On Monday, the Montreal Canadiens were so close to collecting at least a point to close out their pre-Christmas schedule. They were inches from potentially putting a bow on their best stretch of games this season with a come-from-behind win in Columbus.
And then Kirill Marchenko spoiled it.
With 2:12 remaining in a 4-4 game at Nationwide Arena, the Russian sniper fired a bullet past Sam Montembeault to give the Blue Jackets the only lead they managed not to relinquish on this night. He wounded the Canadiens, who were ultimately unable to recover.
They started slow and finished behind, despite an excellent effort in between, and that’s exactly what you’d say of their season to date.
The Canadiens didn’t just stumble out of the gate in October, they fell on their faces, dropping seven of 11 games and taking themselves out of the mix they hoped to be in from start to finish this season. They didn’t exactly dust themselves off at the start of November, either, losing their first four games of the month before going .500 over their next eight.
But after losing 6-3 in Boston on Dec. 1, the Canadiens made it through the first nine games of a 10-game stretch that could catch them up to the pack with a 6-3-0 record.
A win in Columbus Monday would’ve had the Canadiens leapfrogging the Blue Jackets in the standings and edging themselves closer to the second wild-card position in the Eastern Conference. They’d have still been five points behind the Ottawa Senators had they earned it, but at least they’d have taken the good feeling of notching a fourth-straight win into the holiday, and that good feeling could’ve galvanized them ahead of what will be the toughest portion of their schedule between now and the end of the season.
But that good feeling slipped away from the Canadiens when Marchenko’s shot hit the bar and lit the lamp.
“It’s not a good feeling,” Kirby Dach said to reporters afterwards.
He had his two best scoring chances of the season to put the Canadiens up 5-4 in the sixth minute of the third period, but he pushed both off the right pad of Jet Greaves and was left contemplating what might have been.
Montembeault had to be doing the same after making game-saving stops on Cole Sillinger and Zach Werenski just two minutes before Marchenko scored on one he had no chance of saving.
It had to be particularly devastating for the Montreal goaltender, with this being his 10th consecutive start and his third in four nights.
Montembeault was brilliant in Detroit Friday, strong again in a 5-1 win over the Red Wings in Montreal Saturday and good enough to at least earn the Canadiens a point in Columbus.
But he, and they, fell short. Just like they had in most the games they played without Patrik Laine prior to this one.
When the six-foot-five winger suffered a knee injury in his second pre-season game, it sunk the Canadiens.
Laine helped bring them back up over the last nine games, scoring eight goals to help drive them to better results.
But when Laine went down again — this time against his former team — on Monday, the Canadiens fell back into the loss column.
The big Finn took heavy hits from Dmitri Voronkov and Dante Fabbro in the first period and didn’t return for the second or third. And while he was nursing an upper-body injury, the Canadiens managed to erase 2-0 and 3-1 deficits before blowing a 4-3 lead Joel Armia gave them 20 seconds into the third.
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The frustration of it all was obvious, with Jake Evans (who set up Armia’s goal and scored Montreal’s third to make it his third straight game with a goal) making it clear he and the Canadiens felt like more than just two points got away from them on this night.
“We’re trying to get back into the playoffs,” he said.
You could tell how annoyed he was that the Canadiens were leaving Columbus after having made that task harder for themselves.
The knowledge that it won’t get any easier coming out of the break had to be a present thought for all of them.
The Canadiens return on the 28th to play the second of six consecutive road games. It’ll be an afternoon contest against the Florida Panthers, followed by another afternoon game against the Tampa Bay Lightning on the 29th.
Two days later, the Canadiens are scheduled for a noon start out west, in Vegas. And then it’s off to the Central Time Zone to play in Chicago on Jan. 3 before dropping back to Mountain Time in Colorado on the fourth.
It’s a hellacious trip through a gauntlet of mostly great teams, and it started on the wrong foot against a not-so-great one in Columbus Monday.
A point was within reach. Perhaps even two.
And then they were gone in a flash.
