MONTREAL — There was a meaningful moment at the Bell Centre on Saturday afternoon.
The moment came with 15.7 seconds left to play in regulation time, with the Montreal Canadiens down 4-0 to the New Jersey Devils, with roughly half the crowd still in attendance, the other half having long since departed.
It was garbage time, a game state that has been all too common at the Bell Centre over the last four years, and which has rarely benefited the home team.
The crowd was mostly quiet all afternoon, in part because it was made up largely of small children on the traditional Family Weekend of matinees on Super Bowl weekend — children who generally don’t produce the same thunderous volume of a typical Montreal crowd. But also because the home team had done little to trigger any noise from their young fans.
They had not scored, for a second consecutive home game, and were on the verge of their seventh loss in their last eight games. The Bell Centre was quiet, aside from the smattering of boos raining down on the Canadiens from the scattered fans still in attendance.
But then, Lane Hutson corralled a puck behind the Canadiens’ net and sent a pass to the opposite blue line, where fellow rookie Owen Beck received it and went in on the Devils net in search of his first career NHL goal. Devils defenceman Luke Hughes gave a tug on Beck’s arm, and Beck was awarded a penalty shot.
Suddenly, that thinned-out crowd began to cheer, and eventually got on its feet, continuing to cheer. The Bell Centre had not been louder all afternoon. And there was Beck, at the centre of it, looking for his first career goal.
He skated in on Devils goalie Jake Allen, picked his spot and shot it blocker side. Allen got his blocker on it. No goal.
So, why was that meaningful? Because those are the moments that will hold the most meaning for the Canadiens from now on, moments that speak to the team’s future as opposed to its present, moments that speak to development and growth over results.
The Canadiens are out of the results business because three standings points in two and a half weeks at this time of year puts you out of that business. What’s more important now is development, and what’s more important now are players precisely like Beck. He’s a young, right-shot, 200-foot centre who could be a replacement for impending free agent Jake Evans, and seeing how ready he is to compete in the NHL will help inform the decision of whether to sign Evans to a contract extension or trade him by the March 7 trade deadline.
The penalty shot in and of itself had almost no meaning. Who took the penalty shot, and the excitement of a crowd that has seen a lot of garbage time over the last four years and still found the energy to stand up and cheer that moment, both things have meaning.
The results have lost meaning. The present has lost meaning. The future has reclaimed all of its meaning.
“I guess it’s a new stage for this group, to play these meaningful games where there’s so much on the line,” Canadiens coach Martin St. Louis said. “Those are learning experiences, and you want to be part of that. We’re learning. We’re learning about our group right now. Can we get over that hump of competing in those pressure moments and actually turning this into wins? We’ll find out.”
No, we’ve already found out. The Canadiens had an opportunity to do just what St. Louis described after the last time they faced the Devils at home on Jan. 25 and lost 4-3 in overtime, their first set of consecutive losses since Dec. 12 and 14, six weeks earlier. They could have competed in a pressure moment the following game to prevent that losing stretch from reaching three games, and they lost 4-1 at home to the Winnipeg Jets. Then they lost 4-0 at home to the Minnesota Wild. Then they lost two out of three on a trip through California. And now, this latest loss.
What players such as Lane Hutson look like now will impact what the Canadiens look like next season and beyond. (David Kirouac / Imagn Images)
The pressure moments are over. They are in the past. What follows for the Canadiens are still meaningful games, but they are meaningful to the future, and not the present. This means watching not only Beck, but also defenceman Logan Mailloux, and Hutson, and other pieces that will impact what the Canadiens look like next season and beyond.
That also means watching Kirby Dach, who played a third straight game with Josh Anderson on his right wing instead of Patrik Laine and continued looking energized and fast and impactful. Dach, Anderson and Alex Newhook were easily the Canadiens’ best line Saturday, and that’s meaningful, even if they failed to contribute to a positive result — because those results have lost meaning.
“As you get to this stage of the season, I think every team elevates their play, and we have to do the same thing,” St. Louis said. “What might have worked in November and December might not necessarily be the case in February and March. So we’re going to learn a lot about our group.”
St. Louis refuses to speak in the past tense when saying that, and that’s perfectly normal. He says a lot can happen in two months, and that his group will continue fighting to make it so the Canadiens’ results regain some meaning, and that is also perfectly normal.
And maybe the Canadiens will be able to prove their coach right. After all, it only took them a month, from Dec. 17 to Jan. 16, to vault themselves into the playoff conversation to begin with. Maybe they can do it again. Maybe.
But at some point decisions will need to be made, and they will need to be governed with a realistic mindset, which is the mandate of management. Thus, there remains little doubt that a management team that only two weeks ago likely considered itself a cautious seller ahead of the trade deadline should probably shift into becoming an aggressive seller.
But it also means that a coach who only on Friday was noting how defenceman Jayden Struble probably had a bit of a short leash because it’s the NHL and it’s a competitive league might need to give a little more leash to his young players over these next two months, to provide moments like the one Beck could have had Saturday afternoon.
The Canadiens can still draw meaning out of their remaining games, but to do so, they will need the proper perspective. The playoffs may still be within reach in theory, but not in reality.
Those meaningful games the organization wanted so badly to play in March and early April were played in January and early February instead. The organization should have already drawn what meaning those games provided and processed it.
Now, it’s time to move on from being the rebuilding team the Canadiens still are, and drawing a different kind of meaning from the games they have left.
(Top photo of Owen Beck taking a penalty shot against Jake Allen in the third period: Minas Panagiotakis / Getty Images)
