MONTREAL — There are no consolations. Especially not when you fail to pick up two points for a seventh straight game like the Montreal Canadiens did in losing 4-3 in overtime to the Philadelphia Flyers on Saturday afternoon.
But it’s important for the Canadiens to focus on what they did well in this game, because if they build on those things, they have a chance of digging their way out of this. And they have to dig themselves out of this immediately.
It’s the end of November and there are 56 games remaining on the season. That’s plenty of time to turn things around. But the Canadiens have just blown the easiest portion of their schedule, and things are about to get markedly more difficult for them.
The NHL-leading — and well-rested — Boston Bruins, who beat the Canadiens 8-1 earlier this week, are waiting at home to play a Sunday game against what will be a tired Montreal team.
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After that, the 16-5-2 New York Islanders will play in Montreal on Tuesday, and the Canadiens will face off against the 15-8-2 Colorado Avalanche on Thursday before flying to New York to face the Rangers (winners of three of their last four games) on Friday.
Eight of Montreal’s 10 games that follow the one in New York will be played on the road.
Safe to say, it’s crunch time.
So, about what the Canadiens did well against Philadelphia:
• They took control of the neutral zone and gave the Flyers very little off the rush after giving the New Jersey Devils everything they wanted in a 6-4 loss at the Bell Centre Thursday.
• They backchecked well and their defencemen played cautiously without the puck — leading to virtually no odd-man opportunities against.
“Maybe they had a few 2-on-3s,” said Canadiens goaltender Keith Kinkaid, who made 25 saves. “But I think we sorted those out.”
They did, breaking up those opportunities before they turned into scoring chances.
• The Canadiens scored three goals and would have had more than one on the power play if not for Flyers goaltender Brian Elliott making several quality saves.
“I hate using that as an excuse. I hate that,” said Nick Cousins, who was on for Montreal when Elliott robbed Canadiens teammate Jordan Weal twice late on a second-period power play.
“He played well, though. He did,” Cousins conceded.
• Montreal also dominated opportunities from the slot, out-shooting the Flyers from the most dangerous part of the ice by our count of 23-8. Tatar had a big hand in that, as did Joel Armia, who scored 19 seconds in and registered nine shots in the game.
On the whole, this was a good game for the Canadiens. There’s little doubt it was a step in the right direction.
“I wouldn’t say I’m satisfied,” said coach Claude Julien. “But we were much better this afternoon than we have been recently. Defensively, I found that we did way better work.”
That’s not to say the Canadiens were perfect. They still gave up four goals — most of them off jittery play with the puck in their own end — and they didn’t capitalize on some of their best opportunities.
“You still see a little bit of a little lack of confidence right now. That’s normal,” said Julien. “You hope that that’s going to turn around. Offensively we worked hard, but there was still — there wasn’t that big confidence as a group that we’ve seen in the past. So, we’ve got to work on hopefully that coming back.”
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Perhaps focusing on the positives will help in that aspect for Montreal.
It had better help Shea Weber, who uncharacteristically had a hard time handling the puck on Saturday. Ditto for Jeff Petry, Montreal’s most reliable defenceman over the last couple of years has been fighting the puck throughout this winless streak and that didn’t change against Philadelphia.
His worst turnover, which came just seconds after Tomas Tatar gave the Canadiens a 2-1 lead in the second period, directly resulted in Kevin Hayes scoring his 100th NHL goal.
Petry was extremely frustrated after the game.
“I think we need to be more predictable in where we’re going to be,” he said. “I think there’s times where you go back for a puck and we’re kind of guessing where we’re going to be, and you look at the good teams and they know exactly where they’re going to be and it’s easy to break out.”
That applied later in the third period, when Petry and Ben Chiarot were looking for options to move the puck up the ice and didn’t have any available. But it wasn’t exactly the case on the goal for Hayes.
“I think we just need to simplify things,” Petry said.
That’s never a bad idea. Especially with Victor Mete sidelined by a lower-body injury, which will be evaluated further in Montreal while the team is in Boston on Sunday.
If the Canadiens can simplify things, and if they can build on the things they did well against Philadelphia, it might lead them to a much-needed win.
