St. Louis Rant Fires Up the Canadiens

The Montreal Canadiens trailed 2-0 and 3-1 on Thursday against the Columbus Blue Jackets before battling back to win 4-3 in overtime at the Bell Centre. 

The first 20 minutes were not pretty for the home team. Two times a pending Canadiens power play was wiped out during post whistle scrums as Arber Xhekaj and Tanner Pearson wanted to take revenge on the perpetrators of doubtful hits. The centres had a dismal 26 percent success rate and seven turnovers. 

"It was a sh***y first period and we weren't happy about it," Nick Suzuki said bluntly. 

"It was pretty clear that [first period] wasn't good enough, definitely not to the standard that we want to play at," Mike Matheson evaluated the first frame.  

Montreal came out strong to begin the second period with the captain scoring his first of the season 27 seconds after puck drop. The teams exchanged goals before the second intermission to make it a one-goal game. 

"It was pretty much [Martin St. Louis]. He fired us up, said some things that needed to be said and I love how we responded with the first shift goal. That got us going and from there we played a full 45 after that," Cole Caufield shared his view of the turning point. 

Rafael Harvey-Pinard added that the coach wasn't happy with the team's performance through 20 minutes and it motivated them to come out strong in the second. "After his speech, we were motivated for the second and third, and we came out strong and came back into the game." 

On Saturday morning, the coach expressed his disappointment that the questions he had been asked by the media were focused on the negative aspects and he attempted to spin them to positives. 

"It's rare," Sam Montembeault answered when asked if St Louis would get upset frequently. "Martin is always positive. It's good sometimes for him to wake us up like that and we responded well with a quick goal in the second."

The Canadiens were credited with seven giveaways in the first period and it was St. Louis' main area of concern. "We were stubborn in the first period," St. Louis justified his explosion during the first intermission. 

It's not a technique that he plans on using often. "In my opinion, you have to be careful and not always use your ammunition. I try to be rational but after a first period like that we had a very honest conversation."

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