Maple Leafs 0 – Canadian 1 | When 48 trees hide the forest

The optimists versus the pessimists. The glass half full versus the glass half empty. Rose-colored glasses against cynics.

Choose the duality you want, it will apply wonderfully to the Canadian’s 1-0 victory against the Toronto Maple Leafs on Wednesday, as a curtain-raiser to this 2024-2025 season of the two rivals.

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Glass-half-full fans will rejoice at the 0 in the goals allowed column for a team that presented the 26th^e NHL defense last season, and who faced the 2^e attack which is led by Auston Matthews, the man who best masters the art of putting it in.

But the killjoys will rather focus on the 48 in the column of Samuel Montembeault’s saves. Which means, for the uninitiated, that the Maple Leafs shot the Habs goaltender 48 times.

So the question to Nick Suzuki was very simple: which of the two numbers will you remember after such a match?

“I think the statisticians are inflating Monty’s statistics a little!” the captain first said, visibly in teasing mode, before regaining his seriousness.

“But obviously, we don’t want to give up that many shots. »

Same story with David Savard, the one who seemed happier than Montembeault himself at the sound of the siren.

“We can’t do that every game, we won’t win,” Savard agreed. Monty played very well. There were a lot of emotions on both sides, the crowd is into it. We’re just happy with the two points and we’ll look at how we can improve defensively. »

The numbers don’t lie. To the Leafs’ 48 shots, we must add the three pucks that ended up on the post, counted as off-target shots in the official records. One of them came precisely from Matthews, author of a backhand shot of incredible quality.

“I came to the bench at the commercial break, and that’s what I said to [Cayden] Primeau: she left so quickly! “, said Montembeault.

According to Natural Stat Trick, the Leafs dominated 15-3 in scoring chances at 5 on 5. The Torontonians particularly spoiled themselves against the Suzuki trio, with a 6-0 advantage in scoring chances. Suzuki, Cole Caufield and Juraj Slafkovsky spent many of their presence besieged in their territory, chasing the puck.

However, the opportunity was good for them, facing the Leafs forced to use their number 2 goalie, Anthony Stolarz, because number 1, Joseph Woll, is already injured. But after braving the storm in the first half, Stolarz was hardly tested.

“There were definitely some mistakes, but we helped each other. Monty helped us and there were posts. It will never be perfect against such a powerful team, but we were solid,” Suzuki nevertheless said.

The allegory of the tree that hides the forest is possibly the most accurate in this case. Except that the Canadiens players have just experienced three exclusions in a row from the playoffs and their reaction to the acquisition of Patrik Laine this year suggested that they are fed up. The morning training on Wednesday concluded with the words of Stéphane Robidas to the group, words very clearly audible to the string of journalists in the stands of the Bell Center: “Why not us? Why not this year? »

Words that suggest that in the balance between process and results, more importance will now be given to results.

“We are still focusing on the process,” replied St-Louis. There, we face Boston tomorrow. How much will I really analyze our mistakes tonight? Would it be better to focus on Boston, and take stock of our mistakes on Friday? It’s a balance, we will always focus on the process and victory is a corollary of what we do every day.

“Tonight, I’m proud that we held our own. Was it perfect? No, but we played a very good match. They have a big attack and we found a way to bend without breaking. »

The real winner of this evening is Montembeault. He reminded his teammates that they can have confidence in him, and on a more personal note, he gained points in his parallel mission which consists of positioning himself among the Canadian goalkeepers for the upcoming international meetings. What better way to do it than in front of an audience that is both national and Toronto?

“I try not to think about that,” Montembeault replied. But I heard the team was being made quickly, in December. The start of the season is important. I had a good match tonight. It will be to continue until then. Well, the whole season in fact! »

Rising: Alex Newhook

Hyper visible despite a playing time of 13 minutes. The scoring opportunities from the second power play unit went through him.

Down: Christian Dvorak

If the match is faithful to the Canadian’s plans, he was overtaken by Jake Evans in the hierarchy at center. He played 8 min 10 s at even strength; only Alex Barré-Boulet was less employed.

In detail

Armia was ready

Joel Armia introduced himself with a smile as wide as Finland is on Wednesday morning. “You can’t not be excited,” he said, as happy as anyone to be in the opening match, a year after watching the same opening match in his living room because he had been cut off. The big right winger played like an enthusiastic guy, first by taking three shots, he who is used to being too generous with his teammates. He was particularly effective, even imperial, when outnumbered. During one of his appearances, he was even treated to applause from the crowd when he returned to the bench, simply because he had just spent seconds in the opposing zone. At the end of the match, he was part of the quintet delegated to protect the one-goal lead when the Leafs were attacking with six, probably the best mark of confidence from his coach.

The bar was not high…

CH’s numerical advantage has been the talk of the town, for the wrong reasons, so far. The camp’s numbers, as a reminder: 0 in 30, only 30 shots in 51 minutes. The only goal of the match was scored in these circumstances, but goal or not, both units had much better moments than what we saw during the preparatory calendar. In 7 min 6 s, the Montrealers generated eight shots, including some nice constructions, notably towards Alex Newhook between the faceoff circles. Cole Caufield scored on a play worthy of the month of March, not October. “Training camp is about preparing,” Caufield recalled. We tried things, but in season, the results are everything. I’m glad we broke the ice. »

No fuss

With preparatory matches that gave the Bell Center the air of the Paul-Sauvé Center, it was possible to predict some excesses for this clash between the postal codes in H and those in M. It was not the case. Arber Xhekaj was certainly ready to come to blows with Ryan Reaves, but the two strong men postponed the project. Max Domi, for his part, took issue with David Savard at the start of the match, but the veteran CH defender turned the other cheek and his team was entitled to a numerical advantage as a reward. Savard recovered by delivering a good shoulder blow to Domi, sparking joy in the crowd. “There was emotion and we stayed focused on what we had to do. It’s a great sign of maturity for our team,” said Savard.