Win over Oilers helps Canadiens continue to build identity, style of play

MONTREAL — Raise your hand if you had the Montreal Canadiens scoring a touchdown in a win over the Edmonton Oilers on Super Bowl Sunday.

And while we’re on the subject of prop bets that would’ve made you a millionaire, if you had wagered on this depleted edition of the Canadiens becoming the sixth team this season to hold Connor McDavid without a point…well, good for you.

If you parlayed it with Alex Belzile scoring the first goal of his NHL career at age 31, even better.

There was a common thread weaving all three of those things together in this 6-2 win for the Canadiens, and it was the way their defence played all over the ice.

It was as stingy as can be at one end despite losing Arber Xhekaj halfway through the game, after he appeared to suffer a right shoulder injury in his fight with Vincent Desharnais, and it was as offensively implicated as we’ve seen it be all season.

That’s a layer of play the Canadiens were working on during their first two practices out of the bye week and a layer successfully added in Saturday’s 4-3 win over the Islanders.

It carried over to Sunday’s win, and we call that progress.

“We have a style that we want to play, we have a brand that we’re trying to build, and you can’t come in and give them the manual of this is how we’re going to play tomorrow,” said Canadiens coach Martin St. Louis. “It takes time to build, and we’ve taken a course of action here of probably building from the back, defensive, and all the way to now we’re starting to bring in some detailed concepts offensively and it shows.”

It did on Belzile’s game-opening goal in the first period, which was scored after Johnathan Kovacevic and Jordan Harris helped hem the Oilers in, and it did on almost all the others the Canadiens scored over the weekend.

Harris had two in this game because he was sharp in his own end and highly active up ice. After notching an assist and the game-winning goal against the Islanders on Saturday, defenceman Mike Matheson took the shot that Rafael Harvey-Pinard tipped in for his sixth goal in his ninth game since being recalled from Laval. And Kovacevic, Xhekaj and David Savard were all stalwart and also contributed to the offensive zone pressure we saw from the Canadiens.

When you consider how many key Canadiens players are currently sidelined by injury, you can't discount how critical a factor this was in the team scoring as often as it did this weekend.

It’s something that needs to continue for the Canadiens to develop into a team expected to score at the level needed to be successful in today’s NHL.

“We’re trying to use everyone in the o-zone,” said Jake Allen, who was named the game’s first star after making 30 saves, including a couple of highlight ones on McDavid. “That’s where good teams create offence. You can’t just rely on two, three guys cycling the puck, creating chances. You’ve gotta be able to use your d-men, use your point-men, create space in high ice, and I think we’ve gotta be able to utilize those guys more. I think a lot of times you see good teams create space above the top of the circles, using their dmen, using picks, and dmen are driving down to the side of the net.”

You can’t do it unless everyone is connected.

But the Canadiens have appeared to be very much on the same page since returning from their 10-day break, and the way their defence played is a huge part of that.

“We weren’t easy to play against today and our defencemen were surely excellent,” said St. Louis. “We had to adjust a bit playing as five, but they were a huge part of our success. We were really connected as a team with our passes, our poise while under pressure. We were really in control, and it started with our defencemen.”

The Canadiens’ forwards enabled that.

“Our forwards are applying backpressure, which helps the D to maybe get more involved in the play,” said Belzile, who rode ECHL and AHL buses for years before enjoying his moment of glory on Sunday. “And these days, we’re playing as a team, we’re on the same page, we listen to each other, and I think that helps a lot.”

As does achieving the results the Canadiens did this weekend.

The wins might not be good for draft positioning down the road, but they are fundamental to the identity and style of play the Canadiens are trying to establish.

When the team comes together to keep McDavid off the sheet, that helps. When it finds offensive cohesion at the same time, that’s even better.

But nothing beats doing it all in a win.

“As a coach, you’re always trying to convince your players to play a certain way,” said St. Louis, “but games like today’s help us a lot to convince them.”

The Oilers playing it as pitifully as they did was certainly a factor, but that takes nothing away from how the Canadiens played.

They pulled off a few shockers and grew a bit from how they did it on Sunday.