The Montreal Canadiens will try again to pass the playoffs when they visit the Toronto Maple Leafs on Saturday night.
The Canadia (39-31-9, 87 points) had a chance to reach the season by winning on Friday, but they lost 5-2 to the host Ottawa senators to end their season best, six-match winning line.
Maple Leafs (48-26-4, 100 points) has its own incentive. They hold first place in the Atlantic division with two points over Tampa Bay Lightning and four over Florida Panthers.
Toronto leads the season against Montreal 2-1-0. The Canadiens, which has a six-point lead over the Columbus Blue Jackets in the hunt for the second and last Wild-Card quay in the Eastern Conference, will try to overcome the slow start that put them behind 2-0 at 4:18 in the first period on Friday.
“Can’t we bend ourselves in the first period? We haven’t been able to do it,” said Canadian coach Martin St. Louis. “Fortunately, I felt that we stopped the bleeding 2-0. I just wanted to get out of that period down 2-0. But a few nights, it’s just too big of a hole.”
“Not the start we were looking for,” said Cole Caufield, who had help for Montreal. “It’s always hard to come back. I thought we showed some struggle, but you have to start better. We have to call our starts and start in time. We can’t always come back all the time. We have to look in the mirror and meet it forward.”
“It happens,” said Montreal defender Kaiden Guhle. “Eight -two games. You may have nights. I wasn’t good enough for the team today.”
“We knew it would not be easy,” said Canadian defender Lane Hutson. “We definitely didn’t make any benefits. It was obviously a tough start to the game. Just not good enough. They did a good job of making it difficult for us, and we did a pretty bad job of breaking their press. We have to flush this pretty fast ..”
A lively start can be useful for Canadiens on Saturday to put pressure on Maple Leafs, which will be a player.
With defender Oliver Ekman-Larsson out, Toronto will play with five defenders and 12 ahead.
“He’s out,” said coach Craig Berube. “Maybe I fit up and play back there, but yes, five defenders.”
Maple Leafs will also be without damaged defender Jake McCabe and the center David Kampf, who also missed the team’s 1-1-0 road trip this week to Florida, where they lost 3-1 to Panthers on Tuesday and won 4-3 on Overtime Wednesday against Tampa Bay.
A Toronto victory on Saturday would put the Maple Leafs out of Florida’s reach in the race for the division management.
Ekman-Larsson got an unclear injury during the game on Wednesday. He did not participate in practice on Friday and is listed as day to day.
“It’s always challenging, but we’ve played games with a defender injured early in the game and you play by five,” Berube said. “It is important that our forward do a good job of helping our defense tomorrow night and making sure they come back quickly for outbursts and such things, the game makes them easy on them as much as possible.
“Not getting extended shifts in the D zone and tired of your defense, it will be a big part of the game.”
-Field level media
