Stu Cowan: Last web page has been written on this season for Canadiens

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Canadiens head coach Martin St. Louis stated he had a bizarre feeling arriving on the Bell Centre Thursday, understanding it could be the final recreation of the season.

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“We’ve had a difficult yr, we’ve had loads of progress, and at present is simply a part of our season,” St. Louis stated earlier than the sport. “It’s the final web page we’re going to jot down at present after which we’re going to get up after that and subsequent yr we’re going to rewrite one thing else and there’s all the time a final web page.”

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The final web page to this season was a 5-4 loss to the Boston Bruins, who completed with a 65-12-5 file for an NHL-record 135 factors.

The loss was a superb factor for the Canadiens as a result of it clinched twenty eighth place within the general standings with a 31-45-6 file, two factors behind the Arizona Coyotes. The Canadiens now have an 8.5-per-cent probability of successful the draft lottery for the No. 1 decide and a 41.8-per-cent probability of getting a top-five decide. If they’d completed twenty seventh, they’d have had a 7.5-per-cent probability of successful the lottery and solely a 15.4-per-cent probability of getting a top-five decide.

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However St. Louis wasn’t excited about that when he pulled goalie Samuel Montembeault within the last minute of Thursday’s recreation.

“We play to win,” St. Louis stated after the sport. “You do issues the appropriate manner, issues find yourself coming again your manner. We fought to the top. We tried to win the sport. We didn’t, nevertheless it didn’t cross my thoughts one bit (to not pull the goalie).”

St. Louis is making an attempt to construct a successful tradition and the Canadiens fought laborious all season regardless of a ridiculous quantity of accidents. They improved by 13 factors over final season, once they had been the worst group within the league.

Extra importantly, St. Louis has made the sport enjoyable for the gamers since taking on from Dominique Ducharme final February. They’re shopping for what St. Louis is promoting with regards to the model of hockey he desires them to play.

“Final yr was a troublesome yr,” defenceman David Savard stated. “I believe Marty introduced that constructive vibe within the dressing room of simply preserve constructing. If we’re having a troublesome recreation, we study from it. We take a look at what we will do higher and we simply preserve bettering daily. All people comes into the rink able to work. I believe it’s an enormous change of simply not being destructive and coming in and simply being down on your self. We had some powerful stretches earlier final yr and it was powerful coming to the rink whenever you really feel like you don’t have any solutions.”

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This was St. Louis’s first full season as an NHL head coach, following his Corridor of Fame taking part in profession.

“For a participant, you may have that bodily grind,” he stated. “For a coach, you in all probability have extra of that psychological grind. As a participant, you are concerned principally about your self and how one can assist. In fact, you may have occasions in your profession the place you are concerned about folks round you as nicely — particularly ready of management. However as a coach, you are concerned about the whole lot — and extra.”

What makes St. Louis most proud about what he achieved this season?

“We stored it collectively for a very long time with all of the circumstances,” he stated. “I believe as a group we’re far more organized than we had been early on this yr and final yr and I believe that was the objective this yr. Actually concentrate on our five-on-five, the model we need to play, and I really feel we’ve taken some nice steps in that division and that’s going to be very helpful subsequent yr as a result of we’re not going to begin from scratch. We’re going to have footprints on what we did this yr and we’re going to maintain evolving from it. I’m proud that we had been ready to try this. As a lot as I wished that, you want full engagement out of your group. So if something, I’m happy with the group, how engaged they had been in powerful circumstances to maintain advancing us.”

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St. Louis is aware of he has loads of work forward because the Canadiens attempt to rebuild right into a group that may compete within the playoffs each season, which has been the objective for the reason that new administration group of Jeff Gorton, the manager vice-president of hockey operations, and common supervisor Kent Hughes took over.

“I believe this yr we had been in toddler stage of the place we need to be and subsequent yr we’ll simply be slightly additional alongside,” St. Louis stated. “How briskly we get to that, I don’t know. However to me it’s extra like: When can we flip from how lengthy it’s going to take to how far we will take it? I don’t know when it’s going to flip, however I’m trying ahead to that day.”

There are extra pages to be written.

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