Alex Newhook gets an earful and is benched: it seems the pressure is mounting in Montreal

Charles-Alexis Brisebois
Alex Newhook gets an earful and is benched: it seems the pressure is mounting in Montreal
Credit: X

Let's talk about last night's loss.

In a tight game that the Canadiens couldn't afford to lose last night in Detroit, the Montreal team still fell 3-1. And this despite playing a mature game.

And even though they were leading 1-0 at one point in the game.

What hurt the Canadiens were the mistakes. Three of them stood out in particular and point to possible explanations for the loss.

Jake Evans missing an open net, which led to a turnover… and then to the sequence where Mike Matheson fell like Bambi on the ice? These were two major mistakes that led to the Red Wings' game-winning goal.

Yet Matheson didn't get a dressing-down from his coach, who said after the game that his defenseman had simply taken a bad bounce on the ice.

The coach didn't exactly have the same reaction as he did after Alex Newhook's mistake (and Ivan Demidov's, by extension) on the opponent's first goal. Newhook was yelled at in front of everyone on the bench and, just like Demidov, he had to do laps on the ice.

What's the difference between the Newhook line's mistake and the two mistakes on the Red Wings' game-winning goal? Effort.

Matheson and Evans never stopped working. They weren't caught failing to backcheck, even though they were nearly 200 feet from the action at the wrong moment.

And that's what MSL didn't like.

The coach, right off the bat in the postgame press conference, said the loss stung because the Habs had played the right way. But the puck just wasn't rolling for the Habs—literally—yesterday.

The guys weren't able to score their way out of trouble, as is often the case. So the coach was forced to acknowledge that another heavy loss has been added to the Canadiens' record.

As my colleague Raph Simard said this morning, all of the Habs' direct rivals in the race improved their standings. So the loss hurts even more.

But anyway. Despite the glaring mistakes and frustrations, it wasn't all bad last night. Several guys did their job on the ice.

What do I take away from last night's game?

1. Once again, Nick Suzuki's line was the driving force behind the team in last night's game. Let's be honest: without the captain, this team would be struggling.

Juraj Slafkovsky also scored his 25th goal of the season.

2. Jakub Dobes was excellent. He lost, but let's just say he helped his team a lot more than the other way around. He gave up two goals (the third was into an empty net), and even though he said he would have liked to make one more save, he was the victim of his own team's turnovers.

And for the first time this season, the Canadiens lost in regulation despite their goaltender stopping at least 90% of the shots he faced.

3. Things got pretty heated yesterday. It was an important divisional matchup, and it showed, as both teams weren't afraid to play physically.

Jakub Dobes took matters into his own hands in front of the net and got some help from a few guys, including Jayden Struble.


overtime

The Canadiens won't be practicing this morning. There was supposed to be a practice in Brossard, but the team decided instead to give the players a day off ahead of a big game against the Islanders tomorrow.

The Habs can't afford to lose this one. Will the rest do them good?

(Credit: NHL.com)
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