With the Montreal Canadiens' season on the line, the pressure is on coach Martin St-Louis to create a spark and help the young Habs to get to the third round.
When the Buffalo Sabres faced elimination against the Montreal Canadiens on Saturday night, Lindy Ruff made some changes. Ahead of the game, he had thrown his lines in a blender, making a lot of changes, including putting Tage Thompson on the wing, where he belonged.
Now, Buffalo isn’t the only team facing elimination; the Canadiens are as well. Coming off a truly awful performance, Martin St-Louis must make adjustments. In the first-round, against the Tampa Bay Lightning, when the bench boss realized that Jon Cooper’s strong match-up game was making life too hard for his forward lines, he came up with new lines. That moment, when he decided to make some moves, was the turning point of the series.
Against the Sabres, it didn’t feel like he needed to make some changes because the Habs’ offense wasn’t muzzled; they were scoring in bunches. However, in Game 6, with the game on the line, once Ruff realized that putting Alex Lyon in the net was a mistake and sent Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen in, the Habs were unable to score a single goal.
Not only were they unable to score, but they were even unable to find each other on the ice. Passes were going awry, puck possession was given away like candy at Halloween, and nothing was working. As productive as the Cole Caufield, Nick Suzuki, and Juraj Slafkovsky line has been in the regular season, it’s just not clicking in the playoffs. They have all produced, but on the power play. Only one of their goals came at even strength.
You can’t rely on the referees to give you some power play opportunities to win a series, especially not for a Game 7. In the ultimate game against Tampa, only five penalties were called; the Canadiens had only two power plays on which they were unable to score. In a do-or-die game, you must rely on your best players to win, and you need to put them in a situation to succeed. So far in these playoffs, keeping the top line together hasn’t been a winning formula, and tonight, St-Louis faces a winner-takes-all game. It’s your move, coach.
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