It’s American Thanksgiving and the Habs are last in the East

It’s American Thanksgiving and the Habs are last in the East.

I say this because every year, we hear the old classic that once American Thanksgiving arrives, we can take the standings and see who has a chance of making the playoffs.

And the standings don’t exactly favor the Habs at the moment.

No matter how much we try to kid ourselves that “the club is only five points away from the playoffs” or that the Penguins have a worse points percentage than the Habs, the fact remains that the club is last in the East.

Do Martin St-Louis’ men have what it takes to overtake eight teams in the standings? The answer is no.

As we’ve seen in recent games, the Canadiens have just four wins in their last 13 games. And even though they won yesterday (in overtime against a bad club), that doesn’t erase everything.

Those who listened to the coach’s post-game press briefing last night could see that, no, he didn’t sound fully satisfied. His answers were short.

At the same time, that’s logical, because despite the 4-3 victory, there are still aspects that need to be corrected. Not everything about yesterday’s match was perfect.

What do I take away from all this?

1. Justin Barron is playing with fire. Yesterday, he had no choice but to be in the lineup because Mike Matheson still couldn’t play… but let’s just say he was struggling defensively.

Covering your man, in a man-to-man system, shouldn’t be an option.

Justin Barron knows better than to abandon his guy at the goalmouth. Early Blue Jackets lead, 1-0 via Mathieu Olivier. #GoHabsGo pic.twitter.com/GrWuZWsevC

– Marc Dumont (@MarcPDumont) November 28, 2024

2. Cayden Primeau was under a lot of pressure and he wasn’t naughty. He didn’t hurt his club, but he didn’t get up either. He did enough to get the win with 21 saves on 24 shots.

As for the Habs, they scored four times on 23 shots. That’s 10 more than the day before.

3. Juraj Slafkovsky has been flogged for playing on the fourth line recently. And after the few messages he’s received in recent weeks, he’s finally understood.

In addition to his goal, he played better yesterday. If the Habs want to win games, they’re going to need this Slaf more often… which hasn’t been the case regularly since the start of the season.

Who better than Brendan Gallagher to get Juraj Slafkovsky going againhttps://t.co/CWwsDOvzkX pic.twitter.com/4aNQU0U4OT

– BPM Sports (@BPMSportsRadio) November 28, 2024

4. Brendan Gallagher didn’t just inspire Slaf: he inspired all his teammates, too, as he battled Zach Werenski. He’s got guts and does everything he can to inspire others.

It has an effect.

5. The network landed for the Habs in 2022-2023 when Sean Monahan was injured. In 2023-2024? When he was traded. And this year, the network was never really on board.

Watching the veteran play last night in Columbus, it’s easy to see why. He takes the little details seriously.

Extensions

Yesterday, after the game, the Canadiens players headed for New York, where they will play on Saturday. But today will be a complete vacation for Martin St-Louis’s men. #ActionDeGrâce

Tomorrow, it’s back to practice.

The Canadiens players have today off. They will spend the day in the New York City area, having traveled early in the night.

Back to practice tomorrow, in preparation for 2 PM games this weekend.

– Maxime Truman (@MaximeTruman) November 28, 2024

We’ll have to wait until tomorrow for news of Mike Matheson. We know he’s banged up (he missed two games in a row, after all), but we don’t know how bad.

Will he play on Saturday? It’s too early to say.