Canadiens show unacceptable lack of ‘juice' against a tired team in the middle of a ‘chase'

New York Times

31-01-2025

MONTREAL — Before facing the Winnipeg Jets on Tuesday, Montreal Canadiens coach Martin St. Louis was reminiscing about how his team was entering the game against one of the best teams in the NHL, riding consecutive losses — albeit one in overtime — for the first time in six weeks.
'We understand how this last week went for us, and it wasn't all bad,' St. Louis said after Tuesday's morning skate. 'We actually raised our bad. And you need that in this league. You need to have a good B-game, you need to be able to get some points with your B-game, and that's what we did last week.
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'But you can't just live off your B-game, and we know that.'
The next day, after a productive practice Wednesday morning but coming off what appeared to be a serious injury to defenceman Kaiden Guhle — one later revealed to be a lacerated quadriceps muscle that will keep the minute-munching blueliner out of the lineup indefinitely — St. Louis suggested the Canadiens were in desperation mode, in a mini-race of sorts to the two-week break for the 4 Nations Face-Off that was still six games away at the time.
'I think it's a chase to the break right now,' St. Louis said. 'It's a chase to the break and find a way to get some points in these games, and that break I think is going to benefit us with some of the bumps and bruises that we have. I think it's game by game right now. Of course it hurts that we lost Emil (Heineman), and now we lose (Guhle), but I think it's part of a season where you've just got to stay the course and keep working on the things you have to work on.
'We talk about next man up, and it's pretty much what it is. We feel with the culture and the collective game that is not always perfect but is in a much better place than it has been, whether we're getting results or not, I think it can help get us to the break.'
The Minnesota Wild played on the road Wednesday, a few hours after St. Louis said those words, while the Canadiens were recovering from practice. They, presumably, got to bed at a reasonable hour while the Wild were flying into town after beating the Toronto Maple Leafs and getting to bed at a less-than-reasonable hour.
And yet, it was the Canadiens who were flat. It was the Canadiens, according to Jake Evans, who 'didn't have enough energy on the forecheck to get pucks, so that killed us tonight.' It was the Canadiens, according to Nick Suzuki, who 'weren't crisp making passes, making plays. We weren't turning a lot of pucks over. We were losing too many battles.'
And it was the Canadiens, according to St. Louis, who lacked 'juice.' Which is somewhat alarming to cite as a reason for losing 4-0, giving Marc-André Fleury his 76th career shutout in his final game in Montreal, a moment that was memorable for everyone who witnessed it.
Video of that third-period standing ovation for Marc-André Fleury in Montreal. pic.twitter.com/HEc4aFAjCr
— Arpon Basu (@ArponBasu) January 31, 2025
But for a team desperately competing for a spot in the playoffs, a team in a 'chase to the break,' a team that is learning how to win, a lack of juice doesn't seem acceptable. Not in late January. Not for one of the youngest teams in the league. Not for a team that is hungry to change its reality.
And when this was pointed out to St. Louis, that the Wild played the previous night in a different city and the Canadiens did not play the previous night and were sitting in Montreal waiting for them and still lacked juice, St. Louis didn't really have an explanation.
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'I don't know. It's 82 games. There's nights, I know, you probably should have more juice than the other team. I don't know,' St. Louis said. 'I just felt like we looked like we lacked juice.'
When asked what he meant by 'juice,' St. Louis began questioning his management of the team's energy.
'I just feel like we didn't have our top gear,' he said. 'I don't know. It's four days straight we were on the ice — we practiced Monday, played Tuesday. We don't have a lot of practice time; we want to work on stuff. Our defensive game was actually a bit better the last two games, and tonight we lacked juice. I don't know. You're trying to balance it out.
'You think you're doing everything right. You look at the score and the way we looked tonight, and we've looked way better than that.'
This is what learning how to win looks like. Because when learning, sometimes you don't know what's happening, and it's up to you to figure it out. The Canadiens are a young team, St. Louis is a young coach, and this is a new situation for all of them.
'We've lost our swagger a little bit,' St. Louis said. 'We need to go find it again.'
So, the Canadiens' shopping list not only includes juice; it includes swagger as well. In the middle of a 'chase to the break,' this seems less than ideal, especially with a trip to California coming up with three games in four days.
This has not been an uncommon occurrence for the Canadiens, to lack juice against teams on a back-to-back when they were rested. This was, in fact, the eighth and final time the Canadiens will find themselves in this situation this season, which is a net positive because they have not taken full advantage of it with a 3-5-0 record.
Suzuki didn't really pull any punches in terms of how the Canadiens are responding to the challenge of a 'chase to the break.'
'Yeah, I mean, we're kind of throwing away games coming down to the wire here,' he said. 'We know where we are in the standings, and you can't string losses together or you're going to fall behind.'
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This seems like a critical moment in the Canadiens' season. They have lost one of their most important players in Guhle, they are lacking 'juice' at a time of year when 'juice' should be in full supply for a young team aspiring to do things no one expects of it, and they have lost four straight games for the first time since Nov. 9, when they lost to the Maple Leafs in Toronto to fall to last place in the league.
It is not a place they want to return to. It is a place they seem on the verge of sliding toward. They must find a way to prevent that from happening.
As the Canadiens climbed themselves out of the league's basement to become relevant for the first time in years, they built a brand, a way to play that seemed sustainable, but suddenly it doesn't seem that way anymore.
They need to find that, and they need to do it quickly. Because lacking juice during a chase against an exhausted team should not be acceptable for a team looking to raise its standard.
Because right now, the Canadiens are living off their B-game.
(Photo of Jets defenseman Haydn Fleury playing the puck against Kaiden Guhle and Nick Suzuki: David Kirouac / Imagn Images)