Martin St-Louis insisted that his team played well in a 5-1 defeat against the Florida Panthers on Thursday night, but his look and his short answers did little to hide the coach’s frustration after the game.
The Canadian was back at the Bell Center after a five-game road trip and a long trip that included three stops in California. In the end, the Montreal team played a match as its fans have been accustomed to since the arrival of St-Louis. She was combative, made a great effort, but still lost.
St. Louis may emphasize development, but it seems to have more and more difficulty accepting poor results.
“We played a good match. From the start, there were no passengers. We were there. We played a good match,” said St-Louis after the match.
The Canadian completed a quarter of his schedule during his trip. St-Louis said earlier this week that its team was better today than it was at the start of the season.
However, the Canadian is behind compared to his points harvest last year. After 23 games, the Habs had a 12-10-1 record last fall. This time he shows a 10-11-2 record.
The train was derailed early in December last season, when Sean Monahan and David Savard fell in combat.
This time, the Canadian has been deprived of an important element since early in the campaign in Kirby Dach. Savard is on the sidelines again. And Alex Newhook joined them in the infirmary on Thursday after suffering a lower body injury.
Despite everything, there is no question of giving up in the Bleu-blanc-rouge camp, while the team wants to take advantage of every opportunity to improve.
“We want to improve every day. I saw somewhere that we had the youngest team in the league and so it won’t always be easy in the matches, recalled Suzuki. We want to help our young defense as best as possible. I think we have improved a lot since the start of the season and we must continue to do so. »
For his part, defender Johnathan Kovacevic mentioned that the Canadian players only had to look at what their opponent did on Thursday night to inspire themselves and continue their development.
“We want to be a difficult team to face,” said the Ontario defender. The Panthers represent a good example in this area. They do not give time and space to the opponent through a good forecheck.
“That’s what we’re working on a lot these days. We want to suffocate the opponent with our forecheck. This will then allow us to spend more time in the offensive zone or create more chances on turnovers. »
The Canadian also has some gaps to fill.
The power play is 0-for-23 in its last eight games. St-Louis made some adjustments to its units on Thursday, inserting Newhook on the first wave and Jesse Ylönen on the second.
Suzuki said he was happy with the work on the power play against the Panthers, although the Habs finished the evening 0-for-6. He noted that they at least generated scoring chances.
For his part, Kovacevic said the team also needs to improve on the penalty kill. The Canadian displays an efficiency of 73.9% in this phase of the game, which ranks him in the last quarter of the circuit.
“I think that’s one of the things we need to improve on,” he said. I also believe that we need to allow fewer chances entering the zone. I find that I am not always aggressive enough in this situation.
“There are always things to improve and they continually change during a season,” he added. But I think our coaches are great at identifying things we need to work on. »
The Canadian took advantage of a day off on Friday. He will host the Detroit Red Wings at the Bell Center on Saturday evening.