MONTREAL — Late Friday night, after making his debut with his childhood team, the team he always dreamed of playing for, Montreal Canadiens defenceman Alexandre Carrier arrived at home, for real.
He slept in his own bed in the Pointe St. Charles condo he and his wife bought a few years ago, maybe a 20-minute walk from the Bell Centre, just across the Lachine Canal. It was a weird feeling being in that bed at this time of year, on the first day of winter, when it’s cold outside, when it gets dark early. This is his summer home, his real home, born in Quebec City but raised in the Montreal suburb of Varennes.
But it hasn’t been his hockey home.
Usually when a player gets traded to a new team midseason, accommodations in his new city are an issue, and sometimes that player winds up spending the rest of the season living in a hotel because there’s just no time to arrange for anything else. Carrier didn’t have to do that. He got to go home right away.
But it was late at night, and he was about to play at the Bell Centre the next day, a real dream come true. And though he had the luxury of sleeping in his own bed before this momentous occasion, not everything was perfect.
“There was a party downstairs,” Carrier said Saturday night after the Canadiens beat the Detroit Red Wings 5-1 to sweep their home-and-home series. “I had to go knock on the door.
“It wasn’t a good start.”
That’s just about the only part of Carrier’s time with the Canadiens that has not been a good start. And what’s most impressive about how Carrier has performed in a 4-3 win in Detroit and this big win at home is just how big an adjustment it has been to the way the Canadiens play.
With the Nashville Predators, coach Andrew Brunette wants his team to go north at all times. No lateral passes to your defence partner, no bringing the puck back towards your net, only north. The Canadiens don’t have to impose the same mandate on their players; coach Martin St. Louis wants his players to use the width of the ice to their advantage, so that means a lot of lateral passes to defence partners, which means you can bring the puck back towards you own net to determine a new angle of attack. It’s a big philosophical change to incorporate into your game without the benefit of a single practice or even a morning skate.
On the penalty kill, the Predators play an aggressive system, with lots of pressure on the puck. The Canadiens are more calculated, attacking in certain areas of the ice, and containing in others.
The man-to-man component of the Canadiens’ hybrid defensive zone system is something Carrier has never done before.
“It’s all different,” Carrier said. “But it’s hockey.”
That’s what makes these first two games for Carrier so impressive. He’s had a lot to adjust to, and it hasn’t seemed like he’s had to adjust at all.
“We tried not to overwhelm him too much. I feel like he’s got high intelligence, he can absorb a lot in a short amount of time,” St. Louis said. “I told him not to worry about it so much, trust your reads, trust your instincts, take care of the team. And he’s that kind of player. He’s very responsible. And we’re going to keep bringing him along and show him some stuff.
“I feel that the more he spends time with us, the easier the game is going to be for him. Even though it’s looked kind of easy so far just because he’s a smart player.”
There were certain assumptions the Canadiens made in determining this was a season where they could climb up the standings and play relevant games into March. One was having a healthy Patrik Laine, one that would be invigorated by this new start in a new city, one that would make a difference.
Laine scored his eighth power-play goal in nine games this season, and since his Dec. 3 return from a preseason knee injury, only two teams – the Winnipeg Jets and Florida Panthers – have scored more power-play goals than Laine.
The Canadiens are 6-3-0 with Laine in the lineup. He has made a difference.
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Another assumption was the Canadiens could lean on a version of Juraj Slafkovský that would pick up where he left off last season when he had 40 of his 50 points on the season in his final 50 games. That has not happened, but Slafkovský is feeling like he is getting back to that version of himself now. He scored his fourth goal of the season Saturday, but his second in three games and, more importantly, is doing a lot of the other things that brought him success last season.
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“The difference is that I’m skating right now, and that’s all it is,” he said. “I’m first on pucks on the forecheck, I win more pucks, when we are breaking out I feel like I’m moving a little better. Just overall, I’m more in motion. I’m not standing around waiting for something to happen. I’m trying to make things happen a little more.
“That’s how I was last year. I don’t know what was going on at the beginning of the year, or until three games ago, but I’m happy with the way it’s going now and hopefully, I can bring more and more.”
St. Louis said this home-and-home series against the Red Wings was the best hockey he’s seen from Slafkovský all season. Nothing less. And that is a game changer.
“He’s such a big boy, you can’t use your size unless you move your feet, you cannot bring physicality unless you have pace,” St. Louis said. “It’s just the law of physics; a moving object, a big one, is going to cause more trouble for whatever is on the other side of that. He’s doing that right now. So he’s able to retrieve a lot of pucks, keep pucks alive, and he creates a lot of room for (Nick Suzuki) and Cole (Caufield), but he extends that possession because of what he did first, and now he gets another touch in space, and now you see that Slaf does have skill and he can make plays because he sees the ice.
“So it’s a big domino effect that starts with him moving his feet.”
But the other assumption was that one of Justin Barron or Logan Mailloux or perhaps even David Reinbacher would be ready to shore up the right side of the Canadiens’ defence. Reinbacher got hurt in the preseason, and neither Mailloux nor Barron were able to do that. The Canadiens had the luxury of sending Mailloux down to the AHL to work on his game, but they couldn’t do that with Barron without exposing him to waivers.
And because the present has taken on more importance for the Canadiens, Barron was used to acquire Carrier, and so far at least, he has accomplished what the Canadiens hoped one of their young defencemen would, and more. He has brought balance to the group.
St. Louis said before the game that the big reason why Carrier is playing with Kaiden Guhle is because they wanted to ensure Guhle would stay on the left side. He could have put Carrier with Lane Hutson, but that would make for a tiny defence pairing. The balance Carrier has provided is that each pair now has a young defenceman playing with a veteran, he said.
The Canadiens are 10-7-1 in their last 18 games. They are 6-3-0 in their last nine. But more than the improved results, the Canadiens appear to be nearing the ideal conditions they hoped for, the conditions they needed to have a successful season.
They are not all there — the Kirby Dach thing remains glaringly unresolved — but having Laine be as impactful as he’s been, having Slafkovský look the way he’s looked, and adding Carrier all appears to place the Canadiens in a situation where the majority of those conditions are being met.
All that’s left for them to do now is have a successful season.
(Photo of Alexandre Carrier and Dylan Larkin: Nic Antaya/Getty Images)
