Canadiens should hope to experience pain Flyers are feeling at most important time of year

MONTREAL — As Juraj Slafkovský arrived at the Montreal Canadiens bench after completing his first career hat trick, he looked up and saw the hats raining down on him, and he was laughing.

He swiped at one of the hats as it came toward him, and as it turns out, it was a hat that had landed on one of the trainers, who promptly threw it toward him. He laughed some more. He arrived at the bench to find Cole Caufield sitting on the boards, waiting for him, and the two shared a big hug. They were laughing.

The roar from the Bell Centre crowd and the accompanying standing ovation as the goal was announced was a rare sight — no, a rare sound — this season. It was a reminder of what makes this building special when the team playing in front of those fans gives them a reason to behave like this.

“To be honest I never scored a hat trick like this when the hats would come. I scored one hat trick and I remember only my dad threw a hat.” – Juraj Slafkovský

— Arpon Basu (@ArponBasu) April 10, 2024

This was a core NHL memory for Slafkovský. Or rather, another core NHL memory in a season full of them, as the 20-year-old — who had two goals and five assists through his first 29 games this season — now has 17 goals and 24 assists in his past 49 games, an 82-game pace of nearly 70 points.

But in the context of what the Canadiens are trying to accomplish in a broader sense, Slafkovský’s reaction to his first career hat trick shows why he is so important to what the organization is trying to build. He went through each of his three goals and credited everyone but himself. On his first, it was a lucky bounce. On his second, a great feed from Nick Suzuki. On his third, an excellent line change by Rafaël Harvey-Pinard. And the overall night was more important to the team than it was to him.

comment on dit « tour du chapeau » en slovaque?

how do you say “hat trick” in Slovak?#GoHabsGo pic.twitter.com/dXpRRcmUNB

— Canadiens Montréal (@CanadiensMTL) April 10, 2024

“It’s important not just for me but for everyone in here because we’re going to go play for something next year,” he said. “And we want to finish the season hard and start next year hard and be the team that can compete with anyone.”

Kind of like the Philadelphia Flyers have done this season.

The Canadiens’ and Flyers’ seasons, purely from a standings standpoint, are essentially separated by five games. Five more wins for the Canadiens, or five more losses for the Flyers, and they are basically neck and neck.

Five games out of 82, or 6 percent of the season, and the context for this one game on April 9 is completely different for each team, with the Canadiens having nothing but pride to play for and the Flyers fighting for their playoff lives, trying to take advantage of an unexpected opportunity to play further into the spring. That’s oversimplifying it, of course, but that’s how thin the line is between being on the fringes of the playoff race and monitoring draft lottery odds at this time of year.

It’s only five games, not six or seven, because the Canadiens drubbed the Flyers 9-3 on Tuesday night, leaving their playoff hopes on life support.

But aside from that five-game difference in the standings, besides the difference in the context of this one game, the Canadiens and Flyers are in a similar place. They are each trying to build something sustainable, and they each have a reason to view their situation as a building block toward that goal.

The Flyers are living what so many young teams aspire to, playing meaningful games in March and April, whether that leads to a playoff berth or not. Handling that pressure — the consequences of wins and losses, and performing in that environment — is an important element in the development of young teams. The Flyers could not have reasonably expected to be in this spot, but they are, and they are finding out how hard it can be.

After the game, Flyers coach John Tortorella described his team as being at “rock bottom,” but the context for that is the only reason this feels so low is because of what they’ve accomplished in being in this position to begin with.

“I remember last year when we were done — I don’t remember how many games were left — it sucks,” Tortorella said before the game. “I have talked about our room all year long; we have got a solid room. And I just got through telling them, ‘We’re a pretty good hockey team. Don’t forget that. We’ve played many, many games in a style of play that we’ve changed from the year before, and we’ve been a good team most of this year. We still have time here. Don’t forget about how well we’ve played this year.’

“That’s kind of where we’re at right now. You lose confidence. These athletes are men, but they get fragile sometimes and they lose some confidence. We’ve just got to let it all hang out here and believe that we’re a really good hockey team.”

A few hours later, the Flyers demonstrated how tough that sell is, even with the results Tortorella was armed with to make that argument.

Canadiens coach Martin St. Louis doesn’t have those results to make that argument, but he also has an argument to make to his young team that is significant for a different reason. Tortorella wants his young Flyers to experience the playoffs, so he is singularly minded on today, even if in the grand scheme of things that experience would help the Flyers tomorrow.

St. Louis has the luxury, in a way, of being purely focused on tomorrow. That doesn’t mean he can ignore today, but the consequences of today are far less dire.

“I think, as coaches, you’re always in the business of convincing a team,” St. Louis said. “For me, the only thing I worry about convincing them is how we play, why we’re playing a certain way. And if they’re not sure about something, they know that we can talk about it because, at the end of the day, it’s not about being right if we’re going to argue; it’s about getting it right. Get it right. Because there’s plenty of ways you can play. So for me, if I don’t have them sold on something, I’ve got to do a better job. I have to teach it better; I have to find better clips. But I enjoy that part of the game, convincing my players to play a certain way. Not to say the way we play right now is exactly the way we’re going to play in Game 54 next year. I don’t know. The game always speaks to us.

“Every now and then, you have to inspire your group, you have to bring them confidence. But I think the most important job as a coach is convincing your team why we play a certain way. Because if you have them convinced, they’ll buy in.”

Will this loss be a core memory for the young Flyers, the same way it could be for Slafkovský? Perhaps, and they should hope it is. Core memories don’t have to be positive to be useful, and the Flyers can remember this feeling of faltering at the most important time of year to avoid it happening again.

As difficult as this inopportune eight-game winless streak has been for the Flyers, the Canadiens can only hope to experience this context next season, that they are playing meaningful games this late in the season, even if Tortorella said before the game he has grown to hate that term.

“This isn’t just about meaningful games; this is about getting in the playoffs,” Tortorella said. “I want them to experience that. So you’ve got to be really careful about settling. I don’t want us to settle, and I don’t think our guys have. But I think we’re going through some pains here where guys, can they get to that next level of getting in?”

The Canadiens need core memories like that because, as good as they felt and as bad as the Flyers felt after Tuesday’s game, there is no doubt the Canadiens would happily trade places with them, to be given an opportunity to perform in an environment that’s heavy, that has consequences.

That is the next step, and the Canadiens have to hope what they have learned about how they play, the buy-in St. Louis hopes to be building, will lead to opportunities like these, even if the young Flyers are learning how painful it is to fail when you get them.

(Photo of Juraj Slafkovský and Cole Caufield: Vincent Ethier / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)