Ten days ago, the Montreal Canadiens lost their captain. With Nick Suzuki out two to four weeks and Ivan Demidov still sidelined, very few fans gave the team a real chance on a four-game road trip. Winning one game, maybe two, looked like a good result. It was also the first time since Martin St-Louis took over behind the bench that he had to coach without his captain in the lineup.

Instead, the Canadiens completed a perfect road trip: 4-0, a goal differential of +9 and a record of 8-3-2. This article looks at how it happened, what St-Louis taught his group, and why the word he keeps coming back to is maturity.

Nobody Gave Them a Chance

The trip started right after a painful night at the Bell Centre. Montreal blew a 3-1 lead and lost 4-3 in overtime to San Jose, the kind of game that exposed every weakness the team had shown early in the season: a few mistakes by different players and penalties at the worst possible moments (see our Sharks game report). The record after nine games was 4-3-2, and the Canadiens were struggling to hold two-goal leads. In the first nine games they let a two-goal lead slip four times, as we explained in Why Can’t the Canadiens Protect a Lead?

The problems were easy to list. The special teams were not producing, the save percentage of the goaltenders was low, and the discipline was not there. The Canadiens had taken 46 minor penalties in nine games, more than five a night, and the penalty kill sat at 78.4%. Losing the captain on top of that made the next four games look like the biggest challenge the group had faced in years.

Class Is in Session at the Habs Academy

St-Louis did not hide from the situation. Before the team left, he brought all the players back into the classroom of what we call the Habs Academy and walked them through two simple questions: where are we today, and how did we get here?

Since the team golf tournament before the season, his message has been the same: win one day at a time and pay attention to the details of the game. A new defensive system and a new penalty kill take time to learn, and after nine games the structure was still not where he wanted it. We saw some improvement, but not enough to change results. In that classroom session, without the captain in the room, he went deeper into the details. The lines changed, the power play changed (see Canadiens Without Nick Suzuki for the full breakdown) and parts of the system changed too.

The main focus was simple: how do we keep a lead, and how do we do it every night?

Gap Control and the Front of the Net

The biggest adjustment was gap control. St-Louis asked his players to pinch constantly, in the offensive zone and in the neutral zone. When a defenseman closes the gap early, the opponent does not get time and pace to build a clean entry. Instead of carrying the puck over the blue line, they have to dump it in, again and again, and the Canadiens can retrieve it and start the next attack from a position of strength.

The second lesson was the front of the net. In the first nine games, Montreal gave up too many second chances, tips and rebounds close to the goaltender. The coaching staff asked the players to protect the slot better, to box out every opponent in front of the net, and to win those one-on-one battles after every shot. For a coach, this is the unglamorous part of defensive hockey, and it is usually what separates a team that holds a lead from a team that loses it.

Four Games, Four Leads Protected

The Canadiens applied the lesson immediately. They were ahead after 40 minutes in all four games, three of them by two goals, and none of those leads slipped away.

In Chicago on October 23, they led 3-1 going into the third period and won 4-1, with Jake Evans scoring twice, including a short-handed goal (full game report). Two days later, at the Heritage Classic in Winnipeg, they led 2-0 heading into the third and held on for a 2-1 win while Jacob Fowler stopped 33 of 34 shots (Heritage Classic report). In St. Louis on Tuesday, they led 1-0 after two periods and won 2-0, with Fowler making 46 saves on 46 shots (Blues game report). And in Dallas on Thursday, they led 4-2 after 40 minutes, closed the deal and won 5-2, with Jakub Dobeš making 17 saves on 19 shots (Stars game report).

The Numbers Behind the Trip

Here is how the first nine games compare with the four-game road trip. The first-nine totals count regulation and overtime goals only, not shootout goals.

Category	First 9 games	4-game road trip
Record	4-3-2	4-0-0 (8-3-2)
Points	10	18 (2nd in the Atlantic, 6th in the NHL)
Goals for per game	3.11	3.25
Goals against per game	3.78	1.00
Goal differential	-6	+9
Team save percentage	.857	.967
Minor penalties per game	5.1	3.8
Penalty kill	78.4% (29 of 37)	93.3% (14 of 15)
Power play	4 for 29 (13.8%)	0 for 10
Shots for / against per game	29.7 / 26.3	22.8 / 30.0

The story in the table is clear. The Canadiens allowed four goals in four games, took fewer penalties, killed 14 of the 15 power plays they faced, and received outstanding goaltending: Fowler stopped 99 of 101 shots in his three starts (.980). Standings are on our Standings page and on NHL.com.

The table also shows what has not been fixed yet. Montreal was outshot 120-91 on the trip, including 46-20 in St. Louis and 34-21 in Winnipeg, and the power play went 0 for 10. The Canadiens won because of goaltending, a much better penalty kill, discipline and well-timed goals, not because they controlled the shot clock. That is the next step for this group, and a reason to stay level-headed about a four-game sample.

What Maturity Means: Playing With the Scoreboard

When St-Louis talks about maturity at the Habs Academy, he is talking about puck management, game management and awareness: making the right decision depending on the situation. On the scoreboard, two things matter, the score and the time. When you lead, you play the right way. You keep it simple, you pay attention to the details and you play with urgency.

He explained why that is hard to teach in the middle of October:

“For me, what drives urgency is deadlines. If you look in the playoffs, it’s harder to come back in games because teams have urgency, they have a deadline. Now we’ve been in this situation from the start of the season, it seems like, with no real deadline. So, to me, these opportunities really show the maturity of your team, the mindset, because the deadline’s so far away. So you have to create that mentality, and it’s hard to create that mentality unless you have the repetitions. So that’s what we’re getting right now, where it helps us really elevate our maturity with the mindset.” — Martin St-Louis

That is the coach’s point in plain hockey language: the standings do not have a deadline in October, so the team has to create its own. The repetitions on this trip, protecting a lead four nights in a row, are exactly what he wants.

Does a Perfect Trip Mean the Canadiens Have Matured?

Not necessarily. But the Canadiens are certainly more mature than the team that left Montreal without its captain and without one of its top offensive wingers, coming off a very immature home loss to the Sharks. St-Louis was careful with his words:

“I like it for the group that we’re in that mode already. It doesn’t guarantee wins, but it helps you win, and that’s what we did.” — Martin St-Louis

“It’s a mature mentality. You don’t only do the real things when it counts the most. That’s a championship mindset. You want to be a champion? Behave like a champion today.” — Martin St-Louis

My Takeaway of the Road Trip

Four wins in seven days is a great result on its own. What I like is how they were built. Four things stand out to me: the goaltending, the penalty kill, the defensive system and, above all, a real team effort.

Goaltending: Both Goalies Delivered

Jacob Fowler made three starts and gave up two goals in 179 minutes, a 0.67 goals-against average and a .980 save percentage (99 saves on 101 shots). He stopped 20 of 21 in Chicago, 33 of 34 in Winnipeg, including the last three shots after the Jets cut the lead to 2-1 late in the third, and then 46 of 46 in St. Louis, where 24 of those shots came in the third period. His season line is now 6-1-0, 1.54 and .942 with two shutouts.

Jakub Dobeš closed the trip in Dallas with 17 saves on 19 shots and the win. It was not a perfect night: Dallas scored on the power play 59 seconds after a holding minor and added a 5-on-5 goal in the second period. But he gave his team what it needed on a night when Montreal scored early and often. His season numbers (.853, 4.05) tell us there is still work to do, but for one game on this trip he stood tall when it counted.

The team save percentage tells the story: .857 in the first nine games, .967 on the trip (116 saves on 120 shots). When your goalies are at that level, everything in front of them gets easier.

The Penalty Kill: 14 of 15

For me, this is the biggest swing of the trip. The penalty kill was at 78.4% after nine games. On the trip it killed 14 of 15 power plays (93.3%) and allowed one goal in four games, Dallas’s power-play goal in the first period. Opponents managed 20 shots on those 15 power plays, and the goalies stopped 19 of them. Winnipeg alone fired nine shots in four power plays and did not score.

The penalty kill also scored: Jake Evans added a short-handed goal in Chicago (with Kaiden Guhle on the assist), so the kill scored as many goals as it allowed. And discipline helped. The Canadiens took 15 minor penalties in four games (3.8 per game), compared with 46 in the first nine (5.1 per game). Fewer penalties, better structure when shorthanded and a hot goalie is the formula. The season penalty kill is now 82.7%, and that number should keep climbing if the habits stay.

The Defensive System: Four Goals Against in Four Games

Four goals against in four games is a 1.00 average, compared with 3.78 in the first nine. Three of those goals came at 5-on-5, one on the power play and none into an empty net. At 5-on-5 the Canadiens outscored their opponents 10-3 on the trip.

Here is the important part for a coach: the shot count did not shrink. The Canadiens were outshot 120-91, so we cannot say the system suffocated the other team. What we can say is that the structure St-Louis worked on in the Habs Academy, the gap control and the boxouts in front of the net, helped keep the most dangerous areas clean. The Canadiens blocked 56 shots on the trip, 14.0 per game compared with 12.0 in the first nine. Every player in the lineup paid the price to protect the goalie. Now the next step is to keep the puck more and give the goaltenders fewer shots to face.

Team Collective Effort

This is what a collective effort looks like. The goaltenders stepped up, and the defense pairs played solid hockey, Guhle in particular. In four games he had two goals and an assist, was a +5 and played 23:37 a night. He blocked eight shots and delivered nine hits. His goals mattered: the one in Chicago restored the two-goal lead at the end of the second period, and the one in Winnipeg opened the scoring in the Heritage Classic. The Canadiens scored four goals at 5-on-5 with Guhle on the ice and allowed one.

The rest of the blue line contributed too. Lane Hutson scored the second goal in Winnipeg, Noah Dobson had three assists, and Mike Matheson scored the empty-net goal in Chicago and added two assists in St. Louis. Defensemen produced four of the first eight goals of the trip.

In the first three games, the scoring came from the bottom six. Not one top-six forward scored a goal, and the group had three points, all assists. Meanwhile Jake Evans scored twice in Chicago, Zachary Bolduc scored in St. Louis and Florian Xhekaj scored in St. Louis in only 6:19 of ice time, with Kirby Dach adding two assists and Alexandre Texier one. The two centers, Evans and Phillip Danault, led that group. Each finished the trip with three points, and neither was on the ice for a 5-on-5 goal against.

Then, in the last game, the scorers took over. In Dallas, Cole Caufield and Alex Newhook scored four of the five goals: Caufield at 7:24 of the first, Newhook at 16:05, Caufield again 27 seconds later, and Newhook early in the second period. Danault sealed it with an empty-net goal, his first of the season. Caufield now has eight goals. That is how you close a perfect trip: the depth carries you early, the finishers take over when it is time, and everyone does their job.

The Academy Made the Difference

The class at the Habs Academy made a difference because of how Martin St-Louis taught it, and because the team delivered exactly what he asked for. He did not give his players a new identity after the Sharks game. He gave them details: how to keep a lead, how to close the gap, how to protect the front of the net, how to stay out of the penalty box and how to manage the puck with the scoreboard in mind.

The proof is in the results. The Canadiens led after 40 minutes in all four games and never gave the lead back. They allowed four goals, killed 14 of 15 penalties and took far fewer minors than in the first nine games. The goalies were sharp, the defense paid the price in front of the net, and the forwards scored when it mattered, first from the bottom six and then from Caufield and Newhook. That is what applying the details looks like.

It also looks like a more mature team, and that is the word St-Louis kept coming back to. Maturity is not one big play. It is dozens of small, correct decisions in a row, played with the same urgency when you are leading as when you are chasing. Ten days ago this group lost its captain and a top winger, and instead of looking for excuses it found a way to win four straight on the road.

Is the work finished? No. The power play was 0 for 10 on the trip, the Canadiens were outshot 120-91, and a season is 84 games long, so 71 games are still left to play. But the lesson was learned in the classroom and applied on the ice. If the Canadiens keep playing with these details and this maturity, the perfect road trip will not be a one-time story. It can be the moment the season turned.

The next test comes Saturday night at the Bell Centre against Pittsburgh. Check the Lineup Tonight page for lines and the Standings page to follow the race.

Keep reading: Canadiens Need More Maturity · Maturity or Consistency? · Good Hockey Isn’t Enough · Wow-ler · Lineup Tonight · Injury Report