Canadiens Notebook: Marc Bergevin’s lucky suit seems to be working

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Maybe it’s the suit?

When the Canadiens faced the Winnipeg Jets in Game 4 last Monday at the Bell Centre with a chance to complete a sweep in their North Division final, GM Marc Bergevin was wearing what has become his lucky red suit. It’s the same suit he wore when the Canadiens eliminated the Maple Leafs with a 3-1 victory in Game 7 of their first-round series in Toronto.

“He can keep wearing that red suit,” the Canadiens’ Corey Perry said on Friday.

After the Canadiens beat the Jets 3-2 in overtime in Game 4, a jubilant Bergevin was waiting to greet his players with high-fives and hugs when they stepped off the ice en route to the locker room.

“He’s emotional,” Perry said about Bergevin. “It’s fun to see. It definitely brings everybody together. The playoffs are a lot of fun and emotions are high. So it was great to see.”

“It’s great to see,” added head coach Dominique Ducharme about Bergevin’s reaction. “He’s working hard … he’s heart-and-soul about the Canadiens and having success. We’re all in this together — players, coaches, management — we all want the same thing. To see him as happy as us … he’s maybe a little bit more expressive, but we’re all in this together. I think he was known as a player to be a team guy, to be a player that you want to have on your side in any fight. And he’s the same in the management as a GM, he’s the same way. He’s there on your side to as a coach to help me out, to support me if I need anything. So it’s great to see.”

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With the win over the Jets, the Canadiens advanced to the Stanley Cup semifinals for the first time since 2014 and the second time since Bergevin took over as GM in 2012.

The Canadiens will practise at 10:30 a.m. Saturday at the Bell Sports Complex in Brossard ahead of a 2 p.m. flight to Las Vegas, where they will practise on Sunday as they prepare for Game 1 of the semifinal series against the Golden Knights on Monday (9 p.m., CBC, SN, TVA Sports, TSN 690 Radio, 98.5 FM).

This series will match the NHL’s oldest team against its youngest. The Canadiens, who were founded in 1909 and joined the NHL in 1917, have won a record 24 Stanley Cups, but none since 1993. The Golden Knights joined the NHL as an expansion team for the 2017-18 season and advanced to the Stanley Cup final in their first year before losing to the Washington Capitals in five games. The Golden Knights were eliminated in the first round in 2019 and this marks their second straight season advancing to the Stanley Cup semifinals. Last year they lost to the Dallas Stars.

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“There’s a lot of history here in Montreal,” Perry said. “Vegas has been in the league four or five years, something like that now. So it’s totally different. But we’re just looking at what we have to do on the ice and how we have to play and go from there.”

Jake Evans, who hasn’t played since suffering a concussion from a violent hit by Mark Scheifele in Game 1 against the Jets that resulted in a four-game suspension, skated Friday in Brossard, but Ducharme said he won’t be ready to play Game 1 against the Golden Knights. Ducharme also doesn’t expect injured defencemen Jeff Petry and Jon Merrill to be ready to play. The coach did say all three players are progressing well and could return to the lineup soon.

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Big underdogs

The Canadiens will be big underdogs against the Golden Knights after finishing 23 points behind them during the regular season. The Canadiens had a 24-21-11 record with a minus-9 goal differential, while the Golden Knights were 40-14-2 with a plus-67 goal differential, the best in the league.

“We believe in ourselves,” Ducharme said. “Not too many people did starting the playoffs. We don’t care if it changes or not. We’re controlling what we can control. But when the puck drops we’ll be ready to go.

“Different season for everyone,” the coach added. “We all played in our own division and different styles of play or different teams that you play often. But that’s part of the challenge for everyone right now.”

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Ducharme said the Canadiens can feed off the doubt people have in them heading into the series.

“It’s more about ourselves and how we feel about things,” he said. “But having people doubting you I always personally like to prove people wrong. When people think that we cannot do something it’s always nice … it’s another layer where you can gain energy or another challenge. But it comes from within. Everything around can be looked at something that can spark your team. But at the end of the day, it’s really inside what’s going on in the group and the way they want to handle things and the way we want to face challenges and face adversity.”

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Slaying the Knights

Perry was with the Stars last season when they eliminated the Golden Knights in five games in the Stanley Cup semifinals before losing to the Tampa Bay Lightning in the final.

“We worked hard and played well defensively last year and we’re going to have to have that same mindset,” Perry said. “We know they have a lot of firepower over there. They have four lines that can play, some top D in this league and a goalie (Marc-André Fleury) that’s played very well. So it’s going to be a good challenge for us and we’re excited.

“Nobody’s played each other, so it’s a little different, it’s a little weird,” Perry added about the condensed 56-game regular season in which teams only played within their own division. “But you see the games, you watch the games, you played them last year. Yeah, it’s a different season, but Vegas has pretty much the same team as last year. So you can kind of rely on that and go back on that. Again, you have to be ready to play. It’s a new series, it’s Game 1 and we’re excited.”

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Perry noted that Stars goalie Anton Khudobin was “spectacular” against the Golden Knights in the playoffs last season.

“They’re going to get their shots, they’re going to get their opportunities,” Perry said about the Golden Knights. “It’s a matter of limiting their quality scoring chances and when they get one your goalie needs to make a save and he did that last season. I believe in this room that we can do the same thing and frustrate them and just be on the right side of the puck most of the time.”

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Remembering the trade

The Golden Knights selected Nick Suzuki in the first round (13th overall) of the 2017 NHL Draft, but he never played a game with the team.

On Sept. 10, 2018, the Golden Knights traded Suzuki to the Canadiens, along with Tomas Tatar and a second-round pick at the 2019 NHL Draft in exchange for Max Pacioretty. The Canadiens later dealt the second-round pick to the Los Angeles Kings in exchange for a third-round pick (Mattias Norlinder) and a fifth-round pick (Jacob Leguerrier) in 2019.

“It was definitely a bit of a shock,” Suzuki said Friday when asked about his initial reaction to the trade. “I was just kind of brand-new to the team. I had been with them for one year and we were just doing our rookie tournament. Just got the call to the GMs office and found out I was getting traded to Montreal. It was a bit of a shock right away, but as the days went on I got more excited to get the opportunity to come here and play for this amazing franchise and just try to take it all in as much as I can. I’m really lucky to be here.”

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While Suzuki is happy to be with the Canadiens, he’s also impressed with what the Golden Knights have been able to accomplish in such a short time.

“I think it was a cool experience to go into an expansion team, be one of the first players a part of the team,” he said. “To see what they’ve done over such a short period of time is pretty spectacular. They did a great job of bringing guys in that really wanted to win. You got to give them credit to how they did their expansion draft, draft picks, did pretty well in trades. They made a good team and they’ve had a lot of success over the first few years in the league.”

Suzuki doesn’t mind that the Canadiens are the underdogs heading into this series.

“I think we weren’t really favoured to be this far,” he said. “That’s fine with me. I don’t really care too much about what other people say. I have all the confidence in the world in this group and how we can play. I think we’ve showed that throughout the playoffs. We have a ton of confidence in everybody right now and that’s what a winning team needs.”

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Creating Chemistry — Part 1

Suzuki has been playing on a line between Tyler Toffoli and Cole Caufield during the playoffs and they are quickly creating chemistry.

Toffoli is leading the Canadiens in playoff scoring with 4-6-10 totals in 11 games, followed by Suzuki with 4-4-8, while Caufield had 0-4-4 totals after being made a healthy scratch for the first two games of the playoffs.

“I think our chemistry has gotten better, especially just off the ice, too,” Suzuki said. “We love hanging out together, talking non-hockey topics or hockey topics. They’re two great guys and amazing players to play with. We have a lot of fun together on and off the ice. That’s really translated to success.”

At 29, Toffoli is eight years older than Suzuki and nine years older than Caufield.

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“We both look up to him,” Suzuki said. “He knows what it takes to win and he’s done a great job this year. Our most successful producer. He’s a guy that we always go to to ask questions, just try to take anything that we can. He’s definitely open to hear what me and Cole have to say, too. Just as a line we work really well together.”

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Creating Chemistry — Part 2

The Canadiens’ fourth line of Eric Staal between Perry and Joel Armia has also been creating chemistry during the playoffs while allowing Ducharme to roll all four of his lines.

“Once our line was put together in that Toronto series there was chemistry right away,” Perry said. “We’re three big bodies that like to play with the puck down low, hold on to it, cycle the puck and then take it to the net. If we can get back to that right away it’s definitely going to help us and our line. We know how Vegas plays. They got a lot of speed, they’re up and down. They’ve got some heavy guys, they got some D that are heavy and like to step up on you. We’re excited for this challenge and we’ll be ready for Game 1.”

Suzuki noted that rolling four lines will help the Canadiens against the Golden Knights.

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“Obviously, I want to be out there as much as I can, but Dom I think has just done a great job of keeping all the lines going,” Suzuki said. “I think any line that we put out there we can trust fully and we know they’re going to get the job done. For me, just a matter of keeping my shift lengths a bit shorter. The coaches have been talking to me about that and when I do that I think I can create more and just have more energy for the next shift.”

Series schedule

Here’s the complete schedule for the Stanley Cup semifinal series between the Canadiens and Vegas Golden Knights:

Game 1: Monday, June 14, at Las Vegas, 9 p.m.
Game 2: Wednesday, June 16, at Las Vegas, 9 p.m.
Game 3: Friday, June 18, at Montreal, 8 p.m.
Game 4: Sunday, June 20, at Montreal, 8 p.m.
x-Game 5: Tuesday, June 22, at Las Vegas, 9 p.m.
x-Game 6: Thursday, June 24, at Montreal, 8 p.m.
x-Game 7: Saturday, June 26, at Las Vegas, 8 p.m.
x-if necessary

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