Mike Matheson lost the puck, lost his balance, and then his cool as he realized the Montreal Canadiens’ lead on their closest competition in the playoff race was on the verge of slipping.
Bad bounces, bad outcomes, and yeah, pretty bad vibes on a night where the Canadiens played near perfectly for 56 minutes and were undone by a rolling puck and a lost edge.
“We played a mature game,” coach Martin St. Louis told reporters at Little Caesars Arena after it ended 3-1 in favour of the pursuant Detroit Red Wings. “We were in control of the game for a long time. It’s disappointing. In the moment, this game hurts.”
The pain started with a deflected puck that got the Red Wings on the board in the 43rd minute of play.
Patrick Kane’s wide point shot hit J.T. Compher on the side of Jakub Dobes’ net, but it would’ve never gone in had the Canadiens made the right plays while they were in full possession of the puck 200 feet from their own net.
The play ended with them fishing it out of Dobes' net after all three of their forwards got caught scrambling to recover from the opposing goal line, and that was regrettable.
But it wasn’t representative of how the Canadiens played, which is what they must focus on to keep their place in the ever-tightening race towards the playoffs.
“We played fast, we played physical,” said Juraj Slafkovsky, who scored his 25th goal of the season to give the Canadiens a 1-0 lead they had more than earned through 37:45 of play.
You think of some of the wins the Canadiens didn’t really earn but notched over the last 12 games, and figure a bad bounce like the one Matheson suffered was coming.
Alex DeBrincat picked it up and buried it for a 2-1 Red Wings lead with 3:25 to go in regulation, leaving Matheson shattering his stick in frustration.
As Andrew Copp was celebrating the empty netter that guaranteed Points 83 and 84 of their season, the Boston Bruins were putting the finishing touches on a 6-1 win over the Winnipeg Jets to get to 84, the Columbus Blue Jackets were finalizing a 6-3 win over the New York Rangers to get to 83, and the Ottawa Senators (79) were helping the Blue Jackets climb over the New York Islanders by beating the Islanders and helping themselves to a win that kept their thin playoff hopes alive.
And so, the Canadiens, who have been a top-10 team in the league from wire to wire, were left holding their heads in their hands and barely holding a lead for third place in the Atlantic Division with 14 games remaining.
They, too, have 84 points, though they’ve played one less game than both the Bruins and Red Wings.
A little breathing room was on the line Thursday, but now the collars have tightened.
“We’ll pick ourselves up,” said St. Louis.
His team will have to do it by continuing to play the way it has this week, even if it only has Tuesday’s overtime win over the Bruins to show for it.
That game, and this one against the Red Wings, were hard-fought, tight-checking performances, with almost all risks perfectly calculated and nearly all details checked.
Maybe the 5-1, 6-2 performances in February wins were more exhilarating, but they don’t get the job done at this time of year, this close to the playoffs.
“To win games, it takes what it takes,” said St. Louis earlier in the day. “It takes effort. It takes combativity. It takes physicality. That’s a decision for the players, a decision for the group, and we’re able to do it.”
The Canadiens showed it in 3-1 and 3-2 wins notched over Toronto and Ottawa, respectively, last week. And after straying in disappointing, loose-playing losses to the San Jose Sharks and Anaheim Ducks over the weekend, they committed to the right brand again in games against the Bruins and Red Wings.
The outcome of Thursday’s game shouldn’t stop them from continuing to do it over their remaining ones.
Two of the next three are against the deadlocked Islanders and Blue Jackets, with a matchup against the Eastern Conference-leading Carolina Hurricanes sandwiched in between. All three games will be at the Bell Centre, preceding a five-game road trip through Carolina, Nashville, Tampa, New York and New Jersey.
And then the Canadiens will have six games remaining, with three of them against teams that narrowed the gap on them in the standings Thursday.
“It sucks that we didn’t win,” said Slafkovsky.
He and his teammates missed some good chances to pull away before he finally buried their first goal.
And then?
“Bad bounces,” said Phillip Danault.
Best to keep that in perspective before Saturday’s game against the Islanders.
