Lightning 5 – Canadian 3 | From the Molson cup to the stool

(Montreal) At the start of the evening, Jake Allen received the Molson Cup. About 20 minutes later, he found himself on the reservist’s stool, a cap on his head.

If we need to summarize what happened to the Canadiens on this cold Tuesday evening at the Bell Centre, it’s pretty much this: it went from festive to not at all festive quite quickly, during a bad exit from the starting goalkeeper.

This largely explains this fairly easy victory for the Tampa Bay Lightning, with a score of 5-3. After 13 minutes and 50 seconds of play, and after 4 goals on only 9 shots, the matter was already over, and Allen was on the bench.

However, he was not in the locker room at the end of the match, the Canadian having made the decision not to make him available to members of the media.

“When you allow a goal on the first appearance of the match again… we have a fragile team, we have lost a little confidence,” admitted Martin St-Louis after the match. That pretty much sums up the first period. But we found each other a little later…”

A little later, the Canadiens’ coach explained that what happened was “not necessarily Jake’s fault,” but it’s hard to ignore that Allen had a .927 save percentage in early evening, and by the time we left, this rate had dropped like a bad day on the stock market, to .910.

Jordan Harris blamed a bad start overall. “Even if they had played the day before,” noted the defender about the Lightning players. We know the kind of attack they have, if we could have slowed them down when they left to start the match well… but they got off to a good start. »

But maybe this was all to be expected? After all, the Canadian had undoubtedly deceived reality a little at the start of the season, for a host of reasons, first and foremost the goalkeepers. Especially Allen himself, who often delivered unexpected performances. These good evenings in front of the net helped mask the defensive deficiencies of this team for a while. Obviously it wasn’t going to last.

With David Savard absent, the others had to play different roles, and Mike Matheson, among others, found himself playing a role that was probably too demanding for his own good. He was on the ice four times Saturday in St. Louis when the opponent scored, and Tuesday night, he was on the ice for four enemy goals, again.

Mike Matheson was not made available by the Canadian at the end of the evening, so Martin St-Louis had to speak in his place.

“He would be the first to say it, he’s not playing to his standards right now,” explained the Montreal pilot. Every player who plays as much as him will experience something similar in a season. We know what he can bring to the team, I know that he is trying to bring us that too, to offer us better performance, and we will continue to help him, because we need the player that he is capable of being. But it’s difficult to do that for 82 games…”

What is also difficult is to win with indiscipline, and twice on Tuesday evening, when the Canadian was trying to come back up the hill after reducing the gap to two goals, there were bad penalties, including that of Arber Xhekaj. “I didn’t like that punishment… you don’t give yourself a chance when you receive punishments like that,” summed up Martin St-Louis.

Finally, the history books will remember that on November 7, 2023, the Canadian was defeated by a certain Matt Tomkins, goalkeeper of his state, at the venerable age of 29 years old. He earned his first NHL victory ever, in his third start. A guy who has played everywhere, including the previous two seasons in Sweden. It was against him that the Canadian lost.

A club undergoing reconstruction, that’s not bad.

On the rise: Samuel Montembeault

He came on in relief of Jake Allen, and a few big saves on his part at least helped slow down the Lightning’s enthusiasm.

Down: Jake Allen

Such evenings remind us that it is best to use it occasionally, sparingly.

The number of the match: – 3

This is Mike Matheson’s differential in Tuesday night’s game.