There was finally more fear than harm when Cole Caufield lay on the Bell Center ice for a few seconds against the Calgary Flames on Monday night, as the team indicated that the American forward should be at his position Wednesday against the Ottawa Senators.
Caufield headed into the locker room after four minutes of play in the second period in the Habs’ eventual 2-1 shootout win over the Flames on Monday. Caufield had just suffered a violent collision with Trevor Lewis.
The 21-year-old sniper appeared stunned on the streak and he did not return to the game afterwards. The Habs, however, indicated Tuesday that Caufield would accompany the team to the Canadian capital and “should be available” for the game against the Senators.
“These are circumstances that happen, an accidental contact,” said the head coach of the Canadian, Martin St-Louis, returning to the collision between Caufield and Lewis.
Caufield leads the Canadiens with 16 goals in 28 games this season. He also had nine assists.
Defender Jordan Harris said the loss of Caufield served as a rallying point for the Canadiens’ players in the game against the Flames.
After the game, St-Louis pointed out that his squad had offered one of their most complete performances of the season, especially in terms of the details of the game.
“That means at the level of the structure, of our games on face-offs, of our readings in puck recovery or in forechecking,” explained forward Rem Pitlick.
The Canadian offered this good performance against a robust team. And he succeeded despite the absence of two veterans in defense in David Savard and Mike Matheson.
This means that the Habs once again had four recruits in their blue line patrol – Harris, Johnathan Kovacevic, Kaiden Guhle and Arber Xhekaj – as was the case at the start of the campaign.
“The most important thing is that they’re not impressed at the moment,” Pitlick said. They don’t think about how young they are, they just know they’re good, they can go out there and make good plays. »
One of the plays that caught the eye on Monday was Kovacevic’s drop on a two-man Flames attack on goaltender Jake Allen in the third period.
Harris had just lost the puck to the Flames’ blue line after taking a solid check from Nikita Zadorov. Juraj Slafkovsky pushed Kovacevic with his stick to give him a little more speed in his retreat. The Ontario defender barely brushed a cross pass from Dillon Dube to Nazem Kadri, preventing the Flames forward from taking a free shot.
“At the time, I didn’t realize ‘Slaf’ pushed him,” Harris said. It looked like a garage league game! “Kovy” saved us on that, as he has often done since the start of the season. »
St. Louis wasn’t particularly surprised to see its young defensemen doing well against the Flames.
“I’m comfortable with them,” he said. These are players who, the more they play, the more confidence they have in themselves. We have seen since the start of the season that they are able to do the job. »
“It’s hard to always be on top, but they play a lot of good games,” he added.
In addition, St-Louis has confirmed that Samuel Montembeault will be in net for the Habs on Wednesday against the Senators. The Canadiens will be back at the Bell Center on Thursday evening for a duel against the Anaheim Ducks.
Medical check-up
During an exhaustive medical update, the Canadiens also announced that Savard (upper body) and forward Sean Monahan (lower body) will be out for a period of two to three weeks.
Savard hasn’t played since Dec. 3 against the Edmonton Oilers. Monahan fell in action on December 5 against the Vancouver Canucks.
In addition, Matheson (lower body) is evaluated on a daily basis, but will not accompany the team to Ottawa.
Finally, striker Jonathan Drouin (upper body) is “closer to returning” to the game, but his situation remains day to day. He will be traveling to Ottawa.
The Canadiens have not announced anything new regarding Brendan Gallagher (lower body). The latter, however, skated alone for a few minutes on Tuesday.