Martin St-Louis left Thursday night's 5-2 loss to Nashville worried less about the standings and more about whether the Canadiens' heads stay right.
"I feel like after a game like tonight my biggest concern is the morale of the boys staying in a good place emotionally," the Montreal head coach said after the final horn.
Then he added the line that will split the fan base: "We played a good game; life's not fair, keep going."
Tough sell. Montreal has now dropped three straight and still hasn't won on home ice, sitting at 0-2-0 in its own building.
Good game? On the shot clock, maybe. Juuse Saros turned aside 32 of 34 Montreal shots and never looked rattled doing it.
Cole Caufield fired six shots on goal and came away empty. Juraj Slafkovsky put five more on Saros and went minus-2 for his trouble.
Nick Suzuki and Alex Newhook scored the only goals. Suzuki now leads the team with 7 points through four games, and he's carrying the top six almost alone.
Steven Stamkos and the Predators power play cashed in on Montreal's mistakes
But "good game" skips right past the penalty box. Arber Xhekaj alone was charged with 10 penalty minutes, and Josh Anderson added four more.
Nashville made them pay twice on the man advantage. Ryan O'Reilly's power-play goal stood as the winner, and Matthew Wood added another one with the extra man.
Steven Stamkos set up both. Roman Josi had a hand in one of them while logging 27:49, the heaviest workload on the ice.
Here's where Bob parts ways with the coach. You can't hand Stamkos two looks on the power play and then call the result bad luck.
Blaming fortune for that is like a driver blaming the road after rolling through two stop signs. The road didn't do it.
The bigger worry might sit in the crease. Jacob Fowler faced only 18 shots and still allowed three goals.
Jakub Dobes hasn't steadied things either. He's carrying an .856 save percentage through three appearances.
And Samuel Montembeault remains day-to-day, expected out until at least October 10. That leaves the net in young hands for now.
Up front, the hole on the wing isn't closing soon. Ivan Demidov is on injured reserve with a lower-body injury, expected out until at least October 31.
The defensive math is ugly. Montreal has already allowed 19 goals in four games, the kind of number that wears on a locker room fast.
Lane Hutson played 24:43 and went minus-2. Noah Dobson, on a $9,500,000 cap hit, has one assist through four games.
Kent Hughes built this blue line to stop exactly this kind of bleeding. Four games in, it hasn't.
Detroit visits Saturday night. The sun might shine tomorrow, like St-Louis said, but someone still has to stop the puck when it does.
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Was Martin St-Louis right to call Thursday's 5-2 loss to Nashville a good game?
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