The Canadiens might not practise again before the end of the regular season.
The way they’ve been playing — with a season-high six straight wins ahead of Thursday’s game in New York against the Rangers (7 p.m., TSN2, RDS) — they look like they don’t need to practise.
But that’s not the reason why another practice seems unlikely before their regular season comes to a close on April 14. The Canadiens will play their final eight games over 13 days with one or zero days off between each game.
The Canadiens had a practice scheduled for last Friday in Brossard before leaving on a five-game road trip, but head coach Martin St. Louis cancelled it following a 2-1 win over the Columbus Blue Jackets the previous night at the Bell Centre.
The Canadiens flew to Nashville on Friday and beat the Predators 4-1 Saturday before flying to Carolina, where they beat the Hurricanes 3-1 on Sunday before flying to Tampa. Monday was a scheduled day off in Tampa and the Canadiens beat the Lightning 4-1 Tuesday night.
The Canadiens were scheduled to practise Wednesday morning in Tampa before flying to New York, but that practice was cancelled. They have a practice scheduled for Friday in New Jersey before facing the Devils on Saturday, but that seems unlikely to happen since the two teams will meet again Sunday at the Bell Centre.
At this point in the season, rest can be more important than another practice.
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Before leaving on this road trip, St. Louis spoke about the importance of stamina down the final stretch of the regular season.
“Can you keep going?” he said, “That’s stamina, right? And it’s not necessarily physical stamina. It’s mental. Everything we’ve built up to keep going. Knowing that you’re not going to play 60 awesome minutes … there’s another good team on the other side that’s going to have some good minutes. It’s momentum.
“But when you don’t have the momentum, can you not hurt yourself so much that it’s hard to stay in the game? And I feel we’ve done a pretty good job of that and I feel we’ve played a lot of good minutes. I think the way we play off the puck defensively has helped us.”
Rookie Ivan Demidov spoke with The Athletic’s Arpon Basu recently about the grind of the 82-game NHL schedule after making the jump from the KHL. The 20-year-old he played 71 games last season with St. Petersburg SKA — including six playoff games — while posting 22-32-54 totals.
“It’s pretty hard, because you’re 19 years old and it’s your first year playing that type of games in a row,” Demidov, who leads all NHL rookies in scoring with 16-42-58 totals, told Basu. “For example, last year I played around 78 games. But (at) that time when I played we start earlier (in the year), you have so many days off between games. … So you have a lot of days where you can go to sauna to rest and your body is feeling good. But here, it’s like, you don’t have those days. You’re just playing, playing, playing, playing, and also your mind, you have to rest.”
St. Louis said the only way for young players to learn about preparing for the grind of an NHL season is to experience it. Defenceman Lane Hutson experienced it for the first time last season when he played in all 82 games with the Canadiens after playing only 38 games the previous season at Boston University. Hutson won the Calder Trophy last season as the NHL’s top rookie, posting 6-60-66 totals, and has played in all 74 games this season with 11-62-73 totals.
It’s hard to keep Hutson and Demidov off the ice and they’re always first in line for optional practices and morning skates.
“I’m not going to step in the way of their preparation,” St. Louis said. “To be a confident player it starts with preparation. Not everybody’s going to prepare the same way. They have the option.”
Centre Oliver Kapanen and goalies Jakub Dobes and Jacob Fowler are also experiencing an NHL schedule for the first time.
“They got to go through it,” St. Louis said about young players. “I’m glad they’re going through it. That’s part of it. It’s on the player. Got to get through that grind. I think as a group we’re doing a good job with a compact schedule to not overwork them on the off days. But they got to go through it. Not just the compact schedule, but where we are in the schedule, what’s at stake and all that. I think it’s a big part of growth for a young player.
“You shouldn’t have so many problems in different departments of your game at this time of the year if you, as coaches, did your job and the players have done their job,” St. Louis added. “The teaching — not that you stop teaching — but the teaching is kind of over. Now we’re just focusing on the details of the structure. I feel like lately we’ve been very detailed and can we keep doing that?”
With three straight wins to start this road trip — without any practices — the answer is yes.
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