About Last Night: Is the new coach bump wearing off?

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For the people who really want to see the Montreal Canadiens tank for that coveted first overall draft pick, the end result of Saturday’s game was a source of joy. Not only did the Habs lose 4-3 in a shootout, but they gave two points to a rival for that top pick.

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After a brief move up the standings, the Canadiens are back in 32nd place, two points behind the Arizona Coyotes, who visit the Bell Center Tuesday, and four points behind the Seattle Kraken, who won last night’s shootout.

For those who want to see some entertaining hockey down the stretch of this lost season though, this game was a little rough to sit through. Overall, I thought the Canadiens played splendidly in the first period and didn’t get the results they deserved after a couple of boneheaded plays cost them big time, but the rest of the game was less impressive.

Playing a full-capacity Bell Center for the first time in 2022, with Joel Edmundson in the lineup for the first time since the Stanley Cup Final, the energy the Habs brought to the table was just okay. Credit the Kraken for taking some energy out of the building. The lengths they were willing to go to slow down the game and suck all the fun out of it were especially apparent in overtime, when they spent the better part of 90 seconds passing the puck around their own zone and completely refusing to even cross the red line, but Martin St. Louis’s Canadiens have generally played with more fire than what we’ve seen in the last couple games.

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Don’t get me wrong: At even strength the Canadiens were by far the better team. They held the advantage in shot attempts, scoring chances and high-danger chances, but their edge in high-danger chances was just 6-5. If those numbers seem low, it’s because they are. The game had 44 minutes of play at 5-vs-5. An average NHL game would have 16 scoring chances between the teams, not 11. An extra five high danger chances might not sound like a huge amount, but it’s nearly a 50 per cent increase on what we saw.

Still, the Habs outscored Seattle 3-1 at evens, and the very familiar specter of special teams was their undoing. First, a miscommunication between Samuel Montembeault and Chris Wideman gave Yanni Gourde an empty net. Then Jared McCann struck with the man advantage. For their part, the Canadiens went 0/6 on the power play. After three shots on their first opportunity, they managed just one shot on net over the following five. Not. Great.

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You know who was great, though? The same player who has been great in virtually every game this season: Artturi Lehkonen. Among the leaders in all the differentials, Lehkonen put seven scoring chances towards the net, including three from the high-danger area. Lehkonen did not score, but he continues to raise his value from him — both on the trade market and internally. I know a lot of folks want the Canadiens to trade everyone who has value and pool assets right now, but Lehkonen is someone I think Kent Hughes and Jeff Gorton should consider keeping.

As you usher in a new generation of kids to build the next core around, you still need veterans to lead by example, and you can’t lay everything at the feet of Nick Suzuki. Suzuki is already the coach’s number one choice at even strength, the powerplay, the penalty kill and overtime. There’s immense pressure on Suzuki to be everything for the Canadiens, and a player like Lehkonen can take some of that off as the Canadiens go through this rebuild.

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We’ve already seen this season how bad things get if the Habs are allowed to spiral. While I’m sure most are confident things won’t get that bad under Martin St. Louis, ensuring there are some players who can make sure they don’t get that bad is something all successful rebuilds have. Lehkonen plays with a level of pride and intensity that the logo on the front of his sweater deserves, and that might be more valuable long term than a low-end first round pick.

Speaking of playing with pride, after scoring the Canadiens’ first goal of the game, was there a person in Montreal who didn’t want to see Michael Pezzetta score the shootout winner when they announced he was going to take a shot? While he couldn’t beat Philipp Grubauer, Pezzetta has become a fan favorite for good reason. I’m not sure he’s a full time NHLer, but I do think he’ll play a lot of games for this franchise as it rebuilds — and he’ll play every minute he gets at 120 per cent.

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One player whose effort has been lacking most of the season has been Joel Armia. Like everyone else, I’ve become used to shaking my head whenever he gets the puck, knowing he’s going to fire it into a shin pad or pass it right to the tape of an opponent’s stick. To start this game, it was more of the same for Armia; he was fighting the puck and struggling. About halfway through the game, however, I changed things up and started playing the body instead of playing the puck. Suddenly he became very impactful.

The case of Armia should show fans how good a position Hughes and Gorton are actually in at the moment. It’s logical to want the sell-off to happen immediately and for the Habs to acquire a cascade of assets to hoard like Smaug in the Misty Mountains as they embark on this rebuild, but they don’t need to rush.

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Two weeks ago, there was no way anyone would trade for Armia. That may still be true today, but it might not be next year. The same could be true for David Savard, when the Canadiens could put him closer to the position he was signed to play. Having players with terms may seem like a handcuff, but it also gives management a lot of runway to maximize their value.

What should be encouraged is that if this is a bad game under St. Louis, it’s not that bad. The Canadiens are still likely going to lose a lot over the next two years at least, but there’s far more to look forward to right now than what we saw in the first half of this season. It may be a long rebuild, but we can also say the worst is over, and not be sarcastic about it.