Martin St. Louis roster moves as Canadiens beat Blues 7-4

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ST. LOUIS — It’s not often an NHL coach makes major roster changes after a win.

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The Canadiens’ Martin St. Louis scored three for Saturday night’s game against the St. Louis Blues at Enterprise Center after a 3-2 win over the Sabers on Thursday night in Buffalo.

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Forwards Juraj Slafkovsky, Joel Armia and Michael Pezzetta were in the lineup against the Blues, while Jonathan Drouin, Rem Pitlick and Evgenii Dadonov were eliminated healthy.

The moves worked as the Canadians beat the Blues 7-4 with Slafkovsky scoring a power play goal to improve their record to 5-4-0. The Canadiens also set a season high for goals in a game after beating the Arizona Coyotes 6-2 on Oct. 20 at the Bell Center and went 2-for-3 on the power play against St. Louis. .

The Blues lost their fourth in a row and fell to 3-4-0.

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Christian Dvorak had a hat trick and Cole Caufield scored twice for the Canadians, while Nick Suzuki and Slafkovsky added singles. Caufield’s second goal was on the power play thanks to an incredible pass from Nick Suzuki.

After the game, Caufield called the pass “Spooky Suzuki”.

Brayden Schenn, Noel Acciari, Jordan Kyrou and Vladimir Tarasenko scored for the Blues, who outshot the Canadians 30-25.

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Slafkovsky had missed the previous three games with an upper body injury, while Armia had been out since the start of the season with an upper body injury. Drouin was eliminated healthy for the third time this season after also missing the first two games. Pezzetta had been a healthy scratch for the first eight games.

St. Louis said it was more a case of circumstance with 15 forwards on its roster that prompted roster changes than recent play by Drouin, Pitlick and Dadonov. But that also had to be a factor.

It’s a contract year for Drouin – who is in the final season of his six-year, US$33 million deal with a salary cap of $5.5 million – and it’s not a great start with only two assists in the six games he has played after missing time in training camp due to illness. Drouin said his main goal heading into this season is to stay healthy. He is now healthy after two wrist surgeries, but he is not playing.

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“I think the first time (Drouin was taken out healthy) was more that he wasn’t quite ready yet,” St. Louis said before Saturday’s game. “He missed time in training camp. Jo had a very good attitude. He works. It’s really the circumstances. With 15 attackers, it will happen. Guys have to play. You can’t just have guys sitting around for 20 games, 15 games. The guys have to play, so we have to deal with that. I try to do my best.

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St. Louis has done an impressive job with the rebuilding Canadiens, who are now one point ahead of Toronto in the Atlantic Division standings and have scored three more goals than the Maple Leafs after nine games.

It helps when the power play produces like it did against St. Louis. After going 1 for 24 on the power play in the first eight games, the Canadiens scored two power play goals in less than three minutes against the Blues.

With the Blues leading 3-1 midway through the second period, Caufield scored an even-strength goal at 10:56.

St. Louis decided to put Slafkovsky on the second power play unit for the first time this season in this game and it paid off at 13:06 of the second period when he scored on a point shot from the top face-off. circle to tie the score. The 18-year-old, selected with the first overall pick in this year’s draft, celebrated his second NHL goal with a big fist pump.

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The Canadians took the lead at 15:46 of the second period when Caufield scored on the power play with the help of “Spooky Suzuki”. Now someone has to create a “Spooky Suzuki” Halloween costume.

It was one of two assists for Suzuki, who is now 4-6-10 in nine games to lead the team in career points and 100 assists in 218 games with the Canadiens. Caufield now has seven goals in nine games this season and 29 goals in 46 games since St. Louis took over as head coach last season.

The Canadians took a three-goal lead early in the third period when Dvorak scored twice in the first 1:21 of play to give the Canadians a 6-3 lead. These are Dvorak’s first two goals this season.

Tarasenko scored at 2:47 for the Blues, but the Habs kept pushing offensively instead of sitting on the two-goal lead (not the Habs team fans have grown accustomed to in recent years) and Dvorak completed his hat trick at 6:25 p.m. in an empty net.

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Before the game, Blues head coach Craig Berube was asked what he thought of the rebuilding Canadiens team.

“They’re a fast, hungry team,” Berube said. “They have very good young players. They reorganized their team. They skate well, they attack, play hard. There’s a lot of good stuff there that they’ve done.

When St. Louis was briefed pregame on Berube’s comments, he said, “I’m so focused on my team that I don’t know what teams notice, don’t notice. I’m just going to focus on what we’re doing.

The Canadiens next game is Tuesday at Minnesota against the Wild (8 p.m., TSN2, RDS, Radio TSN 690, 98.5 FM).

Don’t expect any line-up changes from St. Louis after this impressive performance.

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