Suzuki and Caufield: The elderly Canadian couple will have to learn to tame each other

“When they get back together after being apart for a while, it feels better. It’s like a married couple.”

We do not know whether Martin St. Louis spoke from knowledge of the facts. We haven’t gotten this far. But the Canadian coach had high hopes for the reunion of Nick Suzuki and Cole Caufield, in the first trio, after 11 matches played in “separate rooms.”

The two members of St. Louis’ favorite on-ice couple, we agree, took the time to reclaim their complicity. Sean Monahan completed it until the third period, the first Canadian triple in a first half of a game that was far from exciting.

St. Louis said at the end of the match: “I have to watch the match again,” avoiding qualifying the duo’s performance.

In fact, in that 5-4 overtime loss at the hands of the Red Wings, it wasn’t just the top three that had trouble warming up. It was 3-0 to the visitors when Justin Barron saved the remainder of the first period with a goal he scored with just seven seconds left in the game.

“I don’t know what’s going on. Maybe it’s because we’ve got a young squad,” Mike Matheson said, hypothesizing. “I remember when I started in the league, I found it difficult to be ready for 82 games. “It’s an underrated part of the job.”

The rotation must end

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Samuel Montembault’s contract extension, announced on Friday, will allow Kent Hughes to see the goalkeeping situation more clearly. With Bikankoro under contract for the next three seasons, the Canadian general manager can now play his cards with more confidence.

The problem is that Jake Allen’s latest uniform risks cooling off Hughes’ goaltending counterparts. Since winning the Molson Cup in October, Allen has lost all six matches in which he has appeared.

Saturday night against the Red Wings, he wasn’t the main culprit in the defeat. But he didn’t perform any miracles either. He surrendered five hits in 33 rounds.

Maybe it’s time to end the systematic rotation between the three goalkeepers and give Montembault some back-to-back starts. Question about whether he actually has the number one seed.

Moreover, it was Hughes himself, when commenting on Montembault’s signing in the morning, who stressed that his goalkeeper needed a rehearsal in order to be able to properly assess him.

This is the right time.

No shots in 61 seconds

The massive attack had finally happened. Nick Suzuki ended a drought of 27 chances. However, St. Louis didn’t seem too impressed with the work of this unit.

“It’s fun to score a goal, but we had fun. The puck went over the player’s paddle, which allowed us to keep the puck. He played one-on-one with a screen in front of him,” Suzuki described. “It feels good, but we still have a lot of work to do.” that matter”.

Perhaps what was wrong in the coach’s view is that his forces were unable to shoot any ball on goal during the 61 seconds during which their numerical superiority continued.

As if that wasn’t enough, Christian Fischer had scored earlier as he punted the ball. At that point, in eight games and one period, the Canadian had allowed more goals with the man advantage (2) than he had scored himself (0).

This does not make strong children