Suffering their first truly ugly loss of the season, there was little to enjoy about the Montreal Canadiens’ game on Tuesday night. With a 7-2 loss to the New York Rangers, just about everything went wrong for them. Their defensive zone coverage was shocking, Jacob Trouba may have put Justin Barron out of commission for a while, and there were few, if any redeeming qualities to the game.
The lone bright spot was captain Nick Suzuki, who scored both of their goals, and has quietly started on pace for his first point-per-game season.
As frustrating as that game was to watch, there was some small consolation in seeing how their captain can step up offensively. Particularly after the fourth Rangers goal in the first period, he was clearly trying to spark his team into an unlikely comeback, and managed to will them to within two goals before the wheels came off.
Unfortunately this is a team game, and one player can rarely tip the scales for his team. This is particularly true for the Habs – still a team that needs stellar goaltending to compete with the better teams of the league – something they didn’t get against the Rangers. Offensively, they looked acceptable. Defensively, they looked anything but acceptable, and their goaltenders having bad respective nights made the game a walk through for one of the better teams in the East.
They’ll have to keep working on their defensive zone coverage, hoping that a day will come where a solid offensive effort like Suzuki’s could end up being the difference maker.
And hopefully without praying that their goaltender stands on his head.
Click the play button below to listen to your full Bottom Six Minutes, also available wherever you get your podcasts. We thankfully have a little break here before the next game, so we’ll be back after the Habs take on the St. Louis Blues this Saturday night.