MONTREAL — Martin St. Louis chipped away until he finally broke through, kind of like Brendan Gallagher, who swung wildly until he connected with Jake McCabe’s chin.
One more beating for the Toronto Maple Leafs, who have now lost eight in a row.
Whoa. Woe.
It was St. Louis’ Montreal Canadiens delivering this knockout. They did it his way.
“I felt we played a deep game not necessarily just dumping pucks,” the coach said. “We carried pucks deep, we activated our o-zone, I feel like we took what they gave us. We weren’t stubborn through the neutral zone, and I felt like we did a much better job managing the neutral zone when they were coming at us, inside our structure, with some of the details we’ve been hammering the last few days. And I felt it helped us out.”
A win’s a win, but this one felt markedly different than the one the last one the Canadiens earned, in Los Angeles on Saturday.
It was St. Louis' 150th as Canadiens coach and, as Jake Evans said after sealing it with an empty-net goal, his fingerprints were all over it.
“I think he’s a great coach because he’s hard on us when he needs to be,” Evans said, “and he reasons with us when sometimes we deserve better and it didn’t go our way.”
You can guess which version of St. Louis the Canadiens got after that trip through California.
While they were on the road, the details he was hammering away on were about puck management, about establishing offensive-zone presence rather than one-and-done rush chances, and about how to defend at five-on-six.
Everything finally sunk in against the Leafs, who, according to their traveling reporters in attendance at the Bell Centre, were dominated in the first period in a way they hadn’t been in any other period over their horrid post-Olympic stretch.
The Canadiens managed the puck near perfectly through the neutral zone, not giving it away in that area of the ice a single time through those first 20 minutes. They carried or dumped the puck in and cycled the Leafs through a turbine before finally breaking them on the play Ivan Demidov, Alex Newhook and Oliver Kapanen connected on. And shortly after Phillip Danault put them up 2-0, they went to the intermission also leading in shot attempts (32-9), scoring chances (14-3) and high-danger chances (7-1).
“I’d have liked for us to have separated a bit more,” said St. Louis.
But at least he could say that after momentum swung Toronto’s way in the second period — with penalties for Arber Xhekaj and Lane Hutson helping and a giveaway from Noah Dobson leading to a William Nylander goal — the Canadiens quickly got things back on the rails and found a way to close the game out the right way.
Even without Cole Caufield, who missed all but two power-play shifts over the final 26 minutes because he was sick.
How the Canadiens did it at five-on-six was exactly what they had practised a week prior in San Jose.
It had become a hot-button issue to correct after allowing nine goals in such situations over the first 59 games of the season, and it continued to be one through the final two games of the California trip.
The Anaheim Ducks made the Canadiens pay for it last Thursday when Chris Kreider tipped an open point shot from Jacob Trouba to tie the game 5-5 before Alex Killorn won it in the shootout. The Kings nearly made them pay for it on Saturday, when St. Louis said their survival in that situation had been more good fortune than good structure.
But against the Leafs, the Canadiens stuck to their positions in the middle of the ice instead of chasing the puck on the sides when it was in the opposition’s full control. They got aggressive when the puck shook loose on the boards, and when the Leafs got it back and tried to attack, the Canadiens communicated, retreated to the middle and blocked Toronto’s best shot attempts.
“That’s what it takes to win,” said St. Louis.
It takes Mike Matheson eating one in the foot with 38 seconds to go before springing Evans for the goal that cemented this 3-1 lead.
“He was awesome tonight,” said Evans of the defenceman who had an assist and came up with two other huge blocks while playing most of his game-high 23:49 against Toronto’s most dangerous players.
But Evans could’ve said the same of Demidov, Kapanen or Hutson. Or linemates Zachary Bolduc and Kirby Dach. Not to mention Nick Suzuki and Juraj Slafkovsky, or Jakub Dobes, who made 17 saves and notched his 21st win of the season.
It was a group effort, with the Canadiens pounding on the battered Maple Leafs.
The outcome wasn’t all that surprising, but the way it was achieved was a departure of what we’ve seen from them of late — much to St. Louis’ satisfaction.
