Canadiens must take lessons from a Sabres team that has already been where they hope to be

MONTREAL — There was a time when there was reason to be optimistic if you were the Buffalo Sabres, and that time was not that long ago.

Just two seasons ago, Rasmus Dahlin was a legitimate Norris Trophy candidate, Dylan Cozens seemed on the verge of stardom with 31 goals at age 21, Tage Thompson scored 47 goals at age 25, Alex Tuch scored 36 goals as a local product excited to play for his childhood team, Owen Power was a rookie and the second No. 1 pick on what looked to be a dominant blue line for years to come.

Everything seemed to be falling into place. They missed the playoffs by 1 point. Just two years ago.

Monday afternoon at the Bell Centre, the Sabres had their owner Terry Pegula show up and inform them that the solution to their 10-game winless streak and this season that was quickly veering into oblivion, again, had to come from within, and Tuesday morning, just about every core Sabres player took ownership for what was happening and said they needed to be better.

Then they went out and gave up a goal to the Montreal Canadiens 19 seconds into the game before beginning a parade to the penalty box that resulted in a 6-1 deficit before the second intermission. That optimism is gone in Buffalo, already, before it ever had a chance to build some semblance of momentum.

The Sabres woke up Wednesday morning last in the Eastern Conference standings.

“Yeah, sure does suck, doesn’t it? It’s horrible,” Tuch said after the 6-1 loss to the Canadiens. “But like I said, season’s not over. We’re going to come back and be better tomorrow.”

Will they? Can anyone have any confidence that will in fact happen?

For the Canadiens, it was nice to find themselves on the other side of garbage time for once. Patrik Laine scored a hat trick and the Bell Centre exploded as hats rained down on the ice. The vibes were excellent, but the reality is that as well as the Canadiens started the game, they were the beneficiaries, and not the benefactors, of actions that helped the other team, for once.

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— Canadiens Montréal (@CanadiensMTL) December 18, 2024

The Canadiens can only hope to be where the Sabres were two years ago, 1 point out of the playoffs with young, core players putting up elite seasons to get them there. They are not there yet, clearly. But before the game Tuesday, coach Martin St. Louis was asked how that process was going, with the context of his opponents that night obvious but unsaid.

And St. Louis expressed unfettered optimism over how the Canadiens’ process is going despite being last in the Eastern Conference that morning.

“The biggest thing for me, I look at our veterans, and they accepted the rebuild stage,” he said. “I don’t think they accepted it right away, especially the last two seasons … not that we didn’t want to win, but we were really focused on bringing the youth along. Usually, when you do that, it doesn’t help the veterans. But I feel the fact (the veterans) are playing the way they are right now and how much they’re working, I think it’s encouraging because they see that something good’s coming.

“So for me, it’s really reassuring when I see that from the veterans. And now, we’re in a stage where we’re paying more attention and trying to focus on finding ways to win and learning how to win, and I think that stage helps the veterans because that’s what our veterans want to do. And I feel now that our youth is recognizing that the veterans have helped them for two years, and now it’s time for, ‘Hey, let’s be accountable here because this is what’s important for our veteran guys, to win.’ So I feel the group is very connected that way, and they really want to do this together.”

The Canadiens are focused on themselves, so what’s happening in Buffalo is of little importance to them. But perhaps it should be. It is evidence that until you actually break through, until you demonstrate an ability to win consistently, until you see your youth in a playoff environment, nothing is a given. The organic growth the Canadiens wanted to see this season is not automatic, because if it were, the Sabres would be a Stanley Cup contender right now.

Canadiens captain Nick Suzuki spends a lot of time looking around the NHL, at what’s going on with other teams, identifying trends. He likes to take more of a management-like view of things, a big-picture view, so when asked after the game whether he looks at what is happening in Buffalo and wonders about how his own team will exit a rebuilding stage and enter a winning stage, he couldn’t deny that he has.

“Yeah, for sure,” Suzuki said. “I think they haven’t made the playoffs in a long time. They’ve acquired good players over time and they haven’t seemed to put it together for whatever reason that is. We don’t try to compare ourselves to other teams, we try to do things our way. But we knew we had to win that game; you can’t lose to a team coming in on a 10-game losing streak.”

But isn’t the “whatever reason” important for the Canadiens to identify and avoid?

“I think that’s more, I don’t know if it’s the management kind of side of it,” he said. “But if you look at their roster on paper, they’ve got a lot of first-round picks, good players. But I think our team game is better than theirs.”

Oh, OK.

Remember, the Canadiens were behind the Sabres in the standings coming into this game. But the sense that progress is happening, that the way they play is becoming stronger, growing, is real for the Canadiens, from the coach down to the veterans down to the young core.

Mike Matheson was told what St. Louis said about the veterans accepting the rebuilding earlier that day, and he had a different point of view on it, one that comes to the same conclusion as his coach, but in a different way.

“I think just the progress that’s happened. We haven’t been getting as many results as we might want, but I feel like our game’s taken a big step where we’re really starting to hone in on the right way to play. And so just that progress is exciting,” Matheson said. “I think from my perspective we’re all in it together in the sense that we’re all trying to build to be a competitive team and be in the playoffs.

“I can’t imagine what it would be like to be on this team in the playoffs and play in this building in the playoffs. That’s my only focus. I think we’re definitely making progress towards that.”

Oh, OK. That’s good.

And how about that young core that is apparently helping those veterans and being more accountable? Juraj Slafkovský scored an important goal in this game, the one that made it 3-1 when the result was still in doubt, the goal that led to the Sabres self-destructing.

When asked whether he looks at what is happening to the Sabres and worries it might happen to the Canadiens, Slafkovský immediately shot that premise down.

“No, I’m not worried. I feel this group is different,” he said. “With Marty as a coach, I feel like we have something a little more special. Especially with these fans behind us, I feel like we will get out of this way faster than them. It’s my third year, and it’s already starting to flip a little bit. We’re still pretty close to a playoff spot — what is it, 4 or 5 points? So if we just manage to win more than lose, I feel like we’ll get out of this way faster.

“I feel like the structure we play, it’s working. We just have to play sharp or make sure we all do the things that we talk about … I feel like we’re focused on details that maybe other teams aren’t.”

The thing is, it would not be the least bit out of place for the Sabres to be saying these same things two years ago. They were on the verge of something, far more legitimately than the Canadiens are right now, and they never got there, and appear to be heading on a descent without ever reaching their apex.

And the reality is the Canadiens are nowhere close to where the Sabres were two years ago. That’s where they hope to be, and look at what happened to the Sabres since then. They haven’t come out the other side.

There is internal belief in what the Canadiens are doing, and that’s great. It’s important to believe in your process, otherwise it will never lead to results.

But the Canadiens need an exit plan for their rebuild. They don’t need it immediately because they have not yet reached that stage, but they need one.

Because that exit plan is the hardest part of a rebuild.

The team the Canadiens plunged deeper into their interminable rebuild is Exhibit A of that.

(Photo of Jake Evans: David Kirouac / Imagn Images)