The Montreal Canadiens kicked off their Pacific coast road trip with a game against the San Jose Sharks on Tuesday night. It was Martin St-Louis’s men’s last game before the trade deadline, and scouts from the Vancouver Canucks and the St. Louis Blues were taking in the game at the SAP Center. Don’t get too excited, though. The Blues are playing the Sharks on Friday night so that they might have been doing pre-scouting.

St-Louis had decided to go with the same lineup that had beaten the Washington Capitals 6-2 on Saturday night, meaning that Joe Veleno, Alexandre Texier, and Arber Xhekaj were healthy scratches while Jakub Dobes was starting a second game in a row.

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The Canadiens’ bench boss often talks about the importance of details in the game, and in the first frame, the Habs did a good job of showcasing what should not be done. Over the Olympics break, the team worked on preventing odd-man rushes, but it didn’t show in those first twenty minutes. In one instance, Lane Hutson turned the puck over at the offensive blueline, which led to one such opportunity, but to be fair, he was put in a less-than-desirable situation by Philip Danault, who handed him the puck in close quarters when he had two Sharks nearby.

Two of the Canadiens’ top players were also guilty of big turnovers in their own zone. Cole Caufield lost the puck behind his own net, and had it not been for Jakub Dobes’ active stick, Kiefer Sherwood would have gotten the puck all on his lonesome in front of the net. A bit later, Juraj Slafkovsky attempted yet another no-look backhand pass, which of course became a turnover. The big Slovak was doing a lot of those in every zone earlier in the season, but that mistake has started to creep back up into his game lately; that’s not something St-Louis wants to see.

The Habs had a good start to the second frame, taking a 2-1 lead on a Danault goal, but they couldn’t keep their focus for the whole 20 minutes. Michael Misa tied up the score halfway through the period, and it’s hard not to look at Jayden Struble on that one. The third-pairing defenseman lost the puck at the Sharks’ blueline and was then unable to clear his own zone, and got his pocket picked instead right by the goal as panic was setting in in the Canadiens’ zone.

Watching that sequence, you can see why the Habs may be interested in bolstering their defence before the deadline, especially since St-Louis doesn’t seem to trust either Struble or Xhekaj, who is reportedly a Calgary Flames target right now.

The Habs also got themselves in double trouble late into the middle stanza, giving two goals in 25 seconds with less than two minutes to go. Macklin Celibrini first beat Dobes with a hard shot between the pads, and on the very next sequence, Kirby Dach played nonchalantly along the boards, couldn’t cope with Sherwood’s forecheck, and was dispossessed. Alexander Wenneberg got the puck in acres of space, picked his spot and beat Dobes.

Granted, not everyone can play a big, heavy game, but Dach has the frame necessary to protect the puck there. That was a lack of effort at the worst of times and the kind of play that makes you wonder if the forward deserves to be playing on the top line.

The Canadiens went down 5-2 early in the third when Josh Anderson and Struble were sent to the box alongside Mario Ferraro, giving the Sharks a 5-on-4 power play, but they didn’t give up. It took less than two minutes for Ivan Demidov to score on the power play before Alex Newhook scored 18 seconds later and added another one to tie up the game five minutes later. With those two goals, Newhook now has four points in three games since returning from injury and 16 points in 20 games. On an 82-game season, that’s a 66-point pace.

The Canadiens made one mistake too many, though, being called for too many men with less than five minutes left in the game, and the Sharks scored the game-winner through Sherwood. Montreal did try to attack at 6-on-5 after pulling the goalie, but it was too little too late, and the Sharks added a seventh goal in an empty net. It was a fantastic game for Celibrini, and he showed what he can do with space.  This is Dobes’ first regulation loss since December 9th, and hardly the start to the road trip St-Louis wanted.

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