NASHVILLE | Martin St-Louis' team lost to the Panthers and the Lightning, but with a little luck and, above all, better risk management, they could have surprised the two teams from Florida.
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Oddly enough, it was a goal scored with the man advantage, costing the Habs points in the standings in each of the two games.
In each of the sequences, it was a loss of the ball at the opponent's blue line that allowed the opponent to equalize.
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“It's frustrating because we talked about it before the Tampa game,” Mike Matheson said. We told ourselves that this shouldn't happen again. Sometimes hockey can be cruel and teach you lessons the hard way.”
This is the reality of a young team that sometimes forgets that we need to know how to choose our moments to make slightly riskier plays.
“It’s part of learning. If you had told me at the beginning of the season that our massive attack would allow 14 goals [elle est rendue à 11]“But at the end of the year it would look like it does now, I would have paid dearly,” argued St-Louis.
“It's easier to fix things like that than to work on making your massive attack look the way you want it to,” he added. Last month, the power play looked like the power play. »
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Finally threatening
You have to give him that. The Canadian's power play game has been much more convincing in recent weeks. Since January 1, the Canadian has taken advantage of this situation 21.1% of the time.
A jump of almost three percent (18.3%) compared to the first 36 games of the season.
And when he doesn't score, it's rare that she isn't a threat.
This was the case against the Coyotes last week, when the Canadian's massive attack spent almost two minutes in opponent territory on its first two opportunities. This was the case again against the Panthers as the Habs fired 11 shots while playing with a man advantage.
“We only scored one goal against the Panthers, but we could have scored more. Our power play was so good.”
The Preds on fire
Still looking for their first win since the start of this four-game trip, the Canadian will have a chance to bounce back by taking on the Predators.
Once again the task does not look easy.
The representatives of the state capital have won their last eight games. The Predators were recently threatened with exclusion from the playoffs, but as the second team in the Western Conference they seem to be sitting well.