Cowan: Canadiens showed against Oilers the kind of team they can be

Canadiens head coach Martin St. Louis said it was his team’s best game of the season.

The Canadiens survived a two-minute, five-on-three Edmonton power play in the first period and went on to beat the Oilers 4-1 Sunday night at the Bell Centre, improving their record to 17-11-4.

The Canadiens did it with five rookies in the lineup, including goalie Jakub Dobes, who made 27 saves. That included five saves during the first-period power play. The Canadiens did it with 10 of their players — half the lineup — age 24 or younger. They did it with four players out with long-term injuries: Kirby Dach, Alex Newhook, Patrik Laine and Kaiden Guhle.

Heading into Tuesday’s game against the Philadelphia Flyers (7 p.m., TSN2, RDS) the Canadiens were sitting in a playoff spot in third place in the Atlantic Division, only one point behind the Tampa Bay Lightning and Detroit Red Wings. The Canadiens were nine points ahead of their pace from last season when they were 13-16-3 after 32 games before going on to make the playoffs for the first time in four years.

The Canadiens were only one point out of first place in the Atlantic Division despite having a minus-8 goal differential. The Lightning was plus-18.

The Canadiens are where they are despite some shaky goaltending — especially from Samuel Montembeault — defensive breakdowns and inconsistent play, which can be expected from such a young team. They are also where they are because they ranked ninth in the NHL in offence heading into Tuesday’s game, scoring an average of 3.22 goals per game, and ranked fourth on the power play with a 26.4 per cent success rate.

By comparison, the Buffalo Sabres were in last place in the Atlantic Division with a 14-14-4 record and a minus-11 goal differential. It looks like the Sabres will miss the playoffs for a 15th consecutive season.

On Monday Buffalo fired general manager Kevyn Adams and replaced him with Jarmo Kekalainen, the former Columbus Blue Jackets GM. Kekalainen becomes the fifth GM the Sabres have had since they last made the playoffs in 2011. During that span they have gone through seven head coaches, including Lindy Ruff, who is now in his second stint with Buffalo and was behind the bench the last time the Sabres made the playoffs.

The Canadiens can be frustrating for fans to watch at times this season, but their rebuilding process is going very well. The youngest team in the NHL had earned five of a possible six points in their last three games before facing the Flyers.

“We just came off playing some good hockey for three games with some pockets of stuff that makes you scratch your head sometimes,” St. Louis said after Sunday’s win. “But, at the end of the day, we went and got five out of six points. It’s a good weekend.”

This is an important stretch of the schedule for the Canadiens with four straight home games, including Sunday’s win, after which they will play seven straight road games. They haven’t been great at home this season with an 8-8-1 record in large part because they had given up four or more goals in nine of those 17 games.

“We need to be more consistent and we got to keep going,” Dobes said after Sunday’s game. “After one win you don’t just get satisfied. We need to be way better and get on a streak and close the first half of the season good.

“We haven’t been really as good lately at home,” the goalie added. “So we just wanted to show the fans some love and that we care, we try our best and we did a really good job. We need to be more consistent and bring it back on Tuesday.”

St. Louis announced after Tuesday’s morning skate that Jacob Fowler will start in goal against the Flyers and also announced that defenceman Mike Matheson has joined the injured list with an upper-body injury. Matheson is listed as day-to-day and won’t play against the Flyers. That’s a big loss since he leads the Canadiens in ice time with an average of 24:54 per game, which ranks 10th in the NHL.

Fowler has a 1-0-1 record with a 3.42 goals-against average and an .896 save percentage since getting called up from the AHL’s Laval Rocket last week. This will be his first game at the Bell Centre as St. Louis tries to juggle three goalies, including Montembeault, who has a 5-6-1 record with a 3.65 GAA and a .857 save percentage. Montembeault has played in only two games this month and has recorded an .810 save percentage.

St. Louis said the Canadiens are still trying to figure out how to manage their three goalies moving forward and couldn’t say when Montembeault might play again. St. Louis added that the Canadiens are looking at the goaltending situation from both a short-term and long-term view. He said Fowler will play against the Flyers, they’ll evaluate his performance and then decide who will play Thursday against the Chicago Blackhawks (7 p.m., TSN2, RDS).

It’s impressive where the Canadiens are now in the standings despite their struggles. With better goaltending and the return of some injured players, this could be a very good young team.

We saw that against the Oilers.

scowan@postmedia.com

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