Six weeks ago, the Impact was both hopeless and dysfunctional. Not tonight.
Saturday evening brought a rare confluence, with three Montreal pro teams in action at once.
The Alouettes were out in B.C., getting battered by former teammate Vernon Adams Jr. in an essentially meaningless game. CF Montréal was at home on the last day of the season fighting for a spot in the playoffs — and the Canadiens were on Long Island, losing a battle with themselves.
Forget the Alouettes’ 27-3 loss in Vancouver. They were playing a road game on a short week with the best record in the CFL already locked up. What is more worrisome is an injury to right tackle Josh Donovan and the fact that the Als have not played well on offence since midseason.
CF Montréal, meanwhile, put itself in contention for a playoff berth with a series of wins against weak opposition down the stretch and reached the eighth spot in the standings with a 2-0 home win over a tough New York City FC team. Six weeks ago, this team was both hopeless and dysfunctional. Tuesday night at Stade Saputo, they will host Atlanta United in the Eastern Conference Wild Card game.
Credit coach Laurent Courtois and midfielder Caden Clark for the turnaround. It’s been a splendid run and there’s a good chance they can win the Wild Card game to earn a long-shot best-of-three series against Inter Miami CF and Lionel Messi. Good luck with that.
It’s worth noting that CF Montréal, with the second lowest payroll in MLS, is in the postseason while John “Drone Man” Herdman’s Toronto FC, with the second highest payroll after Miami, is not.
When better is not enough: After an abysmal showing against the L.A. Kings Thursday, the Canadiens got a relatively strong effort against Patrick Roy’s Islanders Saturday night before losing in the umpteenth round of the shootout.
When the puck drops, there are things you can’t control. Injuries, experience, the cohesion you can only achieve with sufficient time to get accustomed to teammates and (especially) the overall level of talent. Most of that is above the pay grade of the players on the ice.
But taking penalty after penalty after stupid penalty? That’s on the players.
On the night, the Canadiens took six minor penalties to the Islanders’ one. The first, on Lane Hutson for hooking, was a case of Hutson trying to prevent a goal. The others were mostly of the stupid variety.
The Canadiens had to kill a penalty on Kirby Dach in the second period, three more penalties in the third and an especially tough one, again on Dach, in the overtime session. The worst was the careless tripping call on Joel Armia, but there wasn’t one you could call a good penalty nor a penalty you could blame on the refs.
The bright side? After that initial power-play goal for the Isles, the Canadiens did some superb work on the penalty kill, backed by a solid Cayden Primeau, who showed that his shaky effort in his first start of the season was a one-off, especially during that monumental four minutes when the Habs had the same five skaters trapped on the ice and couldn’t get them off.
The Canadiens banked the loser point, but no one connected with the organization would argue that this team is playing well. Some individuals are: Cole Caufield, Samuel Montembeault, Kaiden Guhle before he was injured, Hutson and the consistent Jake Evans.
There’s plenty of time to improve but languishing near the bottom in all the metrics isn’t going to cut it for long.
The left Lane: Tuesday night’s game against the powerful New York Rangers will be like asking the Habs to climb Mount Everest when they’re having trouble with Mount Royal.
It offers, however, an interesting matchup: Hutson against Rangers star Adam Fox. Both are on the small side for NHL blue-liners, but Fox has a couple of inches and 20 pounds on Hutson. Like the Canucks’ Quinn Hughes, both play much bigger than they are.
As an aside for Canadiens fans obsessed with the play of the Russian Matvei Michkov, there’s another drama in the making. With Macklin Celebrini and Cayden Lindstrom still on the recovery trail, it’s conceivable that Michkov and Hutson will end up battling each other for the Calder Trophy.
Stop deking around: One of these days, we’ll figure out why so many NHL skaters turn the shootout into a slo-mo drill that would embarrass a peewee player, deking this way and that until they come to a dead stop in front and snap a weak muffin right into the goalie’s pads.
Just shoot the *%$#&@* puck!!!
Heroes: Cole Caufield, Jake Evans, Cayden Primeau, Emil Heineman, Lane Hutson, David Savard, Laurent Courtois, Caden Clark, Tyrice Beverette, Wesley Sutton, Jonathan David, Valérie Maltais, Hayden Mayeur, Cloé Lacasse, Ivanie Blondin, Jonquel Jones &&&& last but not least, the immortal Gaudreau brothers, Matthew and Johnny.
Zeros: John Tavares, Harrison Butker, Le’Veon Bell, DeShaun Watson, Aaron Rodgers, Tom Brady, Stefon Diggs, Helmut Marko, Max Verstappen, Bev Priestman, John Herdman, Bud Selig Jr., Claude Brochu, David Samson &&&& last but not least, Jeffrey Loria.
Now and forever.
X: jacktodd46