The day after the 3-4 defeat against the Washington Capitals, the Canadian completed a rare Sunday training session. No Lord's Day for Martin St-Louis and his troops.
To no one's surprise, the Canadiens head coach had focused part of his training on covering and protecting the slot. The day before, the guests' three equal goals had been scored by Jake Allen. Either when returning the throw or by accepting a pass.
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“With the last two goals we didn’t care about the opponent’s sticks,” Arber Xhekaj analyzed at the end of this encounter. If you don't, you are allowing opposing attackers to deflect pucks and jump on rebounds.
It's nice to displace a rival, but if he can still use his work tool without any problems, we're no further ahead. That’s what St-Louis and his deputies focused on.
They also emphasized the importance of being mesmerized by the puck.
“We have to be more vigilant,” St-Louis said a few times at the end of the last few games.
He returned to it yesterday afternoon, emphasizing that the problem was not reporting errors or misunderstanding part of the playbook.
“There is nothing about the system that people don’t understand. You have to be vigilant,” he repeated.
Delay for the first trio
For this reason, the entire first trio was taken out of training. Cole Caufield, Nick Suzuki and Juraj Slafkovsky therefore benefited from a day of treatment, while their teammates exceptionally took to the ice at the Bell Centre.
There is no cause for concern for either member of St. Louis' trusted trio. It's more of a question of energy management. The Habs are coming off a streak of five games in eight days.
“We manage the calendar,” he said. They have lots and lots of ice time and the season is long.
During this period, the three strikers spent an average of more than 20 minutes per game on the field. With peaks of 24 minutes for Caufield and 23 minutes and 52 seconds for Slafkovsky against the Capitals. Suzuki was unbeatable with a playing time of 23 minutes and 30 minutes. However, it wasn't his busiest night (25 minutes and 23 seconds against the Stars).
St-Louis finished the training with a short skating session. Nothing punitive. In any case, the Canadian players have plenty of time to recover as they won't resume training until Tuesday.
All of this in anticipation of Wednesday's game against the Sabres. The first meeting in a series of three games in three and a half days that then took them to Pittsburgh and New Jersey.