There was Florian Xhekaj, all by himself, standing right in front of Mackenzie Blackwood with the glint of his first NHL goal sparkling in his eye and the puck arriving on his stick right on time to notch it.
He’d have never suspected that reinforced piece of carbon fibre was too weak to deliver that moment he’d always dreamed of.
Poof! Xhekaj leaned on the shaft of it, and it snapped in half.
He was shaking it off on the bench when, seconds later, Juraj Slafkovsky gave Ivan Demidov a Grade-A chance the Russian narrowly missed to give this game against the Colorado Avalanche a completely different complexion.
The Montreal Canadiens ended up losing it with seemingly every bounce going against them.
The last one of consequence came just a minute and change after that series of unfortunate events involving Xhekaj, Slafkovsky and Demidov. It tipped Colorado’s way at four-on-four when Nathan MacKinnon jumped off the bench and took advantage of a broken play in the neutral zone to skate unimpeded through Montreal’s slot and cash in on the 387th goal of his sterling career to make it 5-1 Avalanche.
What are you going to do?
The Canadiens should just forget it.
“You can’t just throw it out,” coach Martin St. Louis said to reporters at Ball Arena. “We’ll watch it. We don’t play again until Tuesday. Not sure exactly what I’ll do with it. It’s just 15 minutes after it ended.”
Even he had to have known it had the makings of a scheduled loss.
This was Montreal’s third game in four days, their second of this trip being played in the Mountain time zone to bookend Friday’s 1:00 p.m. PT start in Las Vegas, and it was meant to be the hardest one of the bunch due to the altitude in Denver and the opponent (this steamroller Avalanche team that came into it with one regulation loss in 24 games this season). Talk about long odds.
St. Louis should be happy with how the Canadiens faced them.
He said he was content with the way they did to start, and a review of the tape will only confirm that feeling for him.
The Canadiens came out with the best of intentions. They tilted the ice, hemming the Avalanche in, notching scoring chance after scoring chance and eight of the first 11 shots in the game. A single bounce would’ve given them an early lead they had earned, but it never came.
One immediately went against the Canadiens when Florian’s brother, Arber, caught his heel on teammate Alex Carrier’s skate as he was backing up to defend Brock Nelson on the rush.
Nelson took advantage of that mishap and scored.
His goal came just under six minutes before Avalanche captain Gabriel Landeskog scored one that shouldn’t have counted.
He entered Jakub Dobes’ crease on his own, and he caused the collision with Canadiens forward Josh Anderson that led to him contacting Dobes’ skate and taking the Montreal goaltender out of the play.
But the NHL ruled it was Anderson’s fault after St. Louis challenged it, and it seemed clear then and there the Canadiens weren’t destined to win this game.
It was confirmed well before they lost it 7-2, and there wasn’t some deeper lesson to take from it.
“We didn’t defend well enough,” Nick Suzuki told reporters in attendance after the game ended.
“It felt like a lot of their chances came off the rush, and they’re a really good rush team,” he said. “I thought our coverage was sloppy at times and allowed them to find the seams, find guys off the rush quickly, and that was kind of what hurt us the most.”
Suzuki and his teammates should be most upset with themselves for that self-inflicted damage, which proved most painful after reacting poorly to falling down 3-0 in the first minute of the second period. St. Louis certainly appeared to be irate with them for forcing multiple plays in the three minutes between that goal and the next one.
Cameras caught him lacing into his players and urging them to stay in the game.
They responded well, with Demidov scoring just over four minutes later.
He then set up that chance for Xhekaj before missing the next one Slafkovsky set for him, and the game devolved from there.
Is there much more to take from it?
Most losses deliver more. They dole out lessons demanding deep introspection and self-reflection.
But the Canadiens don’t have to scratch beyond the surface to digest it and respond appropriately.
Clean up the coverage, reinforce the need for composure when the game feels like it’s slipping, and chalk the rest up to some terrible bounces.
The Canadiens may have gotten some good ones over three wins leading into this loss, but they earned those with the way they played. The outcome in Colorado didn’t mitigate that success, and they’re coming home from this three-game road trip with four points earned in regulation—and with much more positive than negative to focus on ahead of their next game.
Some of it includes Dobes and Samuel Montembeault stepping up in net for the most part. Zachary Bolduc also had an offensive awakening while Slafkovsky continued to drive his line with Demidov and Oliver Kapanen. Alexandre Texier not only notched his first point with the team but also proved he could help provide some balance up front, and the team’s power play came back to life.
All of that outweighs the misfortune suffered in Denver.
It should give the Canadiens confidence to start December on the right foot, against their most heated rival, the Ottawa Senators, at the Bell Centre Tuesday.
Maybe Xhekaj will get another look at his first then.
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