“We were probably going to have to weather the storm and really feel what that feels like — the pressure, the physicality, the pace of the game.”
That’s what Montreal Canadiens head coach Martin St-Louis said at his press conference after a hard-fought defeat in Game 1.
St-Louis was speaking about how many key members of his team, including himself as head coach, would handle their first NHL playoff experiences. Possibly leveraging his playoff experience as a player, he explained that there were simply some elements of the playoffs that no amount of second-hand messages could teach.
So far, his words have been prophetic. Game 1 was the Canadiens’ first experience with playoff pace and intensity. Game 2 was their introduction to playing with a lead. Game 3 was this group’s first taste of the Bell Centre post-season atmosphere.
And Game 4 was a lesson in what the playoffs look like when the adrenaline wears off.
While the first round is arguably the most exciting part of the playoffs, the majority of the post-season features tactical stalemates between evenly matched squads. As one gets deeper into the playoffs, simplicity takes more and more precedent. Big plays and fancy moves take a backseat to matchups, rebounds, faceoffs, and blocks.
Not wanting to feed the flames fuelled by the Montreal faithful, a veteran Washington Capitals team slowed the pace from the opening faceoff. Where the first period of Game 3 featured 44 shot attempts between the two clubs, the first frame of Game 4 saw only 29. Overall, combined shots at goal dropped from 126 to 105, and total scoring chances likewise decreased from 53 to 41.
The Capitals elected to pick their spots and bank that their team would make fewer mistakes than the youngest team ever to make the playoffs.
Their strategy ultimately paid off, as all three goals against Jakub Dobeš stemmed from Montreal errors. On the first, Dobeš and Lane Hutson couldn’t decide what to do with a loose puck slowly sliding toward the Montreal net. On the second, Mike Matheson couldn’t handle a bouncing puck lobbed toward him as the Canadiens were changing. On the third, Arber Xhekaj found himself on the right side of the ice rather than his familiar left while Kaiden Guhle was overaggressive in pursuing the puck-carrier.
More than that, these errors were forced more by unusual circumstance than anything else. On the first, the miscommunication between Dobeš and Hutson only happens because of an injury to Samuel Montembeault in Game 3. On the second, Matheson is only isolated because Alexandre Carrier had been injured by Tom Wilson on the same shift and no one recognized that the on-ice group was down one defenceman. On the third, Xhekaj is only playing with Guhle because of the aforementioned absence of Carrier.
Like with much about the playoffs, these situations can’t be taught, they can only be learned through experience, through trial and error. Maybe next time, Dobeš is more decisive in covering the puck. Maybe next time, a third defenceman is sent over the boards on the change instead of Cole Caufield. Maybe next time, Guhle and Xhekaj cross over instead of both getting caught up with Dylan Strome.
The way this series has progressed, it feels that the Canadiens are compacting the various experiences normally accrued over years of playoff toil into the span of a single week. To say nothing about their first encounters with the mood and tone whiplash between one game and the next, the stark difference in performance depending on matchup, and the oscillating whimsies of playoff officiating.
While the constant barrage of different obstacles isn’t making it very easy for the Habs to win the series, it is a rather shiny silver lining on what this team could potentially accomplish next year and beyond. To say nothing of all of the challenges that they have managed to overcome thus far.
Class isn’t over quite yet though, and these young Canadiens head to Washington to deal with yet another new experience: their first do-or-die playoff elimination game.
