MONTREAL – In a context of reconstruction, Martin St-Louis appears calm after most defeats. But this, undermined by a horrible first period, he could not digest so easily.
“Second period and third period don’t really mean anything after a first equal. It’s boring…”, St-Louis snapped with a furious look.
The coach said such performances challenged him. He’s well prepared to live with the ups and downs of a rebuild, but such a lack of commitment can only bring out his competitive spirit.
Plus, his brief response spoke volumes about how he wanted his players to feel after their first half.
“Embarrassed,” he summed up in one word.
“They know I wasn’t happy,” she added later.
With his few responses tinged with frustration, one wondered how St. Louis would handle such a disappointing departure from his team in his playing days. It is speculated that he would have barded on the bench.
In this regard, fellow veteran Marc De Foy asked him if he lacked the leadership in his group to handle an environment like this.
“I don’t know, I’m not a little fly who hears everything that is said in the room. But our first period is unacceptable. I don’t know if it was communicated in the room between the players.
“We’ll sort things out, but also the problem of having had such a period,” assured the coach.
St. Louis’ reaction was also justified by the fact that his team had just snapped a seven-game losing streak with a more encouraging performance.
“After that big win, it seemed like we took it lightly. However, there are no easy matches in this league. Also, against a team like Kraken who are playing very well these days. However, we knew what awaited us,” said Nick Suzuki with incomprehension.
“It’s frustrating, we’re playing very inconsistently at the moment,” summed up Arber Xhekaj, who himself had a disappointing night.
This theme was recurrent in the discussions with the four players (Suzuki, Xhekaj, Montembeault and Slafkovsky) who met the media after the match.
“We tried to build on Saturday’s win, but it didn’t happen. We won’t play at this level next game, we didn’t have it at all in the first period. He hurt us,” noted Slafkovsky who has been at the center of some interesting offensive series.
The only trio that had a more convincing performance remains the one formed by Jake Evans, Joel Armia and Evgenii Dadonov. It was nothing to console the coach.
“Yes, this trio gives us consistency in their game. But more is needed, we have had too many passengers in this game, especially when we leave,” identified St-Louis.
“We’re not good enough as a team to have passengers,” he insisted.
Though sidelined for two games, Mike Hoffman was far from having the pleasure of eating tapes. Jonathan Drouin should also have been more impactful in actions than him and the list goes on.
