MONTREAL — This was the response the Montreal Canadiens were looking for, coming off Tuesday’s embarrassing brush with history. They choked away a four-goal lead in the final 2:39 of the third period before losing 5-4 in overtime to the Winnipeg Jets that night and wore the stench of that embarrassment for 40-odd hours before having to face off against a dynamic Utah Mammoth team Thursday.
When adversity knocked early—a two-goal lead spotted to Utah on rushes gifted to Logan Cooley—the Canadiens didn’t cower; they stood up to it, firing back with two goals before the first period ended.
Then they went down 3-2 and made it 3-3. And then back down 4-3 before making it 4-4.
And after Cole Caufield won it in overtime—as only Caufield would, with a ripped shot over Sebastian Cossa’s shoulder—the Canadiens had confirmed what they already knew to be true about themselves.
“We have a lot of character,” said Arber Xhekaj, who was one of three players to notch their first goal of the season in this 5-4 win over the Mammoth.
He showed it, big time, ripping the NHL’s hardest shot recorded for a goal this season and then fighting Liam O’Brien off the next faceoff.
Juraj Slafkovsky, whose early-season struggles were only magnified in the loss to the Jets, showed tremendous character to rediscover the best version of himself at both ends of the ice.
“My feet were moving, I was winning battles, I was protecting the puck well, making plays, and shooting on net,” Slafkovsky said, outlining the difference in his performance from game to game.
In his last one, he didn’t do any of those things.
Canadiens captain Nick Suzuki was absent from that one. It was his sixth game on the sidelines, and had it not been, the team might’ve avoided its fate that night.
But that would’ve made what happened on Thursday night far less relevant, with Suzuki firmly holding the rudder to navigate his team through such choppy waters.
“He controls the temperature of the room and the bench,” said Kirby Dach, who returned from two games off due to illness to notch an assist on Xhekaj’s goal and score the power-play marker that made it 3-3 in the third period.
It was Dach’s first goal of the season, and it would’ve been the timeliest goal of the night had Adam Engstrom not levelled the game at four with his first NHL goal.
The 22-year-old rookie started this game on his heels, watching Cooley burn right by him for his first of three goals.
But Engstrom responded as well as all his teammates did when it mattered most, exhibiting exactly what Canadiens coach Martin St. Louis expected they would after Tuesday’s debacle.
“It doesn’t say anything that I don’t already know,” St. Louis said. “This group is hungry. We’re not perfect. It’s a long season, we’re going to have some ups and downs, but I think we stay on task. And that’s what we did tonight, no matter what scenario transpired last game. It’s a fun group to coach. I don’t think (the game is) telling me anything I don’t already know. We’re resilient. I think we can repair. We can be honest and repair, and guys are engaged.”
From Caufield to Xhekaj, from Slafkovsky to Engstrom, and from Dach to Suzuki, who had a goal, two assists, won 11 of 20 faceoffs, and finished plus-2 in 25 shifts spread over 20:04.
The Canadiens went 5-0-0 without the captain before they blew a chance to win Game 6 and allowed the Jets to complete the latest four-goal comeback in a game in NHL history on Tuesday.
But they played horribly in that game and should’ve lost it by a much greater margin, never mind in overtime.
St. Louis said, “Maybe getting smacked in the teeth was what we needed.”
Maybe he was right.
The Canadiens’ details had slipped, and though they weren’t perfect in this response game, their intentions were.
The Mammoth, who came into the game having generated the fifth-most rush chances in the league, still got some, which greatly benefitted Cooley. Their power play, which was at 36.4 per cent prior to Thursday, was given too many chances by the Canadiens and connected on three of them.
But two of those were broken plays involving broken sticks for the Canadiens, who controlled the run of play at five-on-five and found a way to remain calm and focused at all times, no matter the score.
Behind them, Jakub Dobes came up with some big saves.
Cooley scored on him with the first shot of the game, and three other pucks found the back of his net, but he kept the Canadiens going before Caufield ended it.
“Collectively, I thought it was great,” said Suzuki.
It needed to be for the Canadiens. Especially after the loss to the Jets.
