They dominated at five-on-five, combining for a goal, owning a 91.58 per cent share of the expected goals, notching 13 shot attempts while only allowing three, and providing a template the rest of their Montreal Canadiens teammates followed in what should’ve been a 6-2 win rather than a 5-2 loss to the Nashville Predators.
No matter how much this one stung — and it stung enough for coach Martin St. Louis to express concern for his team’s morale following its third consecutive loss — the performance these three players had in their first game together was a silver lining worth focusing on.
Because while precious points in the standings were lost on Thursday, this line was one valuable thing found.
“Hard to play against, knowing what we have to do each and every shift, creating momentum, energy,” said Anderson of its identity. “I just thought we played a north-south hockey game tonight. It was really simple in our game, what we wanted to accomplish and achieve, and we were straightforward and direct.”
They were just what the doctor ordered, really.
That recipe for the Canadiens was completely absent in the losses to the Pittsburgh Penguins and Carolina Hurricanes that directly preceded this game against the Predators, and much of that had to do with the lack of cohesion on each of their lines in those games.
The chemistry between Kreider, Nick Suzuki and Cole Caufield proved elusive since the start of training camp. Juraj Slafkovsky’s connection with Ivan Demidov and Oliver Kapanen never had a proper chance of being rekindled, with Demidov most recently following Kapanen to the infirmary. And Newhook and Anderson appeared miscast in the different slots they were used in.
Until they ended up together with Kreider Thursday.
“It seemed like whenever they were on the ice, the other team didn’t have much room if they had the puck and stuff,” said St. Louis. “And we were able to forecheck really well, get pucks back and stuff.”
There was value in seeing that happen, especially after we didn’t see much of any of it through the 1-1-1 start the Canadiens got off to before losing this game.
What it should do is give St. Louis confidence he can roll Slafkovsky with Suzuki and Caufield — one of the most dominant lines in hockey over the last three seasons —without fearing he’s making the Canadiens too top-heavy.
It also helps that Zachary Bolduc, Phillip Danault and Alexandre Texier are meshing well already.
St. Louis talked about the value they’re providing in extending offensive possession, and that value was as evident in their production over the last two games as it was in the momentum they generated for the Canadiens to appear more like the team they’re supposed to be this season.
Rolling those three out before Anderson, Newhook and Kreider Thursday led to the most dominant sequence of the season to date — a three-minute fire drill in Nashville’s end in the middle of the second period — and provided some hope that this team could find the balance it lost when Demidov joined Kapanen on the sidelines.
Changes on defence St. Louis made were promising as well, even if the end result against Nashville was just as disappointing as it was against Pittsburgh and Carolina.
Separated from Mike Matheson and paired with Lane Hutson, Noah Dobson had a brilliant assist on Newhook’s second-period goal to punctuate a great individual performance. Adam Engstrom came in for Jayden Struble and stabilized the third pairing with Arber Xhekaj.
And the change St. Louis made in net was anything but problematic.
Jacob Fowler stepped in for Jakub Dobes and was only beat on three shots he had no chance on. And two other Nashville goals were scored into an empty net following Ryan O’Reilly’s tip to make it 3-2 Predators with 3:16 to go.
The score would’ve been lopsided in the other direction had Juuse Saros not stood on his head in Nashville’s net.
He was scored on early by Kreider, but that goal came off the board due to an offside challenge.
Newhook beat Saros once, but missed a golden opportunity to do it again in the third. And when Anderson met the media, he said he was still thinking about the breakaway shot he pushed off Saros’ pad before the Predators got the lead.
“I think we were executing on what we were given,” Anderson added. “I thought we just played a deep game as a line. I thought our whole team played a good game tonight. We wanted to do everything that we did out there. Obviously, the puck wasn’t going in tonight.”
But his line will get many chances to score if it keeps playing that way.
Their assembly was an important development for a team searching for its balance at this early stage of the season.