(Montreal) Coach Martin St-Louis’ confidence will not be shaken after two straight losses.
Posted at 9:45 p.m.
Updated at 10:52 p.m.
Joel Eriksson Ek scored twice, Marc-André Fleury made 26 saves and the Minnesota Wild defeated Montreal 3-1 on Tuesday at the Bell Centre.
The Habs thus concluded their four-game stay at home with a 2-2-0 record, after suffering a second loss in a row.
The young defenders of the Canadian did not have their best night against the Wild. Some veterans also struggled on the attack.
“I don’t think things went wrong tonight,” St-Louis insisted after the game. I take a lot of positive things out of the game. »
“If we had won, we would have shown up the next day after moving on. We have lost. Well, we’ll introduce ourselves tomorrow after we’ve turned the page. The result does not tell the whole story. »
The Canadian was 0-for-3 on the power play – not counting a missed penalty shot by Mike Hoffman – and he scored only one goal in 21 chances since the start of the season.
Despite everything, St-Louis liked the work of its power play units.
“We generated shots,” he noted. Against Dallas [samedi], we were making seven, eight or nine passes without generating a shot. If you need to make 10 passes before shooting, I believe there is something wrong with your strategy. »
“We had a meeting to talk about the power play and I thought it was better from the second period. »
The Habs were unable to take advantage of the generosity of the Wild, which had allowed 27 goals in its first five games of the campaign.
Cole Caufield was the Canadian’s only scorer (3-4-0). Jake Allen stopped 28 shots.
Brandon Duhaime had a goal and an assist for the Wild (2-3-1).
The Canadiens were without forward Juraj Slafkovsky for the second straight game with an upper body injury. The team is expected to provide more details on Wednesday.
Defender Kaiden Guhle didn’t finish the game, heading into the locker room with about four minutes left in the third period.
The Habs will play their next four games on the road, starting Thursday in Buffalo with a duel against the Sabres.
A better matched opponent
The Canadian had a good start to the game, then when an ineffective power play seemed to have dampened his momentum, Kirby Dach hit the post with full force following a throw-in from Christian Dvorak.
Rather, it was the Wild that opened the scoring at 5:52 of the first twenty. Eriksson Ek had luck when his shot from a tight angle deflected off Allen before crossing the goal line. The streak began with a Nick Suzuki turnover in Wild territory.
Matt Boldy knocked on the door for the Wild late in the first period on the power play, but his hard shot hit the crossbar.
Caufield tied the game 67 seconds into the second period. His shot was cushioned by defender Jacob Middleton, but Fleury was still beaten on the streak.
Dach got another great opportunity to score on the power play for the Habs. This time, Middleton blocked his throw when he thought he could shoot into a gaping cage.
The Wild increased the pressure on the Canadian and he finally took the lead with 7:12 to go in the second period. Duhaime scored after a two-on-one attack orchestrated by Frédérick Gaudreau.
Hoffman got the best chance to bring everyone back to square one, when the referees awarded him a penalty shot early in the third period. Fleury, however, made the save with his left pad.
The Canadian’s last efforts after replacing Allen with an additional striker were also in vain.
Eriksson Ek scored his second goal of the game by shooting into an empty net with 30.5 seconds left on the clock.
Locker Room Echoes
Mike Hoffman was a little bitter that he didn’t score on his penalty shot.
“I had an idea in mind and of course I would have liked to score. He [Fleury] made the stop. It’s like that. Maybe I should have attacked with more speed. If I had scored, we wouldn’t be talking about that. »
Sean Monahan would like to see the Canadian work harder to annoy the opposing goaltender.
“We generated a lot of chances, but as a group we need to get to the net more often. It’s not easy to score in this league. We have to create traffic in front of the net and score goals that are not pretty. »
Nick Suzuki was not ready to say that the Canadian had committed too many turnovers.
“There aren’t too many occasions where we haven’t managed the puck well. My pass went over the stick [Arber] Xhekaj on the first goal. And on the second goal, it was an error in the neutral zone that led to an excess attack. These are two easy things to avoid. »