Montreal is always a more buoyant city when the hockey team is winning.
During the long, frigid trek from Christmas to Easter, it sometimes seems that hockey is all that is keeping us afloat as we await that first heady burst of spring when we take to the streets, pale and blinking in the unfamiliar light, greeting random strangers as they pass.
That chilly trek isn’t what it used to be, nor is the hockey team. Winter is an odd, ungainly thing now, truncated by warm spells and rain, the temperatures yo-yoing up and down like a carnival ride, thawing one day and freezing into a dangerous icescape the next.
And after one of the more dizzying stretches in their long and glorious history, the Canadiens have to regroup after Thursday night’s 4-0 shutout engineered by Marc-André Fleury and the Minnesota Wild. That one-sided affair extended the losing streak to four games, the playoff hopes receding with the freak injury to key defenceman Kaiden Guhle, whose quadricep muscle was apparently lacerated by his own skate.
Over and done, right? Woe be we and all that. Except that hockey in this city has been transformed — there will be playoff hockey in Montreal this spring, whether the Canadiens are involved or not. First, the Montreal Victoire, winners of back-to-back games, 4-1 over Ottawa Wednesday and 4-3 over Toronto in a shootout Thursday, are the class of the PWHL in the league’s second season.
Laura Stacey, the star of the win over Toronto with a goal, two assists and a shootout goal, noted the atmosphere we associate with winning Canadiens teams. “I think the feeling that we had at centre ice after the win would be my favourite moment of the night,” Stacey said. “Just the crowd — this crowd is electric.
“Honestly, I never felt so much love, from skating out there for warm-up, seeing signs, and that feeling we had as we were all like, ‘we just got five out of six points on back-to-back nights’ and that’s huge as a team.”
The back-to-back wins left the Victoire with 28 points in 13 games, three points up on rival Minnesota Frost with two games in hand in a 30-game season. No one else is even in the mix — the third-place New York Sirens have only 19 points.
The Canadiens may be attempting to rebuild the most storied franchise in the game while the Victoire are laying the foundation for a new team in a new league, but the philosophy appears similar — choose players for intelligence and character as well as sheer physical talent, athletes who can merge with others and comprehend complex systems.
After the shootout win over Toronto, head coach Kori Cheverie noted that the Victoire now have considerably more depth than during their inaugural season, when the roster was paper-thin.
“I thought that we really drafted well, and some of the players that we were after not only could bring high-level scoring but also bring character, grit and depth to our lineup. … In the first year, you’re not really sure who or what you’re looking at in terms of a league, and we realized pretty quickly what types of players were going to have some success in this league. We just wanted to build on that foundation. I thought we did a really good job with that and now we’re reaping the rewards.”
Meanwhile, the Rocket (the Canadiens’ affiliate in the AHL) now lead the Rochester Americans in the North Division by a point with a game in hand and are within three points of the league-leading Calgary Wranglers overall.
With 32 games to go, the Rocket have a chance to strengthen their playoff position with back-to-back games against the Hartford Wolf Pack this weekend at Place Bell in Laval, which has been a busy venue this week. The Rocket are playing brilliant hockey under head coach Pascal Vincent, goalie Cayden Primeau has found his game after being sent to Laval and there is enough talent on the roster to make for a spring playoff run.
The Canadiens, on the other hand, have a pretty clear task ahead. Win two of three games in their California swing this coming week, then at least one of two on Super Bowl weekend with the Devils and Lightning in town.
The highly educated physicians in the Montreal media have declared Guhle’s season over following that gruesome thigh injury and it may be, putting an end to a stretch when he was the team’s best overall defenceman after he was paired with Alexandre Carrier. Personally, I’d rather wait for official word from the Canadiens before writing him off.
Because this is Montreal, the Canadiens have been roasted for calling up Jayden Struble to replace Guhle in the lineup instead of right-shot defenceman Logan Mailloux. I prefer to assume the club has sound reasons for going with Struble, who was solid last season — but Mailloux’s stock with the club has clearly fallen while he works on his defensive game.
But cheer up, Montreal. You have the Rocket, you have the Victoire, you will have playoff hockey this spring with or without the Habs.