Canadiens look to find ‘balance’ with puck in Game 4 of Eastern Final

MONTREAL -- Simply put, the Montreal Canadiens are dealing with a lot of stuff they haven't faced before in the Stanley Cup Playoffs.

They're trailing three games into a series for the first time this postseason, down 2-1 to the Carolina Hurricanes entering Game 4 of the Eastern Conference Final at Bell Centre on Wednesday (8 p.m. ET; CBC, TVAS, SN, TNT, truTV, HBO MAX).

They have lost consecutive games for the first time since March 14-15, dropping Games 2 and 3 of this best-of-7, each 3-2 in overtime. 

They've gone back to the drawing board in an attempt to figure out how to better execute with the puck, hoping for more offense than what they generated the past two games. 

Montreal had 12 shots on goal in Game 2, none in overtime. It had 13 in Game 3 on Monday, one in overtime and two in the last 37:40. In total, the Canadiens have been outshot 65-25 over the past two games, with the Hurricanes generating 161 shot attempts to the Canadiens' 84.

"We're trailing, but we're not dead," Montreal coach Martin St. Louis said Tuesday in French. "We will continue."

Of course, the Canadiens will. That's what you do. The Hurricanes haven't won the series. It's not a foregone conclusion. There's a game to play Wednesday and if Montreal wins, everything it’s dealing with will go away, and different challenges will present themselves.

But the here and now for the Canadiens is all about having the mental fortitude to handle everything that has happened since their 6-2 win in Game 1 on May 21 and working through the issues that have limited them since to provide the best chance to win Game 4.

"We understand we're probably going to be emotionally attached to the result for a little bit, but I feel we move on pretty quick," St. Louis said. "You know, the answers are everywhere and we try to find them each and every day."

Montreal needs to find an answer to Carolina’s forecheck and pressure. It needs to understand why it has swallowed its game and what it can do about it, because while the Hurricanes are looking more like themselves -- rust off and relentless attack mode on -- the Canadiens look slow with the puck and their decision making.

They are not slow. At least, they're not supposed to be when they have the puck and breaking out of their zone.

"There's a lot of balance on the ice in terms of the separation between players," St. Louis said when asked to describe what his team is supposed to look like. "There's balance and there's execution through that. The puck is moving fast. We look fast and it's not necessarily because we're skating so fast. We're playing at a pace with execution that we look fast."

They haven't been since the first period of Game 1, when the Canadiens scored four consecutive goals using speed and skill to break down a clearly out of sorts Hurricanes team that hadn't played for 11 full days.

"They pressure so hard, their forecheck is so good that you have to be connected," Montreal defenseman Kaiden Guhle said. "You don't really have any other option. The times when we get in trouble is when we're not connected and they get a stick on it and they've got a quick strike at the net and you get in trouble. I think that's a big part of having success against that team and an area we can clean it up a little bit."

But is it fair to wonder if the Canadiens can legitimately prioritize their speed, pace and possession game against the Hurricanes' pressure and forecheck when the expectation is they won't have the puck much, thus they won't be able to generate waves of scoring chances?

"I think it's a balance," St. Louis said when asked. "You know they're not going to give you tons of pockets, but when you get those pockets you've got to execute through it, and when you do that there's something good on the other side of that.

“You can't get stubborn. It's OK to give up possession to go get it back. I think it's a balance. To me, it's playing the game that's in front of you, so you can't have your mind made up, ‘I want to possess this puck.’ No, the game is going to tell you what to do."

Reading between the lines, that's the coach telling his players to dump the puck into the zone more and win battles behind the Hurricanes goal line and get it back. It's him telling his team to generate offense from the goal line, not the red line.

"Obviously, we don't want to pass up on shots, but there's opportunity there that there's something better than a shot," St. Louis said. "But I feel like we don't create enough of those decisions that you have to make. So, we've got to work on that first."

Again, reading between the lines, St. Louis is saying the Canadiens' will has to come before their skill if they want to win this series. 

They already knew that coming in, but it's crystalized now.

The Canadiens have to deal with it.

"We have all the tools," St. Louis said. "We can play in possession. We can go forecheck. Sometimes, (it's) can you see clearly through that chaos of this environment and where we are in the playoffs? I think that comes with maturity, and we've shown great maturity throughout the season.

“We're playing a very mature team. I don't know if we can match that maturity, but I think we need to elevate ours a little bit because I feel we have all the tools."