After spending Wednesday afternoon bringing joy to kids around the Montreal Children’s hospitals, the Montreal Canadiens were hoping to do the same for their fans at the Bell Centre. While the Canadiens’ home was like a fortress last season, this year the Sainte-Flanelle has really struggled at home, and it will need to address that if it wants any chance of making the playoffs.

The diminished Chicago Blackhawks were in town without the face of the franchise, Connor Bedard, and captain Nick Foligno, and while one might have thought it would have made the task easier, it wasn’t a walk in the park, and the Canadiens only managed to separate themselves in the third frame, on their way to a 4-1 win.

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Not A First Pairing

Granted, Mike Matheson’s absence hurts the Canadiens’ blueline, and so does Kaiden Guhle’s, but putting Jayden Struble on the first pairing with Noah Dobson seems like an unforced error to me. On the first goal of the game, Dobson gave the puck to Nazar, allowing the Hawks to counterattack while the Canadiens lost track of their defensive assignment. Struble struggled to defend effectively, as everything seemed to be moving a bit too fast for him.

Then, in the second period, Struble was easily beaten at the blueline, leaving Dobson to defend an odd-man rush, a play in which he took a tripping call after sliding down the middle, and his stick tripped Ryan Greene.

After 40 minutes of play, Struble had played 9:49 and committed two giveaways. Unlike Tuesday night, he wasn’t used on the penalty kill, even with Dobson in the box, as St-Louis preferred to use Arber Xhekaj.

In the end, Struble only spent another 35 seconds on the ice in the final frame, and as his presence alongside Dobson diminished, the veteran’s play improved.

About The Coaches Challenges

While the Canadiens had two goals waived off because of offside after a coach’s challenge, he’s still a fan of the possibility for the bench boss to appeal decisions:

I’m a big fan when it works for me. I believe that’s how it should be. We have rules, and we have the technology to apply them properly, so 95% of the time, the right call is made. They have the ability to check, of course, it’s annoying when you’re on the other side of it because you’re all happy, and then it’s deflating. It was a weird sequence on what would have been the third goal; there were two sequences. I only saw the first, and I thought we were fine, but when I looked back much further, the other play didn’t look fine.

- St-Louis on the coaches challenges

The fact that the Canadiens didn’t let the disappointment get to them tonight was a win in itself. For a young team, it can sometimes be hard to keep its emotions in check, but they did it admirably tonight, and they just kept on pushing even when they felt they should have had a bigger lead.

The Right Version Of Bolduc

It’s been almost a month since Zachary Bolduc was put on the first line alongside Nick Suzuki and Cole Caufield, and while it’s taken some time for them to click, tonight, the best version of Bolduc turned up. Speaking about the winger, St-Louis said:

The way Boldy has evolved over the last month has allowed us to play inside that [Suzuki facing the tougher opponents].

- St-Louis on Bolduc

The two goals Bolduc scored tonight were his eighth and ninth on the season, but the first two he was able to put in at the Bell Centre. Given the Canadiens’ difficulties at home lately, getting better home performances from the youngster will certainly help. Named the first star of the game, the Trois-Rivieres native was beaming as he was interviewed on the ice at the end of the match.

All game long, he battled hard for space and came on the winning side of those battles as well. On the first goal, he had the right reflex to position himself in the high slot to receive the feed from Caufield, who was behind the goal line. Then, on the second one, he won the physical battle with Wyatt Kaiser. He got in front of him and, because of that, tipped the shot past Spencer Knight.

If Bolduc can keep performing like this, the Canadiens will end up having a very dangerous top-six, especially since Juraj Slafkovsky is really shining alongside Ivan Demidov and Oliver Kapanen.

In the end, Knight played a solid game, but he was tested so often by the Canadiens that something had to give. Montreal took 35 shots on net on Thursday night, something that’s almost unheard of from them this season, and it ended up being one of the keys to the game. Meanwhile, at the other end, Jakub Dobes was tested only 14 times, but he made the big saves when he needed to.

The Canadiens more than earned the day off announced after the game; they’ll get to recharge their batteries before taking on the Pittsburgh Penguins twice this weekend.

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