Martin St-Louis likes what the Montreal Canadiens are building, it's a home and not a house and his players love to live there, but there are still some adjustments to make.
Martin St-Louis likes what the Montreal Canadiens are building, it's a home and not a house and his players love to live there, but there are still some adjustments to make.
After two very tumultuous pre-season games against the Toronto Maple Leafs and the Ottawa Senators, bench boss Martin St-Louis made everyone chuckle when he said: "I wonder what the guys ate this Summer" in his post-game media availability last night. Asked about the events again this morning, he repeated the same thing.
It's not that he doesn't like how his team tries to hold opponents accountable when they cross the line, but there's a way to go about that. Going all guns blazing is not necessarily the way to go. After this morning's practice, the coach was asked how he felt about his charges' team spirit and pack mentality, and this is how he replied:
As I've said the other day, I feel what we have here is a home and not just a house. It shows, it shows in practices, on board of plains, in hotels, in games, in the dressing room. You can have the most talent, the best strategy, but if you don't have that, it's hard to be a championship team.
Asked about pre-season games and the way things have been going this year, he explained:
You don't hate it, but you hope nothing serious happen. We need to be a little bit more calculated. There are too extremes, it can be "come on, I want more" or it can be, you have to hold them back a bit, to be more calculated, I prefer the later option.
Before the start of the season, though, the coach believes a team discussion on the topic is in the cards:
We do play with a pack mentality, i think that's important, but with that said it showed me we need to have conversations about it too cause we have to be more calculated. I've had conversation with players, but before the season start, we'll have a collective conversation about it because I don't want to lose that pack mentality, but we have to be a little more calculated.
In St-Louis's talk, being more calculated means better planning and doing things at the right time and in the right way. He doesn't want to see his team lose its "standing up for each other" mentality, but it has to be done better.
After practice this morning, Michael Pezzetta said
It's definitely finding that line between sending a message and not putting the team down so I think as a group and as we mature we need to figure out how to find that line better. I think that we learned that lesson in the pre-season now so going into the season it's sending those message but without crossing the line, so it's something I think we'll still be talking about.
I've seen a lot of statements on social media about Pezzetta being inferior to Arber Xhekaj when it comes to packing a punch. While the latter has a much bigger frame and is certainly stronger, he can still learn from the former. The forward is 26 years old, and he can play a big role in Xhekaj's development. There's more to protecting your team than just throwing your weight around, even if you are heavier than anyone else.
That said, when a retaliatory hit occurs against a player who had nothing to do with the initial incident, there can be two guilty parties. The guy who is trying to make a statement and does it while crossing the line, but also the player who committed the initial fault and refused to answer for his actions, That's yet another thing Pezzetta summarized very nicely this morning:
At the end of the day, you hit a guy late and it's one of our top players and obviously given the circumstances with Patty and stuff everyone's emotions are heightened so i think if you answer the bell right away it's done and no-one is chasing you anymore. For me, like whenever I hit somebody and someone's chasing me, I have to fight them you know what I mean? And if I don't do that, I don't want guys chasing my teammates or anything like that, there's some bright lights. It's tough for him, it's a tough situation but you answer the bell and it defuses the situation.
Clearly, St-Louis is preaching to the choir when it comes to being more calculated with Pezzetta, but there are some players in the room who still need to hear his planned collective talk. As the coach said himself, though, he'd rather calm his players down than get them riled up when one of them is the victim of an attack. You need a good room to have a good team, and the Canadiens can say mission accomplished on that prerequisite.
With Kaiden Guhle being back at practice with a normal jersey this morning, it's looking increasingly likely that he'll be ready to go come opening night, and if that's the case, I believe the pairings will look like this:
Mike Matheson-Guhle
Lane Hutson-David Savard
Jayden Struble-Justin Barron
As for Arber Xhekaj, he's likely to be the one looking in from the outside, while Logan Mailloux and Adam Engstrom will be heading to the AHL. If he had not suffered a grave knee injury, David Reinbacher would have been going with them as well, but that's a discussion for another day.
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