, ‘We’re going to need you in the third.’ 

“He responded well, he was skating hard, getting into battles. No one likes getting benched, but it’s how you respond after, and I think he did a pretty good job of that in the third.”

The Canadiens got a head start halfway through the second, with Suzuki’s 15:49 into the frame restoring their lead.

Lucas Condotta scored his first of the season 11:04 into the third. Evans put his shot in on a great feed from Cole Caufield less than two minutes later. And Josh Anderson made it 5-1 with 4:05 remaining. 

The blocks from Armia and Struble that followed on the game-closing penalty kill were the 16^th and 17^th of the night for the Canadiens. They were part of an effort to hold the Blue Jackets to just 26 shots on net, and they epitomized the defensive commitment the team is aiming to consistently employ.

It’s been there for a handful of games, leading St. Louis to say prior to this one that he wants it to remain.

“To me, that attitude defensively is our lifeline,” he said earlier on Saturday. “That’s what’s going to keep us in every game. I expect that every game.”

St. Louis got it once again from the Canadiens against the Blue Jackets.

The offence kicked in, too, giving the team a sample of what it wants to look like moving forward.

“We’re trying to build a style of play and an attitude at both ends of the ice to not just to win a game tonight but also for the future,” said St. Louis.

We’ll see if the Canadiens can keep it going Monday against the Edmonton Oilers.