When the puck drops on Game 5 of the Montreal Canadiens' series against the Tampa Bay Lightning, the Habs will be on a mission to not only win the game but also produce the series-defining moment.
The Montreal Canadiens were back on the ice of the CN Sports Complex in Brossard ahead of their flight to Tampa Bay this afternoon, and that meant yet another media availability for coach Martin St-Louis. This time, it was kept rather short as the bench boss spent less than six minutes on the podium.
It was towards the end of the availability that Herb Zurkowsky from the Montreal Gazette asked him a rather good question. The veteran writer put it to St-Louis that Max Crozier’s hit on Juraj Slafkovsky was the defining moment of the Habs’ first-round series against the Tampa Bay Lightning. The coach replied:
If you let that moment define the series, you’re putting yourself in a bad spot. Don’t let moments like that define it; rewrite it.
That came out of his mouth pretty quickly, almost as if he had already said those very words not so long ago. If I were a betting woman, I’d put good money on the possibility that St-Louis recently used those words with his players.
No one can argue that the bone-crushing hit that sent Slafkovsky down to the ice didn’t have an impact on the game. The 21,000-plus fans in attendance all gasped. Nick Suzuki looked at his teammate on the ice with worry plastered all over his face, and shortly after that, the Bolts scored their first goal of the game. That was, without a doubt, the turning point of the game.
The good news is for the Canadiens though that the series is not over, it’s all tied at 2-2, which means that someone else can step up and write a brand new story in which the Canadiens benefit from the turning point of a game and if they finish the job, be it in six of seven games, it could then become the defining moment of the series.
When the Canadiens jump on the ice of the International Benchmark Arena on Wednesday night, they’ll be on a mission to rewrite the script and show that the Crozier hit wasn’t the defining moment of the series. It’s up to them to find a way, but watching St-Louis this morning, it’s clear that he expects them to do it.
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