Stu Cowan: Time for Canadiens to start stringing wins together

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Sports / NHL / Montreal Canadiens / Hockey Inside Out / Hockey
Stu Cowan: Time for Canadiens to start stringing
wins together
Seventeen of Canadiens' final 27 games this season will be at home and they can't afford to
have a losing record again at the Bell Centre.
Stu Cowan • Montreal Gazette
Mar 18, 2021 • 7 hours ago • 4 minute read • 10 Comments
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2. Montreal Canadiens right-wing Corey Perry scores a goal on Calgary Flames goaltender Jacob Markstrom during the third period at
Scotiabank Saddledome in Calgary on March 11, 2021. PHOTO BY SERGEI BELSKI /USA TODAY Sports
Home, sweet home?
The Canadiens are back in Montreal after completing their six-game Western Canada road trip with a 4-3 overtime
loss to the Winnipeg Jets Wednesday night. The Canadiens finished the trip with a 2-2-2 record and have only lost
three road games in regulation time this season with an 8-3-7 record.
The Canadiens’ next six games will be at the Bell Centre — starting Friday against the Vancouver Canucks (7 p.m.,
TSN2, RDS, TSN 690 Radio, 98.5 FM) — where they have a 5-5-1 record. Last season, the Canadiens had a 14-
17-6 home record.
Seventeen of the Canadiens’ final 27 games this season will be at home and they can’t afford to have a losing record
again at the Bell Centre — fans or no fans.
“Six games on the road, you get six out of 12 points,” Brendan Gallagher said after Wednesday’s loss, which
dropped the Canadiens to 0-8 in games that have gone beyond regulation time. “Probably not what the ideal road
trip is. Not a terrible road trip if you look at it as a whole. We’ve got to start finding ways to win these little
miniseries. Put some wins together, streak them together. But all in all, it was OK. I think we’re still building and
growing as a group. But at some point here, we need to string some wins together.”
The Canadiens haven’t won back-to-back games since Feb. 2, a span of 19 games. The only consistency for the
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3. Canadiens this season apart from being terrible in overtime and shootouts has been their inconsistency. They
are 0-5 in overtime and 0-3 in shootouts.
“I wish that we had five-on-five overtime,” head coach Dominique Ducharme said after Wednesday’s loss.
The Canadiens are holding the fourth and final playoff spot in the all-Canadian North Division with a 13-8-8 record
and have the Calgary Flames and Vancouver Canucks hot on their heels.
“I think we’re going to keep getting better and better,” said Ducharme, who has a 4-3-4 record since taking over
from Claude Julien. “Every night, I feel confident against any team. We go out there, we play the way that we can
play, and our style of play we can beat anyone. I have no issue with that. I don’t know if someone’s going to run
away (in the division). You look around the division and competition every night, it’s hard to tell who’s going to win.
Because you play teams many times in a row it’s tough to separate yourself because it’s tough to beat the same team
two times and three times in a row. We can see it everywhere around the league and some ups and downs. So I
think it’s going to be a sprint for everyone toward the end and I think it’s going to be a dogfight till the end.”
After getting off to a 7-1-2 start while scoring 44 goals in the first 10 games, the Canadiens ranked 10th in the NHL
in offence after Wednesday’s game with an average of 3.21 goals per game. Four players — Tyler Toffoli (18),
Brendan Gallagher (11), Josh Anderson (11) and Jeff Petry (11) — have scored 55 per cent of the Canadiens’ 93
goals. No one else has more than five goals.
Winnipeg Jets centre Pierre-Luc Dubois, centre, ties up Montreal Canadiens forward Corey Perry in front of goaltender Connor Hellebucyk in
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4. Winnipeg on March 17, 2021. PHOTO BY KEVIN KING /Postmedia Network
One of the players with five goals is 35-year-old Corey Perry, who started the season on the taxi squad, didn’t play
in seven of the 29 games and is averaging only 12:27 of ice time per game.
Another player with five goals is Nick Suzuki, who has played in all 29 games and is averaging 18:39 of ice time, the
most of any Canadiens forward. Suzuki has had 540:49 of total ice time this season, almost double Perry’s total of
273:57. Suzuki had no goals and one assist on the six-game road trip and was minus-3 Wednesday. He has only one
goal in the last 12 games.
Phillip Danault scored his second goal of the season Wednesday and both came on the six-game road trip, which is
a good sign. Gallagher and Toffoli were the other goal-scorers. Toffoli’s 18 goals had him tied with the Edmonton
Oilers’ Connor McDavid for second in the NHL after Wednesday’s games, trailing only the Toronto Maple Leafs’
Auston Matthews, who has 21.
Gallagher and Toffoli’s third-period goals allowed the Canadiens to fight back from a 3-1 deficit to earn a point with
the OT loss.
“I saw a dedicated team,” Danault said about the Canadiens’ third-period performance, during which they had 17
shots on goal after getting only seven in the second period. “A team that was hungry, that didn’t accept to lose. The
fight as well, I really appreciate the effort that the guys we all did together. We all know the Jets are a really good
team offensively. We played really good defensively in the third and we didn’t give up anything. We were stronger,
we were winning our battles and we got a big point, actually, but not enough.”
The Canadiens really do need to start stringing wins together.
Doing it at home would be nice.
scowan@postmedia.com
twitter.com/StuCowan1
MORE ON THIS TOPIC
Canadiens battle back late to earn a point, but fall 4-3 to Jets in OT
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