MONTREAL — Artturi Lehkonen, channelling the great philosophers of our time, reached deep into his soul to offer this profound truth nugget after helping his Montreal Canadiens beat the Nashville Predators 6-3 at the Bell Centre on Saturday: “Winning is more fun than losing.”
The always-stoic Finn even allowed himself a smile from his bleeding lips — he was caught with a high-stick late in the game — and you could tell he was relishing the good feeling a bit before leaving the interview room.
Let’s just say Lehkonen was slightly more excited after scoring the game’s first goal, which was his first in 20 games this season and his first since his Saint-Jean Baptiste special to eliminate the Vegas Golden Knights in the Stanley Cup semifinal.
Though we’re kidding about the depth of his statement after the game, it was still relevant. It was a simple truth spoken by a simple man, and this fifth win of the season for the Canadiens was borne of simplicity.
It was fun, too. Exciting. All things opposite of what we’ve seen through 15 losses.
The Canadiens, coming off an embarrassing 6-0 loss to the Pittsburgh Penguins on Thursday, were pissed off, according to Lehkonen. They played like it to start this game — even if they needed goaltender Samuel Montembeault to buy them some time to turn a good effort into good execution—and they finished like it after allowing Matt Duchene to score a natural hat trick in the third period.
Still, more fun than losing.
As for the very simple reason the Canadiens had it on this night, “I thought we were engaged,” said coach Dominique Ducharme.
“We were engaged in what we wanted to do,” he added.
It was everyone on the Canadiens, who dressed 11 forwards and seven defencemen in this one.
It was Lehkonen, who finished a nice play that started with Brendan Gallagher and moved through David Savard and Jake Evans to get the Canadiens on the board 2:41 into the first period.
Did he catch a break when his original shot bounced off three things before finding its way back to him on the fringe of Juuse Saros’ crease? Of course.
But Lehkonen had worked all season for that one.
“He’s had some tough luck,” said Gallagher. “You can never fault his effort, you can never fault his ability to make plays all over the ice. He’s such a complete player. He’s had so many really good chances from that exact spot but for whatever reason they haven’t gone in, so it was nice to see a smile on his face. He’s definitely earned that, he’s earned a lot more to come his way; he just does so many things right through the game that the more you watch him, the more you appreciate what he brings to a team.”
On too many nights this season, not too many other Canadiens were bringing the type of effort that gets rewarded with bounces.
But on this night, everyone brought one equal to Lehkonen’s and the fun flowed from there — from Christian Dvorak starting a beautiful passing play and finishing it for his third goal of the season to make it 2-0 Canadiens in the second minute of the second period, to Gallagher scoring his fourth of the year off crisply-executed passes from Tyler Toffoli and Jonathan Drouin, to Ryan Poehling scoring two goals 37 seconds apart on shots Lehkonen said were “absolutely ripped.”
Saros was chased from the game, David Rittich took his place, the Canadiens sagged a bit and allowed a couple of power play goals in the third.
But they fought back hard to seal the game with Toffoli’s empty netter.
“You can have a great structure, but if you don’t commit and engage and work into it, at one point it’s going to crack,” said Ducharme. “Obviously, we won’t be winning 60 something games in a row, but when you play like that, you give yourself a chance.”
When you don’t, it’s no fun.
Thursday was no fun at all, but the vibe on Saturday was different from the second the Canadiens skated back out to Coldplay’s Fix You for the first time this season to the second they had their arms in the air celebrating Montembeault’s first win since Feb. 11, 2020.
“We came back with an attitude,” said Ducharme, “and we need to bring that every night.”
“But we need to bring that Monday morning, too, so that we prepare for Wednesday (against the Washington Capitals),” he added. “That’s something that I won’t give them any (leash) on that… We need to push that further so it becomes a habit like it became last year.”
Last summer, specifically, when the Canadiens did a lot of winning and had a lot of fun.
Canadiens rewarded with fun win over Predators as engagement and effort pay off
Source: Pinas Ko Mahal
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