The Canadian’s last match ended in the same way as all the others, or almost: with a difference of only one goal.
The game in question, a 3-2 loss to the Toronto Maple Leafs on Saturday night at the Bell Centre, was a reminder of how the Canadian often comes so close to victory… or how incapable he is of scoring the big goal when necessary, it depends.
So Saturday night’s result was 37e Canadian’s game decided by a single goal this season. By way of comparison, the Florida Panthers, the best club in the league as of Sunday, have been involved in 25 games that ended with a difference of just one goal.
Is the Canadian doing well in results that are decided by a single goal? Not really. The club’s record in these circumstances is 16-11-10, which is even less impressive if we start calculating all these points amassed with a defeat in extra time, so many figures which disguise the reality a little.
To this end, and at the end of the match on Saturday March 2 in Tampa, two Canadian players, Alex Newhook and Kaiden Guhle, recalled that the team has reached the point of having to take the next step: that of winning these matches. .
“We know we can beat good teams,” Guhle explained in the visitors’ locker room in Tampa. That’s a bit of what’s hard to swallow; we know we are capable of doing it…”
As the Canadian enters the home stretch of his season – the trade deadline is finally behind us, and the club only has 18 games left on its 2023-2024 calendar – the goal now would undoubtedly be to move on to the other stage, that of learning to win, not to waste advances, to overcome the knockout. final to an opponent who staggers in the cables.
Can this other step be taken with the players who are in place? The management of the Canadian will certainly ask the question this summer, and perhaps even before. In the meantime, there are encouraging signs: against the Maple Leafs’ first line on Saturday night, Nick Suzuki held his own, while reminding everyone that he is (probably?) the true first center that is missing in this club for so many years.
PHOTO GRAHAM HUGHES, THE CANADIAN PRESS
Nick Suzuki (14)
With 5 points in his last 5 games, the 24-year-old finds himself with 61 points in 64 games, which still makes an 80-point season possible, a mark he would like to reach, as he tells us. had confided the day before the March 2 match in Tampa.
Also in the good news column: Mike Matheson had a 2-point night Saturday against Toronto (a goal and an assist), which gives him a total of 46 points in 64 games. We have to go back to PK Subban and his 60-point season in 2014-2015 to find a Canadian defenseman as productive and prolific on offense.
Cole Caufield is just one goal away from his third 20-goal season in as many seasons in this league. It’s still far from the 50-goal mark that the most optimistic saw for him in September, but it still gives him 51 points in total, which allows us to see some form of progression in his game.
None of this can serve to mask the cruel truth of the general ranking, with a Canadian occupying 26e rank as of Sunday, a position quite similar to that of the previous season.
But with the emergence of certain players and also, finally, the end of this three-way waltz in front of the net, there will perhaps be happier days in the more or less distant future, when this team will have learned to win.