Eric Engels

1 week ago | sportsnet.ca | Eric Engels

MONTREAL — It’s a coach’s job to sell, and Martin St. Louis did that job as well as any of his 15 colleagues who led their teams to the Stanley Cup Playoffs this season. He has been selling since the beginning of training camp in September. And he was selling after a 5-10-2 start to the season pushed the Canadiens into last place in the NHL, as far as they could possibly be from where they landed following their last game on Wednesday.

1 week ago | sportsnet.ca | Eric Engels

BROSSARD, Que. — An observation made during the first period of Monday’s game: As Ivan Demidov was putting on a show in his NHL debut, Juraj Slafkovsky was in the process of stringing together his best shifts in two weeks. Whether Slafkovsky wants to admit it or not, it wasn’t a coincidence. The Canadiens forward could argue he was due for that type of performance, especially after expressing dissatisfaction with his game last week.

1 week ago | sportsnet.ca | Eric Engels

MONTREAL — It was early on Monday, several hours before Ivan Demidov stormed into the world’s best league and immediately made his mark, that Kent Hughes was asked if the Montreal Canadiens were ahead of schedule in their rebuild.

1 week ago | sportsnet.ca | Eric Engels

TORONTO — It was a 1-0 overtime loss in a game the Montreal Canadiens had to win in regulation to finally clinch their first playoff berth in four years, so to call it anything other than disappointing would be wrong. This one hurt the Canadiens. Perhaps not as much as their 5-2 loss to the Ottawa Senators a night prior, when they missed their first official opportunity to clinch. But the pain was still as visceral.

1 week ago | sportsnet.ca | Eric Engels

OTTAWA — This was Lane Hutson as we haven’t seen him at this level — fumbling under pressure, passing off target, forcing more plays than he was executing, and doing all of it from start to finish in a 5-2 loss to the Ottawa Senators. Now add in totally uncharacteristic performances for Nick Suzuki, Cole Caufield, Juraj Slafkovsky and Kaiden Guhle, and it’s easy to consider Friday’s game an anomaly.