It’s easy to get whiplash as a Habs fan.
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A friend of mine called this Canadiens season a roller-coaster, and it sure is. Prior to the start of the season, the mood was remarkably upbeat, a new feeling following three straight terrible seasons. Kent Hughes had acquired Patrik Laine to fans’ delight and then management at the season-kickoff golf tournament promised that the team would be “in the mix” this year. That was meant to mean the Canadiens would be playing meaningful games late in the season, hovering somewhere in the vicinity of the final wild-card berth.
Samuel Montembeault looked like Patrick Roy in the season opener, shutting out the Toronto Maple Leafs, and suddenly it was like “Hey maybe we can talk playoffs.”
Less than two weeks later, the wheels went flying off the bus with an embarrassing 7-2 loss to the New York Rangers. That was followed by two wins for the good guys, which steadied people’s nerves, but then the good ship Canadiens smashed right into the dock with a six-game losing streak that began with an 8-2 shellacking courtesy of the Seattle Kraken.
In the middle of that meltdown, the word “train wreck” came up in my discussions with fans at the pub. In fact, I might’ve written a column with the headline: “This Canadiens season is a train wreck, not a rebuild.” Also with the spit hitting the fan, there was for the first time some public criticism of coach Martin St. Louis, most notably from Jean-Charles Lajoie on TVA Sports and Le Journal de Montréal and maybe even from this very columnist.
Then MSL’s lads actually won a game, beating another terrible team, the Buffalo Sabres, 7-5 in a match that was less hockey game and more gong show. All you need to know is that each team pulled their starting goalie. That was followed by another loss, 3-0 to the Minnesota Wild, but most were OK with that because the Wild are a very good team and suddenly the Canadiens’ defence actually looked like they knew what they were doing.
Add to that a 5-1 win over the lowly Blue Jackets and a statement 3-0 win versus the Edmonton Oilers and by this Monday around 10 p.m., fans were once again booking their deck chairs for the spring parade down Ste-Catherine St. That’s life in the Habs Nation.
Nicolas Martin Maranda nailed it on my Facebook page this week:
“Habs lose
Fans: FIRE EVERYBODY!
Habs win
Fans: ÇA SENT LA COUPE!”
My old friend Ted Harman was even more eloquent in the same Facebook convo:
“They win a game in September and we’re making plans for a parade. They go through a bad patch and La fin du monde est à 7 heures. Slaf can’t even legally order a beer when the Habs are south of the border. Everyone needs to relax. They’re working on building a team with what we hope will be an elite skill set, that will win tons of games. In the interim reach for your fave anti-anxiety meds.”
Habs fans are a neurotic and that’s why we love them. Fact is that was a mighty impressive game Monday. The defence played their best game of the year, shutting down Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl and the rest of the team that made it to within a goal of winning the Stanley Cup last season. Josh Anderson had a very good game, totally engaged, using his strength and size. Oh and Monty was absolutely lights out, underlining that as big a problem as any other this season for the Habs has been Montembeault’s wildly uneven play.
So have the Canadiens turned the corner? Is the rebuild back on track? Or was the beautiful game Monday simply the exception that proves the rule?
“I think they’re on the right track,” said Christian Rivard, who was at Maison Publique McLean’s on Wednesday. “They’re still a young team. To say they’ve really turned the corner, at this point it’s hard to tell. But we’re starting to impose our style of play.”
Luc Desrosiers also says it’s too soon to say if we’ve turned the corner.
“No one knows, maybe not,” said Desrosiers. “It remains to be seen. Give me a few more games and I’ll tell you. So they’ve had two or three good games. But is it just a blip and we’re going to go back to where we were? They have a lot of talent so they can continue to be on the rise. But will they stick together? But we have to be fuelled by hope so I’m 100-per-cent hopeful. If not this year then next year. Good stuff is coming.”
The next guy I approached at the pub said he was a fan but said he couldn’t comment for the article. I correctly guessed that he worked for the Canadiens organization. I asked what department he was in. He said, wait 20 minutes and you’ll understand.
It turns out I only had to wait five. In walked Habs assistant coach Stéphane Robidas who came to say hi to the fellow I was chatting with. Then came Trevor Letowski, another of the assistant coaches, who looks up close even more like Mike Matheson than he does on TV. The first guy I’d met was Roger Grillo, who was hired as a coaching consultant by the Canadiens in September. He coached St. Louis when he was playing for the University of Vermont in the ’90s.
They all sat down at the bar and ordered drinks. Then St. Louis himself showed up and sat down on the stool right next to me. So I figured I might as well ask him this week’s What the Puck question: Did he think the Canadiens have turned the corner?
When I told the story to a pal today, he joked that St. Louis must’ve answered by saying “I don’t believe in corners.”
In fact, the most philosophical of NHL coaches basically said that he wouldn’t say they’d turned the corner but rather that he sees this as a transitional season and that he likes the direction they’re headed.
I told him I thought Monday was the game of the year and again he wasn’t ready to fully agree. He said he liked a lot of what he saw Monday.
With that, I left them to enjoy their dinner in peace.