Martin St-Louis caused a lot of reaction on Monday when he confirmed that his team had played the best sequence of the season in the last six games. Sequence in which the Canadian maintained his record of one win against five losses.
The Canadian coach emphasized that one should not only focus on the result of the game, but stressed that it is necessary to be honest with the players.
Sometimes team meetings after a win are more negative than during a loss.
“Everything starts with the truth,” he said.
If that's the case, the video session that precedes this morning's practice shouldn't be fun. Yes, the Canadian won 4-2 against the Arizona Coyotes last night, ending his five-game losing streak.
Getty Images via AFP
In fact, it was the Coyotes who arrived at the Bell Center with a record of 0-10-2 in their last 12 games.
“We didn’t play a good game. This is our worst in the last five or six. “We get the victory, but we don’t deserve it,” St-Louis showed transparency.
Any opponent other than André Tourigny's poor squad would have “taken a beating” from the Habs, to quote Murray Chadwick, the famous head coach of the Hamilton Mustangs.
The opportunistic CH
Before the eyes of the penniless Coyotes, the Habs offense had all the trouble in the world getting into offensive territory. The locals' first two goals, both from Joel Armia and Jordan Harris, were the result of excessive counter-attacks.
As for Tanner Pearson, this was possible thanks to a quick recovery from Harris.
That's called being opportunistic.
The Canadian is fortunate to have faced one of the weakest offensive teams since January 23 (31 goals), as the Coyotes never really threatened Samuel Montembeault despite being close to the Habs net. This despite the fact that they fired 38 shots in his direction.
Slafkovsky as punishment
And the few times things got heated, the great goalkeeper held his ground. Like that brief escape from Logan Cooley in the third period. And his save with the tip of the right ball before Nick Suzuki scored into the empty net.
Juraj Slafkovsky was twice chased for carrying his stick too high, once 200 feet from his net, and his coach briefly showed him the end of the bench. We will remember that Slafkvosky visited the dungeon three times on Wednesday against the Sabers.
Joshua Roy then appeared on the right wing of the front row. Well, the Slovakian only missed one round, which is hardly a slap on the wrist. But he began his next performance with the knife between his teeth and the fire under his skates.
Whoever loses wins
Speaking of punishment: Martin St-Louis' team was unable to achieve numerical superiority for the second game in a row. It's still special.
With this win, the Canadian prevented the Coyotes from moving up to 27th overall with him. He even moved ahead of the Senators to 26th place. Those who want the Habs to increase their chances of winning the Macklin Celebrini lottery will say the Montrealers found a way to win the wrong game.
At least this victory will help the morale of the troops.