TAMPA, Fla. — It was six shifts into his first game in three weeks that Alex Carrier made a series of plays that perfectly encapsulated his value to the Montreal Canadiens.
The first one came nine seconds before Josh Anderson opened the scoring on Sunday. As soon as Carrier saw Mike Matheson rimming the puck from across the blue line, he identified the only way for the Canadiens to win it and maintain their balance in the offensive zone was for him to dive down deep to get it.
Carrier did it without hesitation, beating Tampa Bay Lightning forward Gage Goncalvez in a race and jackknifing the loose puck forward. And then, finally, he maintained his pressure on Goncalvez, won a battle, and pushed the puck Anderson’s way.
We’re talking about three smart, simple, fearless actions. The kind that Carrier brings every time he pulls a Canadiens sweater over his head. The kind his team would need most in the absence of their only other right-handed veteran blue-liner.
“With (Noah Dobson) out, I know we’re all going to have to step up a little bit and pick up on some of those minutes, which we’re ready to do,” said Kaiden Guhle, before Game 1. “(Carrier) plays so hard and simple, the type of player you need to make a long run in the playoffs.”
The type who won’t dip his toe into the water. The type to flip right off the high-diving board, caution be damned.
Carrier would’ve had reason to hesitate, with rust to shake off and the lingering effects of an upper-body injury that was supposed to keep him out of action for up to four weeks likely being felt.
But that’s not who Carrier is.
And the 29-year-old showed in Game 1 just how important he is at both ends of the ice.
Carrier’s assist on Anderson’s goal was his 11th point in his 22nd career playoff game. Closer to his end, he did what he always does, finishing with three hits, two blocked shots, and spent 4:13 of his 18:36 fighting hard to keep Lightning players away from goaltender Jakub Dobes on the penalty kill.
Those are all things Dobson did especially well this season, and things the Canadiens would’ve struggled to do without Carrier.
The six-foot-four, 240-pound defenceman Arber Xhekaj played fewer than 11 minutes in 30 of his 65 regular-season games and was scratched from 17 of them because he struggled playing to his identity in such limited and sporadic minutes.
But Xhekaj learned from it and delivered his best performance under those circumstances in the most important game of the season to date. In 10:59 on the ice Sunday, the 25-year-old had five shot attempts and five hits, and he put up zeroes in the most important categories (penalties and giveaways) to have zeroes in.
In between, Xhekaj got a runway to play more, with both Dobson and Carrier injured, stacking up close to 20 minutes in two of the last three regular-season games, and that played a big role in what we saw from him Sunday.
At least that’s how Canadiens coach Martin St. Louis saw it.
“I feel like he really benefited down the stretch of playing a lot of minutes and building his game,” said St. Louis on Monday. “Sometimes, it’s hard for a player who doesn’t get all these minutes to build his game, and I feel that his simplicity yesterday, his predictability too for his teammates and stuff, and being composed — he played a physical game, but he was composed, towed the line, and I think that’s important. But I think it really helped him down the stretch to stack up good games with more minutes and, obviously, it goes hand in hand that if you play more minutes, you’ll probably gain more confidence. He took advantage of those extra minutes, and he’s carried that definitely into Game 1.”
Special teams pushed Xhekaj under 11 minutes Sunday.
But he played so well that he ended up on the ice with fewer than two minutes to play in the game, which was something that didn’t generally happen in other games he played as little.
“We’re always calculated,” said St. Louis, “but we’re not afraid to give him those types of minutes.”
From Carrier to Xhekaj, to Guhle, Lane Hutson, Mike Matheson and Jayden Struble, the Canadiens limited second-chance opportunities for the Lightning to practically nil in Game 1.
It’s something they improved on significantly down the stretch of the regular season.
“Physical, letting the goalie see the puck,” said Guhle. “I think it’s something, definitely, that’s been a bigger topic for the D-men: clearing out the front of the net and letting our goalie see the puck. I think it’s just being physical and not letting guys there. And they know if they want to get there, they’re going to have to work for it.”
The Lightning were limited to just 12 slot-driving plays at five-on-five, which nine less than the Canadiens were able to generate.
Special teams weren’t the only difference
Although each team took five penalties and the Canadiens scored three power-play goals to the Lightning’s two, control of the game at five-on-five wasn’t as lopsided as the shot attempts through two periods made it appear.
After three periods — there was no five-on-five play in overtime — a lot of the numbers tilted toward the Canadiens.
Here’s the breakdown from SportLogiq:
High-danger scoring chances
Scoring chances off the cycle
Scoring chances off the rush
Lack of discipline a cause for concern for Lightning
After the last two regular-season games between these teams saw the Lightning try— and totally fail — to bully the Canadiens out of the rink, they wisely strayed from that game plan Sunday.
Coach Jon Cooper said before the game, “We’re going to have to find a way to not do some of the things we did in the regular season, but I don’t want to take that mentality away from our players, either.”
The Lightning straddled that line well but crossed another one completely with costly stick high-sticking penalties up to 200 feet away from their own net.
Cooper wasn’t blaming the officials for them.
“No, I had a problem with us. I mean, come on, we took four offensive-zone penalties,” said Cooper. “Just look at them. That’s not over-aggression; that’s just stupidity, you know, a lot of them. That was on us. That was a game that we just gave them an opportunity to win. This is the Stanley Cup Playoffs; this isn’t Game 62. So that is extremely disappointing in the way we conducted ourselves and the amount of penalties we took.”
The Lightning also ran the third-best penalty kill in the league all season but flopped in Game 1.
That’ll need to change in Game 2.
“Then you’re probably not going to last very long,” said Cooper. “If you’re killing penalties off at 50 per cent when you only (took two), so it’s 1-for-2, maybe you can survive. But you can’t let that happen, so that’s on us. There’s no excuses. Nothing.”
• It’s one game, and the Lightning are as battle-tested as they come. But you have to think it hurts to come out on the losing end of a game in which you held Nick Suzuki (101 regular-season points) and Cole Caufield (51 goals) to one shot attempt between them at five-on-five.
Still, Brandon Hagel, who played a huge role in that and was Tampa’s best player, saw it as a positive.
“I thought we executed our game plan on those guys five-on-five really well yesterday,” Hagel said. “Listen, they’re too good of hockey players not to get their chances here. … They’re really good, they’ve got a lot of chemistry, they’ve been together for a long time. … We’re going to try to (do the same) every single night, but, at the same time, they’re going to get their chances. It’s just the reality of the hockey game.”
• Charle-Edouard D’Astous’ presumed head injury, suffered on a second-period hit from Josh Anderson, thins out Tampa’s blue line considerably. Especially in the absence of Victor Hedman, who has been skating on his own but doesn’t appear any closer to playing in this series.
• D’Astous’ replacement at Monday’s practice was Declan Carlile, who’d be wise not to try to avenge D’Astous. Last time he picked a fight with Anderson, in the last regular-season meeting between these teams, he got demolished.
• No changes to the Lightning lines or pairings, otherwise.
• From April 1 through the end of the regular season, the Canadiens ran the 22nd-best power play in the league, converting on only 12.9 per cent of their chances. That dropped them from fifth to 10th in the category for the season. Whatever they worked in closed pre-practice sessions in the leadup to the playoffs paid major dividends immediately. It definitely also helped that they were no longer trying to help Caufield win the “Rocket” Richard Trophy.
• He may not have had many chances to score in Game 1, but Caufield did notch two assists and was wise not to waste shots on plays that required him to pass.
“You’ve got to do what the game asks you to do,” Caufield said. “I think it’s just being between coverage and reading what they give you. I think there’s times to shoot and there’s times to do something else, and whether that’s back to Suzy or even up to Lane, I think one of the three options is open and you just have to kind of look for those things.”
