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Head coach Martin St-Louis showed a surprising demeanor after the Montreal Canadiens’ recent win over the Columbus Blue Jackets.
He wasn’t overly angry, but he certainly didn’t look like a coach who had just won a big game.
Martin McGuire even pointed it out on the radio after the game.
Winning a game in the National Hockey League usually satisfies coaches, but there was a major concern for St-Louis last night.
One specific aspect of the game deeply irritated Martin St-Louis, and it’s a key factor in winning playoff games in particular.
We’re talking about the starts to games!
The head coach strongly emphasized his team’s shortcomings in the first period.
In front of the cameras, he did not hide his frustration with his group’s level of execution early in the game, once again!
He directly compared this difficult start to the one recently seen against the Carolina Hurricanes.
According to him, the Montreal Canadiens players gave the puck away far too easily to the opponent.
Martin St-Louis demands more from his players at the start of games
Committing direct turnovers in your own defensive zone always makes managing a game much more difficult, especially at the very start of the first period.
Players need to come in more prepared!
Fortunately for the Canadiens, these numerous early mistakes did not cause too much damage.
From the second period onward, things settled down.
The Montreal Canadiens then managed the third period with maturity to secure the win at the Bell Centre.
That said, starting games this slowly is a very dangerous habit moving forward in the regular season.
Building a true contender requires correcting this kind of issue quickly.
“It was a first period similar to the one against Carolina. However, I feel that in the first period, we gave the puck back to them. We killed plays, but then we gave it right back, even in our own zone[…] That said, we didn’t hurt ourselves too much. We played a better second period and managed the third well.”
– Martin St-Louis
That said, one name was pointed out by Martin St-Louis to explain why these very poor starts did not have major consequences this week: Jakub Dobes!
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Martin St-Louis calls out one major flaw in Canadiens’ game despite win over Columbus
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