The most impressive thing about rebuilding Habs is their compete level and it was on display again in 2-1 win over Avalanche in Colorado.
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Welcome back, Coach.
The Canadiens got a pleasant surprise when they arrived at their hotel in Denver on Monday afternoon for the final stop on a five-game road trip and head coach Martin St. Louis was there waiting for them.
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St. Louis had left the team on March 15 in Calgary — the day before the first game of the road trip against the Flames — to deal with a family issue. The Canadiens announced Monday that St. Louis’s youngest son, 16-year-old Mason, had suffered an injury while playing in a hockey game for the U-15 Mid-Fairfield Rangers in Connecticut. A week later, Mason suffered complications from the injury and was hospitalized. Mason’s condition has since stabilized and he is now recovering at the family home in Connecticut with his mother.
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The Canadiens welcomed St. Louis back in style, playing one of their best games of the season to beat the Avalanche 2-1. On paper, this game was a total mismatch with the Avalanche (46-21-5 after the loss) 31 points ahead of the Canadiens (27-32-12) in the standings. The Avalanche have a plus-56 goal differential, while the Canadiens are minus-49.
But the most impressive thing about this rebuilding Canadiens team all season has been their compete level and it was on display yet again against the Avalanche.
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The compete level wasn’t the only thing that was impressive about the performance as the Canadiens ended the Avalanche’s nine game winning streak, during which they outscored opponents 42-18.
Samuel Montembeault showed again that he can be a legitimate No. 1 goalie when it comes to giving his team a chance to win just about every time he’s in net. After giving up a goal to Nathan MacKinnon — who leads the NHL in scoring with 45-78-123 totals — on the first shot only 43 seconds into the game, Montembeault stopped the next 27 shots he faced, improving his record to 14-13-7 with a 3.06 goals-against average and a .905 save percentage.
Nick Suzuki tied the score only nine seconds after MacKinnon’s goal. It was Suzuki’s 29th goal of the season — three more than his previous high set last season — and his 67th point, one more than his career high last season.
Juraj Slafkovsky picked up an assist on Suzuki’s goal, giving the 19-year-old 15-25-40 totals in 71 games. That’s the most points ever in a season by a Canadiens teenager, breaking Mario Tremblay’s mark of 39 set in 1974-75 when he was 18. Tremblay had 27 points the next season as a 19-year-old.
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Slafkovsky has one game left as a teenager — Thursday at the Bell Centre against the Philadelphia Flyers (7 p.m., TSN2, RDS, TSN 690 Radio, 98.5 FM) — before celebrating his 20th birthday on Saturday. He is currently on his second eight-game point streak of the season and has 11-14-25 totals in the last 29 games. One of the most impressive things about Slafkovsky is that he’s getting stronger and better late in the season. Two seasons ago, he only played 31 games with TPS Turko in the Finnish league and last season he only played 39 games with the Canadiens before suffering a season-ending knee injury.
Joel Armia scored the winning goal in Colorado at 14:53 of the first period, continuing the remarkable turnaround in his play since starting the season with the AHL’s Laval Rocket. Armia led the Canadiens with six shots and is now tied with Alex Newhook for fifth on the team with 12 goals, trailing Suzuki (29), Cole Caufield (20), Slafkovsky (15) and the departed Sean Monahan, who had 13 with Montreal (and has added nine more in 24 games with the Jets).
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Defenceman Arber Xhekaj, who was also sent down to Laval earlier this season, continued his solid play with David Savard as his partner on the second defence pairing. Xhekaj logged 13:23 of ice time and finished with a plus-1 differential and a team-leading five hits. Xhekaj has a plus-6 differential for the season.
Newhook picked up an assist, won 11 of the 16 faceoffs he took (69 per cent) and now has 12-13-25 totals in 45 games after missing 27 games with a high ankle sprain suffered at the end of November. Newhook’s 12 goals would put him on pace for 22 goals over a full 82-game season. Tuesday’s game was Newhook’s first in Colorado since the Avalanche traded him to the Canadiens last summer and his teammates gave him the player-of-the game helmet while celebrating the victory in the locker room.
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St. Louis said he was proud of the way his team performed while he was away and his players gave him a lot more to be proud of in Colorado. They finished the road trip with a 2-2-1 record.
“The last 10 days remind me of why I fell in love with hockey,” St. Louis told reporters in Colorado before Tuesday’s game. “Because, you know, it’s not just the sport on the ice, it’s everything that it brings and it’s a small community. The support I got across the league from my team, from my players, is something that you can’t buy. It’s special and I was happy to see them again yesterday. I thanked them in person. Not just for their support, but for the way they handled things while I was gone. It’s a beautiful sport.”
scowan@postmedia.com
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