In the Habs’ Room: ‘We have to be more opportunistic’
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Coach Dominique Ducharme rues the missed chances that could have helped the Canadiens bury the Canucks and avoid OT.
Author of the article:
Pat Hickey • Montreal Gazette 
Canadiens forward Paul Byron crashes into Canucks goalie Thatcher Demko during the first period at Rogers Arena. Photo by Rich Lam /Getty Images Article content
The Canadiens have to figure out this overtime thing.
They came up short while playing 3-on-3 and again in the shootout Monday as they opened a six-game Western Canada road trip with a 2-1 shootout loss to the Vancouver Canucks at Rogers Arena.
When the NHL introduced the 3-on-3 overtime, the idea was to encourage scoring with fast-paced, end-to-end rushes. The overtime Monday had all the excitement of a chess match.
“There’s a fine line between patient and tentative,” said interim head coach Dominique Ducharme. “If you get impatient and lose the puck too quick, attacking and forcing 1-on-1s, that’s not the way to do it 3-on-3.
“Sometimes it might look a little tentative but you want to set up movement and create a little bit of fatigue on the other side and force a bad decision where a guy’s gonna leave for a bad change and something opens up.
“I thought a couple of times we lost the puck when we shouldn’t have.”
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Translation: We played not to lose.
The Canadiens used three forwards for most of the overtime but managed only one shot on goal.
As for the shootout, the Canadiens should look at the video of Bo Horvat’s game winner. There’s no hesitation as Horvat winds up and finds a gaping hole on Carey Price’s blocker side.
The shot was in sharp contrast to the weak efforts from the Canadiens shooters.
Nick Suzuki came in too far and couldn’t lift the puck over Thatcher Demko’s pads; Jonathan Drouin lost the handle on the puck and didn’t get a shot off, and Tomas Tatar didn’t fool anyone when he went between his legs and launched a weak shot. The Canadiens shooters are 1-for-9 this season.
“We have a plan in place that we need to execute and try to tire them out,” said Jeff Petry, who was the only defenceman to see the ice in overtime. “That’s when we need to strike. I don’t think we had too many chances to get to their net.
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“It’s not something that you practise too often. I guess we can watch a little video or just discuss the options that we have because getting those points when we do go into overtime is huge.”
Perhaps it should be something the Canadiens practise a bit more because nearly 30 per cent of their games have gone into overtime this season.
Of course, the Canadiens could have avoided overtime if they had scored more goals or if they hadn’t given up the tying goal by Adam Gaudette with 40.5 seconds remaining in regulation time.
“They scored on a perfect shot; it was the only way they could beat us,” said Phillip Danault. “I think we deserved a better result. But if we keep playing this way, we’ll give ourselves a chance to win every night.”
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It was a perfect shot but Ben Chiarot might have made it more difficult for Gaudette if he hadn’t moved away from the shooter and given him a clear shot at Price.
“We gave up a little too much space on their goal,” Ducharme said. “We missed a few scoring chances during the game, which could’ve helped us increase our lead. We have to be more opportunistic.”
The one Montreal goal was a power-play effort by Jeff Petry, and the Canadiens are 5-for-11 on the power play in the five games since assistant coach Alex Burrows was added to the mix. While the power play is better, Ducharme noted the Canadiens have to find a way to draw more penalties.
The Canadiens and the Canucks will play again Wednesday (11 p.m.,TSN2, RDS, TSN-690 Radio).
phickey@postmedia.com
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