Four things the Canadiens can use to pull off the upset and beat the Lightning

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Back then, St. Louis was not about to face the Lightning and his counterpart and former coach Jon Cooper in a seven-game series; it was just one game, albeit a very big one. And thus, he was able to discuss what he admired about the Lightning freely. “I was there with Cooper his first year. He coached me from the deadline to the deadline. I didn’t have him for a full season, but he coached me for one year,” St. Louis said after practice that day. “And he taught a lot about playing together offensively, and it was a very good offensive team when he took over. But it wasn’t enough to be a good offensive team. “If you look at their path, I think they were leading Columbus 3-0 in Game 1 of the (2019) playoffs and they lost that game, and they lost the series in four games. So there was an evolution. They learned to win by closing games, and that’s the defensive side of the game. When they went through that evolution, that’s a team that won two Stanley Cups and made the final another year. “It’s part of their success, being able to evolve. Just because something worked seven years ago doesn’t mean it will work today.” It was a thoughtful, insightful answer. Fast forward to Friday afternoon after practice, two days before the Canadiens will face Cooper and the Lightning in Game 1 of their first-round playoff series. St. Louis was asked about what he learned from Cooper. He paused for several seconds, then repeated the question — “What did I learn from Coop?” — and continued thinking. He could have easily drawn on the elements of his long answer about the Lightning nine days earlier. Instead, he was very brief. “Probably the way he communicates, I would say,” he finally said. “Yeah.” Later, he was asked about his legend status with the Lightning, the banner with his No. 26 that hangs from the rafters of Benchmark International Arena. St. Louis was equally brief and to the point. “I think the first time I went there it was a little weird, but I’m so far removed from that,” he said. “I don’t have any emotion attached to the Lightning. In a way, the matchup between St. Louis and Cooper is indicative of the matchup between the Canadiens and the Lightning. Four years into his coaching career, St. Louis is the fourth-longest-tenured coach in the NHL. He is one of the brightest young coaching minds in the league and has a very promising future ahead of him. But he has coached five playoff games. Cooper has coached 155 playoff games, won two Stanley Cups and reached the final two other times. On the surface, it seems like a mismatch. But St. Louis is confident regardless, much like his young team. “I’ll give you facts: They’re a veteran team that’s been pretty much the standard for the last seven-plus years, eight years, 10 years. They’re good. We’re good too,” St. Louis said Thursday. The Canadiens will need a lot to go right for them. Our Dom Luszczyszyn’s model gives the Canadiens a 21 percent chance of winning and a 19 percent chance of getting swept. We’re not quite as pessimistic about the Canadiens’ chances. However, a few key areas that will need to come through for them to pull off the upset against a legitimate, playoff-hardened, veteran Stanley Cup contender. The day after St. Louis gave that long answer, which was 10 days after facing them in Tampa, the Canadiens hosted the Lightning at the Bell Centre. The Canadiens knew full well the Lightning were going to try to lay the groundwork for what looked like an eventual playoff series, because that previous meeting had also gone off the rails. Lightning forward Corey Perry was laying that groundwork from the start. And then, late in the first period, Canadiens forward Josh Anderson got into it with Lightning superstar Nikita Kucherov. He gave Kucherov a little tap with his stick, took a harder slash back from Kucherov, and the situation escalated, with Anderson going after Kucherov near the Canadiens bench. From that point on, the Lightning lost the plot; playoff positioning and a shot at winning the division didn’t seem to matter as much as Anderson going after their franchise player. This is a blueprint for the Canadiens. The Lightning are nasty and coming off back-to-back first-round losses to a Florida Panthers team that out-nastied them, which is why they are built the way they are. The Canadiens don’t have as many nasty elements in their lineup, and Anderson can’t do it alone. Many fans are wondering why Kirby Dach appears to have a spot in the lineup for Game 1. This is one reason why. He can bring that nastiness, that heaviness, and it seems to be something he is prepared to do, even if he didn’t bring it in his final five regular-season games after returning early from injury. “You’ve just got to play a big, heavy style, hold on to pucks below the goal line, try and take a few to the net. Just use my size to my advantage,” Dach said Thursday. “The game against Tampa last Thursday was a pretty good indicator of what this series could look like and what it’s going to be like. I think as a group we’re confident, we’re focused and ready for Game 1.” Aside from Dach, the Canadiens’ primary source of nastiness will be the blue line. Kaiden Guhle has talked all season about how the Canadiens’ defence, starting with him, needed to be “pricks” against the opposition. When asked where his prick meter was at heading into the playoffs, Guhle didn’t want to give too much away. “We’ll see on Sunday,” he said. “I like getting in guys’ faces, pissing guys off. I like when the other team’s yelling at me and kind of giving me s—. I feel like if other teams aren’t doing that to me, I feel like I’m not doing my job. It’s fun to kind of be in the fire, it gets you into the game.” And then there’s the projected pairing of Jayden Struble and Arber Xhekaj, two players who have been fighting for the same role in the lineup all season but who are both expected to dress in the absence of Noah Dobson, out with an apparent hand injury. “I think we both play physical and we can kind of wear down their forwards as the series goes on,” Xhekaj said Friday. “It’s going to be especially important because we like to play that game, and I think you’ve got to let Laner (Hutson) do his thing, and obviously (Alexandre) Carrier too, and Guhles and Mike (Matheson) will be our shutdown pair. “I think our job will kind of be to get things going if we need it.” The Canadiens will surely need it. Dach has played only five games since returning from injury and did not look great in any of them. Zack Bolduc has had six points in his last 19 games since the trade deadline. Alexandre Texier has had two points in his last 12 games since that date. Oliver Kapanen has five points in 22 games since then. Anderson has three points in 18 games since the deadline, but he brings something else that’s valuable. Each of those four forwards will need to similarly bring something valuable in the coming days or weeks if they’re not scoring, and it’s probably a bit different for each of them. Kapanen’s lack of production can be offset by his responsible defensive play. Dach and Bolduc can provide strong forechecking and puck possession and a physical presence. Texier is a versatile facilitator, a complementary player who can do things that lead to offence without necessarily providing offence himself, which explains his presence on a line with Alex Newhook and Ivan Demidov. “I find players when they get in the playoffs, they raise their game in terms of intensity and everything,” St. Louis said Thursday. He gave that answer specifically about Kapanen, but it applies to the other forwards looking for themselves right now. Lacking production, those forwards will need to make those secondary contributions, because there is little doubt Anderson can have an impact on this series without registering a single point. Can any of them? Similar to the coaching matchup, Andrei Vasilevskiy, a legend in the Lightning net, is going up against Jakub Dobeš, a rookie who outmatched Vasilevskiy twice in those two late-season meetings, allowing a single goal in both games. Dobeš is a unique character, but he is highly competitive and has been one of the league’s best goaltenders since the trade deadline. When Juraj Slafkovský was told that Thursday, he raised an eyebrow. Slafkovský is easily Dobeš’s biggest tormentor. The ribbing is constant. One is Slovak, the other is Czech. It’s to be expected. But since the deadline, according to HockeyStats.com’s model, Dobeš led the NHL in goals saved above expected, a stat that caused Slafkovský’s eyebrow to lower. “He’s really competitive,” Slafkovský said. “He works hard, he spends a lot of time with (goaltending coach) Marco (Marciano) to watch his clips and do his goalie stuff that I don’t understand. He’s working hard on the ice. I feel like he’s a gamer.” For Dobeš, the increased playing time since the trade deadline — when Sam Montembeault was demoted to No. 3 status and the road was cleared for Dobeš to become the No. 1 — has helped. And those two games against the Lightning in particular put him in a good frame of mind heading into this series. “Definitely the first couple of games I played against him … I was lucky enough to win,” he said Friday. “So I feel like there’s still a lot of respect. He’s a great goaltender, but I don’t feel like the fear is there as much as the first couple of times we played him because he’s one of the best goalies in the league. I don’t have that much experience. I have some, but playing against a goalie like that, it’s good to realize you can beat him and you can have a good series against him.” Nick Suzuki. Cole Caufield. Jake Evans. Brendan Gallagher. Phillip Danault. Anderson. None has won a Stanley Cup. All of them lost the 2021 Stanley Cup Final to the Lightning. No one else on the Canadiens was on that Cup final team, while the Lightning have eight players who played in that series, which doesn’t seem like a huge difference. Except the Canadiens have gone through a rebuild in the five years since, whereas the Lightning’s core has remained largely unchanged. When Suzuki was asked Friday if anything lingers from that series, his initial response was to chuckle. “Is there anything lingering?” he said. “I mean, we lost a Cup, so there’s definitely emotions and feelings on how that ended for us, and the guys that experienced that can lean on that and show the guys in the room what it takes to win in the playoffs.” In other words, that is fuel. More than the words, Suzuki’s chuckle made that clear. It’s a bruise. A scar. An opportunity lost. And ever since that Game 5 in Tampa was lost five years ago and those six players had to watch the Lightning celebrate their second Cup win, that bruise has seemingly not healed. That fuel needs to be used in this series. “Yeah, I guess in a way it is a full circle moment,” Evans said. “We’re obviously on the rise right now. I guess it’s just a different series than the last time. We’re a younger team with a ton of skill, and I felt like the other team was built on our vets that just played a simple game and didn’t give up much. So yeah, it’s a good test for us to see where we’re at from five years ago and see where we’ve gone. “We have a lot of confidence in ourselves.” Spot the pattern. Connect the terms Find the hidden link between sports terms Arpon Basu has been the editor-in-chief of The Athletic Montréal since 2017. Previously, he worked for the NHL for six years as managing editor of LNH.com and a contributing writer on NHL.com. Follow Arpon on Twitter @ArponBasu