Once upon a time in the NHL, when an opponent destroyed you, there was a risk that practice the next day would be tough, that there would be some bag skating, that the coach may very well raise his voice, but this is not today’s NHL. After his Montreal Canadiens were beaten 7-0 by the Dallas Stars, coach Martin St-Louis decided that the on-ice practice would be optional.
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That decision surprised some, and when the bench boss was asked what his players did in Brossard on Friday morning, he replied that there was a mandatory video session. Ask to describe what that was like. He said there was a TV showing some clips, and they talked about a few things. Further pressed by a journalist to know what the tone of the meeting was like, the pilot said:
Listen, I’m not going to tell you what my tone was like, alright? I did my job today.
– St-Louis didn’t like being questioned about his handling of Friday’s practice
While he didn’t say it, St-Louis didn’t appreciate the fact that the way he handled the group following such a beating was put into question. While fans and media alike wondered whether it was the best time for an optional skate, they are not in the coaches’ shoes or have the beat of the room that the coach does.
The coach stated that the team had been on the ice for four consecutive days and that two games were coming up quick against the Boston Bruins on Saturday and the Columbus Blue Jackets on Monday and that the players knew what they had to do whether it was to skate like Oliver Kapananenm, Lane Hutson, Ivan Demidov and Zachary Bolduc decided to do, jump on the ice earlier with skills coach Adam Nicholas like Brendan Gallagher and Jake Evans chose to do or by just sticking to off-ice training like all the others.
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As for the other burning question, he confirmed that Samuel Montembeault would be in the net against the Bruins, meaning he’s sticking with the “if you lose, you give up the net” formula.
While the coach didn’t have a full update on Alex Newhook, he did acknowledge that the forward would miss some time and that he would need to make some lineup changes. A couple of hours later, the verdict was handed down. Newhook suffered a broken ankle, had surgery and will be out for four months. Because bad news never comes alone, the Canadiens also announced that Kaiden Guhle had surgery on a partially torn adductor muscle and would miss from eight to 10 weeks—awful news for the Canadiens that comes at the worst possible time.
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