Canadiens need to reassess goals after yet another embarrassing loss

MONTREAL Montreal Canadiens coach Martin St.

Louis was asked prior to Thursday nights game against the Pittsburgh Penguins if he breaks the season down into segments, bite-sized chunks that can be more easily digested.

He said he did.

Its important, he said, to create smaller goals over the course of a season, and without divulging how he segmented the schedule, it would not be difficult to see the game against the Penguins as the end of one of them.

It was the Canadiens fifth straight home game, their longest homestand of the season, and they had a chance to finish it with four wins.

Advertisement The Canadiens still had a chance to do that after 40 minutes despite playing a sloppy game.

Luckily for them, the Penguins were playing just as sloppy.

It seemed like a battle between two teams that wanted to give the game away, with dueling turnovers, odd-man rushes and missed defensive assignments.

In the end, the Canadiens simply wanted to give it away more than the Penguins.

Giving up six goals in the third period of what was a 3-2 hockey game goes down as a regulation loss, the same as it would had the Canadiens lost 3-2.

But it doesnt feel the same because when you add humiliation to the mix, it hits differently.

Its harder to justify, it forces self-reflection.

Were in the game, just unacceptable, Kaiden Guhle said after the 9-2 carnage.

Its kind of hard to put a finger on it.

It seemed like after their 5-2 goal, that was it, and thats unacceptable for everyone, myself included.

Its embarrassing.

People come out to see us and watch us play and compete, they spend their money, its unacceptable.

This Canadiens season, St.

Louis has said repeatedly, is about development, yes, but it is also about learning how to win.

The reality after 29 games, however, is this Canadiens season is becoming about the recurrence of games like this, losses that are unacceptable, losses they need to learn from, losses they dont learn from because they happen again and again.

It began in the fourth game of the season against these same Penguins and in this same building, where a 3-2 Canadiens lead late in the second period became a 6-3 loss.

Eight days later, it was a 7-2 loss to the New York Rangers , again on home ice, except that game was 4-0 before it was 12 minutes old.

A week after that, it was an 8-2 loss, again at home, to the Seattle Kraken .

The following game was the infamous 6-3 loss in Washington to the Capitals, the one where St.

Louis insisted the Canadiens threw up all over themselves in the third period of a game that was tied 3-3.

A 6-2 loss at home to Vegas , a 6-3 loss in Boston, and now this.

Advertisement If the greater goal is to learn how to win, then yes, creating smaller goals is indeed necessary.

Because the defining characteristic of this Canadiens season right now is not that they are learning how to win.

It is that these unacceptable losses keep happening to such an extent that if you are segmenting the season, periods of progress are interrupted by repeated episodes of unprofessional behaviour.

Pucks end up in your net, things happen, but our game cant fall off that much, Brendan Gallagher said.

We say weve got to learn from it, and we do, but eventually, you can only say it so long.

You have to go out there and take action as a group.

Nearly 25 percent of the games the Canadiens have played this season have been so-called unacceptable losses.

And five of those seven losses have come at home, where, as Guhle mentioned, their fans are paying exorbitant ticket prices to watch them compete.

Its embarrassing for us as players, captain Nick Suzuki said.

I hate when that happens.

The booing was definitely earned from us tonight.

We love playing at home and weve got to be a lot better than that in the third.

And of those seven unacceptable losses, this one might have been the worst because Guhle and Jake Evans insinuated their team gave up in the third period.

In fact, Evans overtly said so.

Maybe its the fourth goal they get and we just quit or something, Evans said.

I dont know.

But well have to fix that.

For a young team trying to establish a culture and identity, that is a bad look.

Every play matters in this league.

Theres not one action on the ice that cant affect the outcome of the game.

Those actions got away from us in the third, St.

Louis said.

I think weve come a long way, but every now and then, we have these moments.

Unfortunately, sometimes I feel its part of our growth and we hope that these moments happen less, and when they happen, they cant happen consecutive times.

Advertisement The Canadiens play the Jets in Winnipeg on Saturday.

It is the start of a new segment coming off another embarrassing loss, and it is a tough assignment.

But an embarrassing loss remains a loss.

And the Canadiens are still 7-6-1 in their last 14 games.

Their goal differential in those seven unacceptable losses is minus-31.

In their other 22 games, its plus-2.

While the unacceptable losses are a chronic, defining feature of their season, there is an opportunity for the Canadiens to build on the good while seeking to root out this poison that afflicts them once every four games or so.

They have 53 games left to do it, and when St.

Louis was asked about whether he segments the season, he mentioned that while between games you can look at smaller goals, on game day, that game is the only priority.

May we suggest, at this point, that those smaller goals should just disappear? That the only segment the Canadiens need to pay attention to is the following game? Because thus far, the importance of every game, of every moment, has escaped this group far too frequently.

That is the floor of being an NHL player, an NHL team.

The Canadiens clearly need to hit that floor before they can worry about anything bigger than that.

(Top photo of Rickard Rakell scoring on the Canadiens Sam Montembeault: Minas Panagiotakis / Getty Images).

This article has been shared from the original article on theathleticuk, here is the link to the original article.