You also don't put the odds of coming out on top in your favor when your man advantage simply isn't clicking.
That was the case once again on Thursday night, as the Canadiens lit the lamp just once on six opportunities.
"As a unit, you can see that the execution isn't at the speed that we'd like it to be. When we play halfway or even three-quarters, it's not enough because a group on the penalty kill that wants to work harder than your power play, it leads to the results that we're having right now," explained Julien, whose power play units finally generated their first goal after a five-game drought. "Our power play has been struggling all year and tonight was a good example of that. Those things catch up eventually."
Like Julien, Gallagher stressed the need to right the ship in that department as quickly as possible, even though it has proven especially tough for the majority of the season.
"That's an area of the game that we've got to get better at. That's probably the biggest area, that if we make an improvement, you'll probably see the biggest jump, the biggest difference. It's on us, the guys that are out there, to go out there and execute," insisted the Canadiens' No. 11. "We can't change what's happened early on in the year. If we are going to get in the playoffs, you have to think that the power play is going to play an important role. It's not something we're going to give up on. We have to keep working at It, but you're slowly running out of time. It's important for us to figure it out."
It most definitely is, and Julien is doing everything in his power to find the right formula. But, it's up to the players he assigns to both units to deliver the goods.
"It's pretty quick in practice, it's just not quick enough in the games," said Julien. "At the end of the day, power play is about putting out some of your best players, your skill players. They also have to outwork the penalty killing unit that's going to work hard to kill those. It's about the pace and the work ethic on the power play. We've tried different looks. We've moved players around. There's 10 seconds left on the power play, you send your fourth line out there and they get in no problem because they skate. It kind of indicates what we have to do better for the guys that are there, and we have to fix that."
No doubt disappointment was the overwhelming feeling as the Canadiens headed back to Montreal with a split on their road trip.
Collectively, they felt like they let the chance to earn two more big points slip away.
"It's tough every time you lose one. You have to put it behind you, you have to be able to move on, but you want to get on a little streak because everyone else is going to start winning. Win one, lose one isn't good enough anymore," concluded Gallagher. "It's important to collect points every single night and to be in games, and tonight it's disappointing because we really weren't in it at any point. We were playing from behind and we didn't have a strong enough push to get ourselves back in it. And, we got the result that we deserved."
