WASHINGTON — Here’s an image Montreal Canadiens fans won’t soon forget: Mark Streit lying on his belly in front of backup goaltender Al Montoya as the Washington Capitals danced their way through the offensive zone to score their fifth goal in what ended up being a 6-1 win on Saturday.
U-G-L-Y.
It wasn’t pretty for Canadiens defenceman Jordie Benn, either. In the first period, just 26 seconds after Capitals captain Alex Ovechkin scored his first of four goals to bring his season total to seven, Benn made a blind breakout pass to Brendan Gallagher that landed on Andre Burakovsky’s stick and ultimately ended up behind Carey Price.
“You make one bad pass, turns into a turnover, turns into a goal,” said Benn after the game. “It’s hockey. You try to make a play and if the play works you’re the hero. If it doesn’t, you’re the s—.”
Benn started on a pair with Shea Weber, was moved to the left of Jeff Petry in the second period, and was turn-styled on three separate occasions before night’s end. Ironically, he was one of two defencemen on the Canadiens’ side to not get scored on more than once in the game.
Hardly cause for celebration.
“I was definitely not good enough tonight,” Benn said. “And the boys all want better for themselves, too.”
It was a tough night for Weber. It was a tough one for Petry, who whiffed on an opportunity to break up the play that led to Ovechkin’s first goal 20 seconds into the first period.
And it was an especially tough one for the 39-year-old Streit, who’s done little since the beginning of training camp to dispel the notion that the game has passed him by.
Discarding the obvious—that one of the best players in the world took over the game and in the process did something that hadn’t been done since the NHL’s inaugural year (1917) by scoring a hat trick in consecutive games to start a season—the Canadiens have ample reason to be concerned about their blue line. The turnover was dramatic over the summer, with Nathan Beaulieu, Alexei Emelin, Andrei Markov and Mikhail Sergachev moving out and Streit, Karl Alzner, 19-year-old Victor Mete and David Schlemko (currently on the injured reserve list) coming in. It’s understandable that things haven’t quite yet come together for the group as management might have hoped.
But the grace period can’t last much longer.
“It’s not back to the drawing board. It’s figuring out what our drawing is right now,” said Alzner, who was playing in his first-ever game against the Capitals after spending nine years with the organization. “We know it. We just haven’t put it all together yet. It’s going to come soon. It’s just a bad display tonight.”
It wasn’t the brightest display on Thursday, either, when the Canadiens allowed 45 shots against in a 3-2 shootout win over the Buffalo Sabres to begin their season.
Carey Price was otherworldly in net on that night. On this one, he was pulled after allowing four goals on 13 shots.
Price couldn’t be faulted on Ovechkin’s goals. A spinning slapshot that redirected off Canadiens forward Artturi Lehkonen was unstoppable. Ditto on the power-play marker Ovechkin scored from his usual spot on the left side of the ice.
And there was no chance Price could snag the high-slot tip Ovechkin snuck through him with 1:50 remaining in the first.
Price can hide the team’s blemishes on any given night with his god-given ability, but he can’t possibly do it every night.
“I think that there’s guys that can play way better than that,” said Canadiens coach Claude Julien. “We need more players playing a little bit better to have some success. We’ve got some guys struggling right now.”
Julien had said the same, on more than one occasion, while the Canadiens were stumbling out to a 0-6 record in the pre-season. He is not wrong in his conviction.
Benn proved outstanding for the majority of his time with the Canadiens last season after he was traded from the Dallas Stars in February. He was a stabilizing force at five-on-five, a gutsy penalty killer and a minute-muncher who could move up and down the lineup. He moved the puck quickly and precisely and quickly assumed a leadership role. All reasons general manager Marc Bergevin referred to him as a potential partner for Weber in pre-season interviews.
Weber is still among the best in the world—he showed it on Thursday, playing nearly 30 minutes of the game and punishing the Sabres with that heavy frame of his—and Petry is in the heart of his prime.
And even if Streit’s skating stride limits his ability to have the same impact on games he’s had for the majority of his career, he is capable of making much better decisions, of executing with more precision, and of playing as a sixth defenceman on occasion.
Sunday offers most (if not all) these players an occasion to show something better, with the Canadiens travelling to New York to take on the Rangers. There’s potential for Brandon Davidson or Joe Morrow to draw in and replace one of them.
As Benn said, “It’s just one night and we’ll forget about it and move on to the next one.”
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