When Canadiens head coach Martin St. Louis met with the media after practice Friday in Brossard he repeated several times: “It’s only seven games.”
That was true — but it looked like the wheels were already falling off the Canadiens with a 2-4-1 record, injury problems and four straight losses (0-3-1). They were also embarrassed 7-2 by the New York Rangers on Thursday night at the Bell Centre after a pre-game ceremony to honour the 1970s Canadiens dynasty team that won four straight Stanley Cups from 1976-79.
The weekend didn’t look promising with back-to-back games against the St. Louis Blues on Saturday night at the Bell Centre and against the Flyers on Sunday night in Philadelphia.
The Canadiens played a solid game Saturday night, beating the Blues 5-2.
Last season, the Canadiens played 12 sets of back-to-back games and had a 7-15-2 record in those 24 games. They went 1-11-0 in the second game of those back-to-backs, so the odds of them beating the Flyers weren’t good.
But the Canadiens showed why betting on sports is a dangerous game — no matter what all those TV ads for gambling sites tell you. They also showed their coach was right — “it’s only seven games” — by following up the win over the Blues with a 4-3 victory over the Flyers.
The Canadiens have now played two sets of 15 back-to-back games on their schedule this season and have a 3-1-0 record in those four games. They will be back in action Tuesday when the Seattle Kraken visit the Bell Centre (7 p.m., TSN2, RDS).
The Canadiens were without injured defencemen Kaiden Guhle and Justin Barron, and forwards Juraj Slafkovsky and Patrik Laine — who has yet to play this season because of knee injury — against the Flyers. But forward Josh Anderson, who left Saturday’s game early in the third period after blocking a shot, was in the lineup after the Canadiens had called up Lucas Condotta from the AHL’s Laval Rocket in case he would be needed.
There were a lot of positives in Philadelphia, including goalie Cayden Primeau, who came into the game with a 0-1-1 record, a 4.21 goals-against average and a .880 save percentage. Primeau made 23 saves for the win as the Flyers outshot the Canadiens 26-24.
Nick Suzuki, Brendan Gallagher, Cole Caufield and Jake Evans scored for the Canadiens, while Travis Sanheim had two goals for the Flyers and Travis Konecny added a single.
Suzuki extended his point streak to seven games, during which he has 3-8-11 totals, and Caufield’s goal was his eighth in nine games. Caufield didn’t get his eighth goal until the 30th game last season, when he finished with 28.
After Saturday’s game, Canadiens head coach Martin St. Louis was asked what the key to success is in the second half of back-to-back games.
“I think it’s having a good start and not shooting ourselves in the foot early,” he said. “It’s tough to play catchup off the back-to-backs. To me it’s really being patient early and not really beating yourself early. Just hang in there. Stay in there and maybe the special teams get you over the hump.”
That’s exactly what happened.
Suzuki opened the scoring at 10:42 of the first period before Sanheim tied it for the Flyers at 17:24 on only their fifth shot. The Canadiens then got three unanswered goals in the second period, including a power-play goal from Caufield.
The Canadiens looked like they had the game under control until Sanheim scored his second goal at 17:48 of the third period and then Konecky scored 29 seconds later. But the Canadiens were able to hang on for the win.
“If you didn’t see the game and you looked at the scoresheet, it was a close game,” St. Louis told reporters in Philadelphia after the game. “But I felt we controlled the big part of that game.”
The Canadiens’ power-play went 1-for-2 and their penalty-killers were 3-for-3.
Evans has been one of the Canadiens’ best players since the start of training camp and is in the final season of his contract with a US$1.7-million salary-cap hit. He has now scored in back-to-back games and is a big reason why the Canadiens’ penalty-killing has a 90-per-cent success rate.
When asked after Saturday’s game if the Canadiens were feeling added pressure heading into the weekend — even if it was “only seven games” — Evans said: “Maybe. I don’t think we talked about it, but for me I knew this was a huge game for us to rewrite how those first seven games went. I think that was a pretty good template of how we got to play the rest of the way.
“Marty always talks about setting his new standards and I think we set another one tonight — especially defensively,” Evans added Saturday night. “Part of growing up as a team is following that up the next day, especially if travel’s not in your favour or your not feeling great. It’s about following it up and doing what you can to help the team.”
The Canadiens followed it up very well Sunday night.