Canadiens focusing on defensive details ahead of sprint to playoffs

BROSSARD, Que. — The latest episode of Real Talk with Cole Caufield includes an evisceration of the Montreal Canadiens’ rush coverage, proving that the team’s most gifted goal scorer has even more of a defensive conscious than he’s already let on. 

And that matters. It matters that Caufield, who has taken great strides in his overall game, wants to be more complete. It matters that in the fifth month of just his fifth season in the NHL, he wants to be among the driving forces in his team — which has taken several steps towards maturity — reaching another level.

Because the Canadiens must know they need to get there over the final 25 games of the season, and not just to make the playoffs but to make them from an even better position than the one they currently occupy and give themselves a better chance to do some damage once there.

They’ve put themselves in sixth place in the NHL and second place in the Atlantic Division by scoring goals. Only two teams have produced more per game than their 3.46, and only six teams have produced with more efficiency on the power play.

But as whistles get pocketed and space narrows, as margins thin and errors become even more magnified, it’s defence that wins out, and the Canadiens know they have major work to do in that department.

Specifically, when it comes to sorting out rush coverage.

That’s what makes Caufield’s frank assessment of his team’s consistency — or lack thereof — in this aspect of play noteworthy.

“I think we’ve been good at it some games,” he said, “and we’ve been pretty awful some games, too.”

Had the balance been satisfactory to Caufield, he’d have not used such different adjectives to describe both sides of the coin.

The 25-year-old probably doesn’t need to look SportLogiq data to confirm the Canadiens have given up the fifth-most rush chances per 60 minutes at five-on-five in the league through their 57 games.

They’ll play their next 25 over 47 days. Sixteen of those games will be against teams either in playoff spots or within four points of seizing one, 12 of them will be on the road, seven of them remain against divisional rivals, and Caufield knows all of them will require the Canadiens to raise the bar in every department from where they’ve set it.

“Did we put ourselves in a pretty good spot? Yes,” he said. “Would we have been happy to see that at the start of the year? Yeah. 

“But every team’s looking at it that way and there’s teams that are below us that are hungry to get back in it, so just have to keep trying to separate ourselves. Every game’s important, obviously, but we need to sprint to the finish line.”

Sprinting toward their own end and arriving in proper position, right from the start of Thursday’s game at the Bell Centre, will put the Canadiens on the path they wish to be on. 

“I think, besides our forecheck, those two things are probably most important in our game,” said Caufield. “It almost all comes down to our forecheck, but it’s also how we arrive in the zone, how we neutralize their rush game and get pucks back. And if you do that right and kill a play, but they still get the puck back in the offensive zone, how do you arrive again and win pucks back?”

It takes attention to detail and mental engagement, and Canadiens coach Martin St. Louis would say committing to those things is “a group decision.”

The Canadiens have made good ones this season, for the most part.

“We’ve established a certain amount of standards,” St. Louis said. “The group knows, and I feel like they’re very demanding of each other with those standards, and I feel that creates an environment of growth, and I feel that’s what we’ve seen.”

Now, it’s time to level up.

“Obviously, once you have that growth, you expect more from the group,” St. Louis said. “So, it’s going to be a hard fight all the way down the stretch, I feel, and the focus is not getting in; the focus is the standards.”

Quick Hits

• On the divisional race, which has Montreal trailing first-place Tampa Bay by six points, Caufield said, “I know they’ve got a couple more games in a hand, too, which means they’re probably playing a pretty difficult, heavy schedule. You have to kind of hope they fall off a little bit, but it’s tough to say they will, so you just have to keep climbing, keep fighting.”

• No bitterness from Caufield on being left off Team USA, despite scoring a nation-leading 32 goals in the lead up the Olympics. He told us before participants left for Milan that he’d be cheering them on and hoping they win if not for any other reason than that would justify general manager Bill Guerin’s decision, and here’s what he said about the significance of them following through: “It’s huge. Starting with worlds last summer — winning that and seeing them, I wouldn’t say take over but kind of flip the script, it’s been Canada’s game for a long time. I’m not saying it’s still not, but we’ve been knocking at the door for a long time and it’s good to see everybody that’s helped out that side of things win. It means a lot to our country, and to the fans, too.” 

• Caufield called the gold-medal game “probably the best hockey game to ever be played.”

• Burlington, Ontario’s Josh Anderson watched the Olympics and surmised that longtime rival Tom Wilson was instrumental in Canada’s most dominant performance. “I thought he was a huge factor. I was saying to a couple of guys while we were watching the game, ‘Why did it take them so long to put that line together with (Brad) Marchand and (Sam) Bennett?’ Bennett was sitting out, but you have that identity line that nobody was going to want to play against, ever, and they were controlling the game every time they got put on the ice. They were there for that reason, but I thought they were a huge part of that game for Team Canada.”

• Oliver Kapanen dressed throughout the Olympics, but the 22-year-old played only in the game that saw Finland beat Slovakia for the bronze medal. St. Louis’ assessment: “He was really noticeable, and he was really good, and (they) probably wish they played him more maybe after watching that.”

• Nick Suzuki and Juraj Slafkovsky returned from the Olympics in full health and were given Tuesday off to rest. St. Louis said both are expected to practise Wednesday. 

• The coach also said one of — if not both — Alex Newhook and Patrik Laine could be prepared to return from lengthy absences due to injury when the Canadiens play the New York Islanders on Thursday. If it’s both, that would necessitate a roster move between now and then to get from 24 players down to 23.