MONTREAL – Martin St-Louis perhaps felt like a teacher after the game, although he repeated the same speech to his players, his young team is struggling to register the message for the moment.
This year, the Canadian coach did not hesitate to insist on the fact that his team too often makes the same mistake, that of not making the right decisions by “forcing” the game.
This shortcoming was repeated against the Penguins in the first period, but it was especially accentuated during the following third. This ride allowed visitors to go up the slope to eventually win.
“It’s a bit of awareness, to understand the pulse of the team in the game. When you have just had two or three bad shifts, you just have to simplify your game to breathe easier. The opposing club doesn’t make it easy for you either. You have to understand that opponents smell blood, as you can when you play well. These are learning errors and it comes a bit from youth too,” described St-Louis.
“We are having trouble moving to the next stage. Overall, we played a good game, but we gave them opportunities on a silver platter, they didn’t have to beat our system,” said the coach.
You don’t need to have a Hall of Fame hockey background like St. Louis to understand that the Canadian had a perfect example to study in front of him.
“(Sidney) Crosby is still a great player. There aren’t many turnovers in his game and he’s a star player. This is a great example to help us manage things better. He respects the game when he doesn’t have too much space,” noted the CH coach.
In the Canadian locker room, it felt like the turnovers were disturbing the group.
“I think these are mostly bad decisions, we should have made better reads and played more intelligently by completing more small plays to counter their forecheck,” commented David Savard frankly.
“We never want to let go of a two-goal lead, it would have been a big win for our team. One point, it wasn’t bad, but it was our match,” continued Kaiden Guhle, knowing that he himself had been the victim of a few turnovers.
Jayden Struble, who deploys an overall cautious style, avoided his name appearing in the turnovers column. He thus explained the poor second period of his troop.
“We gave them things during this period and they gained momentum. We have to minimize these errors and maintain our plan throughout the match,” summarized Struble who continues to gain points.
Let’s end on a different note, the Canadiens’ defenders continue to produce at an astonishing rate. The CH’s defensive brigade even finds itself at the top of the NHL with teams like the Colorado Avalanche in this regard.
“It surprises me, that’s for sure. It’s linked to our philosophy regarding how hockey evolves, you attack with four and sometimes with five. Our defenders are a big part of our concepts in the offensive zone. It’s positive,” said St-Louis.
In this match, Savard and Struble threaded the needle to raise the total to 22 goals for the Habs defenders against 42 for all the attackers in the group.
2023-12-14 04:59:00
#StLouis #teach #students #apply #Éric #Leblanc #RDS
