{"id":537360,"date":"2026-03-15T05:18:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-15T05:18:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/537360\/"},"modified":"2026-03-15T05:18:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-15T05:18:09","slug":"canadiens-running-out-of-time-to-fix-season-long-problems","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/537360\/","title":{"rendered":"Canadiens running out of time to fix season-long problems"},"content":{"rendered":"

MONTREAL \u2014 The most representative moment of this 4-2 loss for the Montreal Canadiens<\/a> was Lane Hutson whipping the puck away in frustration after former Boston University teammate Macklin Celebrini dumped it into empty net with 2:03 to go in regulation.<\/p>\n

He and his teammates didn\u2019t value it nearly as much as they should\u2019ve in this game against Celebrini\u2019s San Jose Sharks.<\/p>\n

Hutson made something good happen with it to open the scoring, but had his goal stolen away by a premature whistle.<\/p>\n

Then he found himself on the ice for three Sharks goals.<\/p>\n

Hutson also had two of his team\u2019s 20 giveaways, struggled as much as any of his teammates to defend the rush, and was left as flustered by the process as the outcome \u2014 neither of which were becoming of a team that\u2019s trying to prepare itself for playoff hockey.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel like we just kind of made it a little easy on them,\u201d Hutson said.<\/p>\n

Not what you want to hear after Game 65.<\/p>\n

At this stage of the season, the details should be entrenched. And in this game, they should\u2019ve been there, especially against a team the Canadiens got well acquainted with just 12 days ago \u2014 in a game of shinny that ended 7-5 Sharks at SAP Center.<\/p>\n

They learned that night that if you trade chances with Celebrini, Will Smith and the zone-flying Sharks, you will pay dearly.<\/p>\n

Or so we thought they did.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had flashes of some really good things, defended hard at times, but I feel like just a little bit of looseness in our game,\u201d said Hutson.<\/p>\n

Then he delivered this hard-hitting truth bomb: \u201cIt\u2019s so hard because early in the year it\u2019s fine because you think about how many games you have left, but now we\u2019re getting down to every little thing within these games matters a lot.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brendan Gallagher wasn\u2019t the only thing missing from this one.<\/p>\n

Of course, his absence would\u2019ve been a bit less noticeable had replacement Alex Texier\u2019s net-driving assist not been nullified by that early whistle that cancelled out Hutson\u2019s goal.<\/p>\n

Then again, seeing Texier and linemate Phillip Danault err on goals that turned a 1-1 tie to a 3-1 Sharks lead made you wonder what No. 11 was thinking from wherever he was watching from.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhether you play zone or man on man, you have to block wrist shots,\u201d said Canadiens coach Martin St. Louis. They\u2019re not one-timers, get in the lane.\u201d<\/p>\n

Takes courage. The kind Gallagher always brings.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat guy bleeds the logo,\u201d said Josh Anderson. \u201cWhat he means to our group on and off the ice, it\u2019s really hard. I don\u2019t know what else to say. We all love the guy. We know what he brings to the team…\u201d<\/p>\n

Again, so was the attention to detail, which was lacking at both ends of the ice.<\/p>\n

\u201cOffensively, we died with the puck in the corners instead of getting it out of there,\u201d said St. Louis. \u201cThey attack a lot below the goal line and bring numbers below the goal line and we talked about not getting stuck with the puck there. If you\u2019re not able to push the puck up, you have to get rid of it. And if you don\u2019t do that, you don\u2019t spend enough time in the offensive zone.\u201d<\/p>\n

And defensively, against Celebrini, who now has 94 points (49 more points than Smith, who ranks second on the Sharks with 45)?<\/p>\n

\u201cSimilar to McDavid, it\u2019s pace (that makes him so dangerous),\u201d said St. Louis. \u201cAny 50-50 (puck) he\u2019s gone. To me, it\u2019s just being aware of that and erring on the cautious side. You can\u2019t turn pucks over when he\u2019s on the ice. Especially against San Jose. They transition very, very quick, they send it, and there\u2019s no structure that can predict that and take care of that. You\u2019ve just got to be very calculated when he\u2019s on the ice, even in the offensive zone. And you can see when he gets away, he\u2019s dangerous.\u201d<\/p>\n

The 19-year-old has killed the Canadiens, piling up seven points in San Jose\u2019s two wins over them.<\/p>\n

Surprisingly, the young, run-and-gun Sharks clamped down in the third period Saturday and exacerbated Montreal\u2019s faulty execution.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s why Hutson was so frustrated.<\/p>\n

That and the reality sinking in that 17 games remain for the Canadiens to solve the same problems that have dogged them all season.<\/p>\n

Loose play, faulty coverage, and puck mismanagement coming up the ice have played huge parts in the Canadiens allowing the ninth-most goals per game in the league. They\u2019re all things they didn\u2019t struggle as much with in wins over the Toronto Maple Leafs and Ottawa Senators earlier this week, but after these issues reappeared against San Jose, St. Louis said, \u201cI\u2019m happy we\u2019re playing tomorrow.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFix it now,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Good idea. Especially against an Anaheim Ducks team that beat the loose and free Canadiens 6-5 last Friday.<\/p>\n

Gallagher will be back in the lineup Sunday, but the Canadiens will need much more than his best to avoid the same frustration.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MONTREAL \u2014 The most representative moment of this 4-2 loss for the Montreal Canadiens was Lane Hutson whipping…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":537361,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194292],"tags":[49,48,2338],"class_list":["post-537360","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-montreal","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-montreal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/537360","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=537360"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/537360\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/537361"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=537360"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=537360"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=537360"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}