The Canadian struggled to maintain the lead last year, perhaps something will change this season.

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• Also read: Despite his nervousness, Monty dominated

Of course, a 1-0 win against the Toronto Maple Leafs in the opening game is a very small sample size, but it is a foundation to build on.

“This is super important, last year we tried to learn a lot from it,” emphasized Martin St-Louis after the meeting. We have to try to finish these games. I liked the first half of our game and then Toronto played with more depth.

“It wasn’t perfect, but we found a way to minimize the damage, we blocked a lot of pucks, Monty was excellent and I liked the commitment of the guys.”

Trust

Who would have thought that a goal scored in the first half of the first period would be enough to win against the Leafs’ powerful attack, especially since they had already shot Samuel Montembeault 18 times after just 20 minutes.

“You never know how things will turn out, especially in the first game of the season. It was difficult because some of us hadn’t played much,” noted Nick Suzuki.

According to the captain, it’s the kind of performance that energizes the team, which plays its second game in two nights against the Bruins on Thursday.

“That gives us a lot of confidence for tomorrow. I’m sure Boston wasn’t happy with their opening game.”

Number one

On Tuesday, Martin St-Louis made a surprising statement that suggested Samuel Montembeault wasn’t necessarily his unquestionable number one goalie.

The head coach then mentioned that it was the performance of his goalkeepers that would dictate his decisions.

Maybe this was just a way to beat up Montembeault, and if so, that’s genius of St. Louis, because that’s exactly what happened.

“I wanted to be solid and I want to be solid all season long, I want to be consistent. I want to keep them in the game in close games and not waste any chances to win.”

Special forces

While the shorthanded play in the preseason games was painful and the Canadian failed to score 30 times, he broke the deadlock in the first period when Cole Caufield beat Anthony Stolarz with a powerful shot from the bottom of the faceoff circle.

However, the Habs scored just once on five occasions and only got one shot during a double power play that lasted 1 minute, 33 seconds.

So it still needs work, but Martin St-Louis’ men were very good on the Leafs’ four power plays.

“It’s a team we don’t want to go to the penalty box against. “The boys did a lot of work and blocked shots,” emphasized Samuel Montembeault.

In fact, his teammates blocked 25 shots. Mike Matheson and David Savard blocked four each.