ST. PAUL, Minn. — The Montreal Canadiens got off to a rough start against one of the best teams in the NHL. They trailed by two goals early and looked a bit out of sorts through the first 20 minutes.
That description applies to the Canadiens’ 4-3 overtime loss to the Minnesota Wild on Monday.
But it also applied to a 6-1 loss at home to the Tampa Bay Lightning on Dec. 9, which was the last time rookie goaltender Jakub Dobeš lost a game in regulation time, a streak that remains intact after Dobeš made 20 saves against the Wild.
After that loss to the Lightning, Canadiens captain Nick Suzuki was not all that impressed with what he had just witnessed. The fact his team completely fell apart after going down 2-0 was, in his eyes, a sign of immaturity.
“We’re still a young group; there’s a lot of learning going on every day in every situation,” Suzuki said that night. “Not getting deflated going down 2-0 is something that we can do better, for sure. But it kind of comes with the territory with our team, how we are right now, with all the injuries and being a lot younger than we were coming into the season.”
When the Canadiens fell behind to the Wild 1-0 on the first shot of the game — a goal Dobeš would likely want another shot at — then gave up the next goal to Kirill Kaprizov after Quinn Hughes was inexplicably left unchecked, it would have been easy for the Canadiens to revert to the version of themselves that showed its ugliest side against the Lightning.
Except they didn’t. They scored the next three goals and held a lead in the third period that the Wild ultimately erased before scoring a power-play goal in overtime.
After the game, Suzuki was asked about the development of the Canadiens’ B-game, which has been a long-standing project for coach Martin St. Louis. The B-game was deficient in December against the Lightning. It was not Monday night against the Wild. It got them a critical point in the standings.
“I think it’s just individually,” Suzuki said. “We’ve got good players, guys have had more experience, and we’ve been in these situations where we go down, we don’t panic. Maybe a few years ago, we would lose 7-0 after that start.”
A few years ago, yes. But it was only two months ago that the Canadiens lost 6-1 after a similar start. This team has matured over the years, but also over those two months.
That B-game has taken a significant step, one that allowed the Canadiens to get a big comeback win in Buffalo on Saturday and earn an important point against the Wild on Monday.
“I think we just stay connected,” defenceman Kaiden Guhle said. “I think in past years we’d get down in games and we’d try to make home run plays. I’m sure you’ve heard Marty say it a lot: Sometimes you need to just take singles. I think we’ve gotten better at that. Doby played well again tonight, made some big saves, kept us in the game, and you need that. Any good team needs a goalie to make key saves at key times to keep you in it.
“I think our B-game has definitely improved, but I think a lot of that just comes from not trying to make home run plays when we’re down in games. We’re just sticking with it, trying to play the right way.”
A big part of the importance of this season for the Canadiens is for management to collect information on its young players. The fact Kirby Dach had a second straight strong game on the top line with Suzuki and Cole Caufield — including scoring the go-ahead goal 12 seconds into the third period — is a big data point in that sense, with Dach needing a new contract at the end of the season.
But the team’s collective ability to grow, to become contact hitters, as it were, instead of sluggers who strike out trying to clear the fence, is also an important data point.
“I think a lot of it is maturity,” Guhle said. “We’re still the youngest team in the league, so I think it’s just maturity and getting reps in and kind of learning the league and learning those home run plays are hard to come by in this league, and you don’t get those every game. You get maybe one of those every two or three games.
“So I think a lot of that is just maturity and learning the league a little bit.”
Guhle turned 24 a few weeks ago. He played his 185th NHL game Monday night despite this being his fourth NHL season. There is a lot of maturing left for him to do, just as there is for the vast majority of this team.
Except on Monday, it was the veteran line of Brendan Gallagher, Phillip Danault and Josh Anderson that St. Louis recognized as being a key element of the Canadiens’ improved B-game. That line emerged during a difficult first period that was punctuated by Gallagher driving around Hughes and cutting across the crease to get the Canadiens on the board before the end of the first period.
“I think we’re aware of when we’re off a little bit, and I think we try to simplify and regulate a little bit,” St. Louis said. “I felt the Danault line did that for us in the first period, and I think you catch your breath a little bit, and you didn’t get hurt too bad; you’re still in it. You saw some sections of our A-game tonight, just not enough of it, but it allows us to get a big point here.”
That point in the standings is a sign of growth, a sign of maturity for a maturing team. It’s also a sign of a B-game that is allowing the Canadiens to remain competitive in games long enough for them to find enough pockets of their A-game to grind out less-than-ideal games and get something productive out of them.
A more immature version of the Canadiens would have gotten nothing out of Monday’s game, much like they got nothing out of that game against the Lightning two months earlier.
And the fact that Suzuki looked at that blowout loss in December as a sign of immaturity, a result of being the youngest team in the league, and looked at this overtime loss in February as a sign that the youngest team in the league is maturing, speaks volumes.