Cowan: Young Canadiens team maturing before our eyes

This rebuilding Canadiens team is starting to look like a real good bottle of young wine.

But with a bottle of young wine all you can do is put it on a shelf and look at it for a few years while waiting for it to age and mature before finally popping the cork and enjoying a taste.

With the Canadiens, fans have been able to enjoy a few sips while watching the team age and mature this season. They have been getting gulps over the last month with the Canadiens posting a 9-2-1 record over the last 12 games, improving their season record to 20-18-4. They woke up Monday morning in Utah only two points out of a wild-card playoff spot in the Eastern Conference and will face the Utah Hockey Club Tuesday (9 p.m., TSN2, RDS).

In their first 21 games this season the Canadiens had a 7-11-3 record and a minus-22 goal differential. In their last 21 games they are 13-7-1 with a plus-8 goal differential — including an embarrassing 9-2 loss to the Pittsburgh Penguins on Dec. 12 at the Bell Centre that might have been a turning point in the season. Since then the Canadiens have a 9-3-1 record and a plus-15 goal differential.

Canadiens defenceman Alexandre Carrier enjoys a good glass of wine and he smiled after Saturday’s 2-1 shootout loss to the Dallas Stars at the Bell Centre when I mentioned that his team looks like a good bottle of young wine.

“Exactly,” he said. “It’s aging well right now. We’re learning how to win, how to compete against really good teams, playoff teams that have been through playoff experience and all that. … Yeah, it’s aging well … I like the reference.”

Carrier has played a big role in the turnaround since being acquired from the Nashville Predators in exchange for Justin Barron on Dec. 18.

After Saturday’s game head coach Martin St. Louis said: “I liked our game. We had no passengers.”

St. Louis added that his team played a mature game and earned a big point after beating the Capitals 3-2 in overtime Friday night in Washington.

“I think we’ve had a nice progression, evolution of our team in the last, I don’t know, five weeks, maybe,” St. Louis said. “I go as far back as that game we played in Washington (a 6-3 loss to the Capitals on Oct. 31). I go as far back as that. I think from that point on we took a different approach. It was group decision. We didn’t quite get the success right away, but you could tell it was turning.

“The players are playing for what’s best for the team, not what’s best for themselves, the individual,” St. Louis added. “I think when you have that buy in, if you’re not bought in you stick out like a sore thumb.”

St. Louis said a team can have a “very good recipe” like the Canadiens do now — able to roll four forward lines and three defence pairings with everyone healthy, along with solid goaltending from Samuel Montembeault and Jakub Dobes — but the key is being able to repeat it.

Same thing with a good wine.

“I think on the side of maturity we’ve taken a big step because we have more consistency,” St. Louis said. “It starts with an attitude, a mindset.”

When asked where his team has matured most, St. Louis said: “It’s our decision making with the puck. We have less actions that help the other team. When you do that you’re harder to play against. We don’t start their stuff. Of course, we’ve improved at so many things. I feel like if I go back to last year, we’d be playing a really good game and then, all of a sudden, bang-bang — two, three goals for the other team. It’s like a two-minute span, but we just tried stuff that wasn’t there and it was in the back of our net.

“I feel now we’re more calculated, we understand the risk management, and it shows,” the coach added. “It allows us to be in games. It doesn’t guarantee the win, but the percentage of being successful goes up. So to me, it’s a big thing if you want to win in this league is eliminate the actions that help the other team.”

Guhle chuckled after Saturday’s game when I told him the Canadiens were looking like a good bottle of young wine.

“I think you’re right there,” he said. “I think we got a lot of young players that are hungry and, we’ve said it a lot of times, want to be in the mix. I think everyone’s found their game and everyone’s playing together and we found kind of our identity. We’re such a resilient team right now and I don’t expect that to change any time soon. It’s just been a blast to be part of.

“Seeing the team improve over this past month, how hard we’ve worked and all the work we’ve put in is paying off,” he added. “It’s been fun.”

It’s also been fun to watch.