Canadian 2 – Rangers 5 | The precious hearings

(New York) All the major themes of a typical Canadian match were there.

A first period that looked good, a second that was much more difficult and a third that reminded us of the gap between the two opponents on the ice. Also: players who “shoot themselves in the foot” and a goalkeeper who keeps his team in the game.

Final result: 5-2 in favor of the New York Rangers, the best club in the NHL, a scenario that could almost have been written in advance. Everything was there, we said. For a rare time, head coach Martin St-Louis admitted that his men had “ran out of juice”. The Rangers didn’t ask for that much.

As is often the case, the Habs put up an honest fight five against five. The fact remains that without the brilliance of Cayden Primeau, we would undoubtedly have closed the books sooner.

During two periods, the American faced a number of point-blank shots. It took a puck deflected by his own teammate for the locals to score. And in the last third, despite the three additional nets, it was again he who avoided a thaw at CH.

“He played very well,” said Martin St-Louis, without much emotion. We will understand that after a third defeat in a row, the time was not for distributing compliments.

Primeau is not his first solid performance this season. However, it was his first against a top club.

Since the start of the campaign, and even more so since the start of 2024, it is Samuel Montembeault who has obtained the overwhelming majority of starts against the best teams.

Since 1^er January, CH played 19 matches against the 12 teams currently ranked in the first three ranks of each division. The Quebecer started 17 of these games, and Jake Allen and Cayden Primeau, one each.

In total for the season, Primeau got four starts against teams in this group. We could add to this list his two starts against the Tampa Bay Lightning, who are currently among the drafted teams.

Five times out of six, then, he had been either correct or ordinary. The sixth time is this duel against the Rangers. From the sixth minute of play, he robbed Artemi Panarin with the tip of the pad, after the Russian found himself alone in front of him. And in the second period, he did it again, again against Panarin, this time following a staging by Adam Fox.

Martin St-Louis attributed Primeau’s recent tougher challenges to his team’s schedule. The Canadian faces good clubs one after the other, and Montembeault cannot play every match, he argued.

However, Primeau felt that he learned a lot of “learning” from the last week, during which he competed against the Lightning and the Rangers. Which is precious, in the circumstances.

There is a lot of talk at the end of the season about players who want, or need to, leave a good impression. Cayden Primeau is one of them.

Barron too

The same could probably be said of Justin Barron.

The defenseman, urgently recalled Saturday from the Laval Rocket after the team lost the services of Kaiden Guhle and Arber Xhekaj, continued in Manhattan the good work he began the day before against the Toronto Maple Leafs.

He found himself on the ice for the Rangers’ fourth goal late in the game, but in all honesty, it probably wouldn’t have happened without the turnover caused by Josh Anderson.

Besides, to the right of Jayden Struble, he was not intimidated at all. The duo was mostly pitted against supporting forwards, but they also kept Panarin’s unit quiet during their roughly two-minute standoff. He also supported the attack at opportune moments, which earned him praise from his coach.

It all seems like a small feat considering Barron was playing a third game in three nights – he played with the Rocket on Friday night.

“I think I have more confidence in my game,” Barron commented after the match. I still want to prove that I can be a regular NHL player. [Les entraîneurs] told me to use my strengths, and in my case, that’s skating, joining the counter-attack and supporting the attack in the opponent’s zone. I don’t want to change that. But I had to build my defensive game, and that’s what I did in Laval. »

This end of the calendar within a tired club is perhaps not the best context to showcase its strengths. But for Barron, all hearings are valuable.

Despite the loss against the Rangers, he and Primeau certainly demonstrated that they do not take things lightly. But also that they are up to the challenge.

In details

Caufield through the back door

Cole Caufield, as we know, takes shots literally from everywhere, with little regard to the legitimate chance the puck has of sneaking behind the goalie. His persistence, however, paid off at the end of the first period. After deflecting a shot off the post, Caufield took advantage of Igor Shesterkin’s confusion to target the goalie’s skates from behind the net. Bet won: the disc deviated as desired and the American was off for his 24^e goal of the season, his fourth in four games. It was also, according to shot location data provided by the NHL-EDGE site, the first time in his career that he scored from behind the goal line, at his 19^e attempt. We could not find the statistics of the deceased Mini-Putt Challengebut we are led to believe that the “back door” success rate was higher there.

Lafrenière is having a blast

We already knew that Alexis Lafrenière was having a good season. He added a layer against the Habs. His trio, with Vincent Trocheck and Artemi Panarin, was a real steamroller. Among other things, we were able to appreciate the complicity between Panarin and the Quebecer on the Rangers’ third goal, which became the winning goal. Lafrenière perfectly read and executed the pass and go initiated by Panarin in Canadian territory, leaving David Savard and Mike Matheson speechless. However, it was in the first period that Lafrenière performed the best individual maneuver of the match. Rushing into the neutral zone, he took down Michael Pezzetta by passing the puck between his skates while making a pivot. He then handed the disc to Kaapo Kakko behind him, but the Finn’s shot was stopped by Cayden Primeau. If it had ended with a goal, we would have seen the sequence again in all the end-of-season montages.

No waves for the agitator

Matt Rempe’s style of play may belong to the past, but the love he enjoys in New York is very current, and above all very real. The brawler was inserted into the lineup against the Canadian, and from his first presence, we felt the crowd get excited, even if the colossus looked a little crazy when he missed his bodycheck attempt. against David Savard. Quickly, “Reme!” Remedy! » followed by applause resonated from the four corners of Madison Square Garden. The agitator, however, essentially had no impact on the match. He was content, as is often the case, with eight small appearances, including four in the first period, and one at the very end of the match when the score was 5-2.