(Chicago) The evening began with the sound of Jim Cornelison’s voice and ended with All I Want for Christmas Is You. Certainly not a crescendo for music lovers, but for the Canadian, it was something else.
The team recovered from a messy first half of the match to defeat the Blackhawks 5-2, and give themselves the right to break their ears with the cheerful tunes of Mariah Carey.
No way to find the culprit. “It’s usually Dale [Lablans]our physical trainer, who chooses the music, but I have no idea for tonight,” admitted a slightly amused Nick Suzuki.
Like the game on the ice, and a bit like in a class on the last day before the holidays, there was a certain lightness in the winning locker room.
Juraj Slafkovsky never hesitates to let his guard down in front of the microphones, but he was even more candid when we asked him why the hell he was wearing Jake Evans’ number 71 jersey and cap.
“I was trying to find my sweater, but they gave me shit because I couldn’t do it, so I just took the first one I found,” the man said with a laugh. big teenager. It’s a bit tight! »
Cayden Primeau is actually a nice guy, but the microphones and cameras, as soon as they are counted in multiples of three, encourage him to tense up. Then we started talking to him about Cornelison, the real hero of this evening. His performance of the national anthem is undoubtedly the most exhilarating experience in the 32 NHL arenas. Imagine for an American who plays his first game in this hockey cathedral that is the United Center.
I had chills, too. It was a surreal experience. The fans were immediately into the atmosphere. It was a very cool match.
Cayden Primeau, on playing the national anthem at the United Center
Also very cool because during a commercial break Cornelison sang a few bars of the theme song from Grumpy who wanted to ruin Christmas. Let’s say that in terms of entertainment, we were far from the games where Mike Matheson has to guess the price of a roll of toilet paper at IGA.
This locker room was festive, therefore, for many reasons. With this gain, the Montrealers go on break with a 4-1-2 record in the last fortnight. We are far from the 1-4-1 which preceded Christmas 2022.
The players leave each other seeing a first trio which, without being Nichushkin-MacKinnon-Rantanen, is operating at high speed. Suzuki has eight points in his last five games and Slafkovsky is showing more and more encouraging signs.
“It’s big,” assured Martin St-Louis, regarding Slafkovsky. Our group thrives on that. The guys see his growth and they are excited. He doesn’t do it by cheating. He plays hard, honest hockey and he gets rewarded. »
Not perfect
It would be ill-advised to talk about the Grumpy without raising the downsides behind this sequence of success for the Habs.
It starts with the quality of the opposition. Four of those games were against teams in the NHL’s bottom third, with the worst being Friday’s 31st-ranked rivals.e rank.
Inconsistency is another thing to watch out for. Last Saturday, it was the four-goal lead against the Islanders that melted like snow in the sun. Thursday, in Minnesota, the team seemed stiff in the first period. And Friday ?
“We didn’t have a good start,” Suzuki said. The 2-0 Chicago score at the start of the second period indeed confirms his words.
St-Louis, for its part, enjoyed the first minutes, before recognizing that the club was “lucky” to lose by a goal at the first intermission, and did not know “why” its men were leading after 40 minutes.
But I liked how we corrected ourselves and played like we are capable of doing in the third period.
Head coach Martin St-Louis
It is especially the way in which CH came back into this match that will please the coach. He insists on the importance of being organized on faceoffs, which is what he got from Mitchell Stephens, center of the fourth line, a shadow player if ever there was one. He won the faceoff and each player executed his end of the sequence, until he deflected Mike Matheson’s shot. This is how Stephens scored his first NHL goal since March 3, 2020, a few days before the planet stopped spinning. “Matty just took a one-timer and I was able to set my stick,” Stephens humbly said.
St-Louis asks its players to anticipate the game, to occupy space well, and this is what Sean Monahan did by following Jake Evans, to prepare for Josh Anderson’s goal.
And Slafkovsky’s forechecking work, another aspect of the game valued by the coachmade it possible to prepare the insurance goal.
The challenge for the Canadian is now significant. Their next opponents, Carolina, Florida and Tampa, are certainly ranked in the middle of the pack, but they are nevertheless mature and formidable teams on paper.
How they respond to this next challenge will determine whether their New Year’s Eve will be as festive as their December 23rd.
Rising
Mike Matheson
PHOTO KAMIL KRZACZYNSKI, USA TODAY SPORTS
Mike Matheson (8)
The defender had eaten his Frosted Flakes before the match. He was flying on the ice and set up the goal which was the wake-up call for CH.
Falling
Justin Barron
PHOTO ERIN HOOLEY, ASSOCIATED PRESS
Justin Barron
Guilty of several screw-ups, including one that led to Jason Dickinson’s goal. However, he chose his evening well to struggle, since the attack largely erased his blunders.
The number of the match
1
The Canadian won a match by more than two goals for the very first time this season. He had won 10 times by one goal, four times by two goals.
In details
Juraj Slafkovsky or Johan Franzen?
Clearly, Juraj Slafkovsky has taken a liking to it. Another of his visits to the opponent’s workspace earned him a goal. Like Thursday in Minnesota, we will not see this goal again in the games of the week, a bit like the goals of Johan Franzen in another era. This time, Nick Suzuki missed his wrist shot, but the puck ended up in the skates of the big Slovak, and his cover, Isaak Phillips, was thwarted by the bad leap. Slafkovsky now has five points in his last four games, after a streak of seven straight games without a point, but during which he still offered good performances. Note also that this goal was scored while Cole Caufield was in the locker room for an unknown reason. Jesse Ylönen therefore replaced him in the first trio and he obtained the secondary pass. So it took him 12 seconds to get a point. However, this was his only presence in this unit, with Caufield then returning.
Struble gets noticed
Like any good defensive defender, Jayden Struble has the profile of the player who often has a good night when he is not noticed. On Friday, we noticed it, but not necessarily for the wrong reasons. He first made the save of the year – for a skater – when he stood behind Cayden Primeau, who was lying on his stomach after making a spectacular save of his own. Struble blocked Anthony Beauvillier’s shot, an effort wasted a minute later when Ryan Donato opened the scoring. Then, in the second period, at the end of a particularly lively presence, he dropped the gloves against MacKenzie Entwistle, for his very first penalty in the NHL, in his 15th game. But in doing so, he still helped his club since Entwistle received two additional minutes for roughness, thus giving Montreal a numerical advantage. In a press briefing, St-Louis named this sequence among the factors which allowed his team to regain vigor.
The twin towers
Louis Crevier was entitled to a great show of confidence from the Blackhawks coaches by his simple presence in uniform for this match. The Quebec defender was indeed able to play his ninth game in the NHL despite the return of Jarred Tinordi and Kevin Korchinski to the blue line. The Hawks instead gave up Wyatt Kaiser and Filip Roos to allow Crevier to keep his position in the defensive sextet. For the occasion, the former Remparts formed a duo with Tinordi. At 6’8 and 6’6 respectively, Crevier and Tinordi formed a tandem not unlike the Undertaker and Kane. For the Quebecer, drafted at 19, in 188th place, this first audition in the NHL, after barely a year in the pros, is an unexpected opportunity. “I’m tripping at the moment,” he confided to Quebec journalists after Friday’s morning training. Crevier got an assist on Jason Dickinson’s goal, his third NHL point, but then lost the puck on the play that led to CH’s fourth goal late in the game.
Guillaume Lefrançois, The Press