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Stu Cowan: In today's NHL, Canadiens can't afford a long winless streak

 Montreal Canadiens’ Charles Hudon shoots the puck past a sliding Ottawa Senators Nikita Zaitzev during first period in Montreal on Nov. 20, 2019.
Montreal Canadiens’ Charles Hudon shoots the puck past a sliding Ottawa Senators Nikita Zaitzev during first period in Montreal on Nov. 20, 2019.

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“Any given Sunday” has been the NFL’s mantra for years, suggesting any team can beat any other team once the ball is kicked off.

“Any given night” could be the mantra in the salary-capped NHL, where any team can beat any other team on any night — and in any playoff series. We saw that last season, when the Tampa Bay Lightning was swept by the Columbus Blue Jackets in the first round of the playoffs after winning the Presidents’ Trophy as regular-season champion with an impressive 62-16-4 record, finishing 21 points ahead of the Calgary Flames and Boston Bruins, who tied for the second-most points.

Heading into Thursday’s games, the Lightning had a 9-7-2 record this season and were in 12th place in the Eastern Conference standings, which wasn’t expected. It also wasn’t expected that the star-studded Toronto Maple Leafs would go winless in six games (0-5-1), resulting in coach Mike Babcock getting fired Wednesday after the team got off to a 9-10-4 start.

Winning in today’s NHL isn’t easy and neither is making the playoffs, which is why long winless streaks can be deadly. That’s why the Canadiens need to snap out of their three-game winless streak (0-1-2) Saturday night at the Bell Centre against the New York Rangers before the Boston Bruins come to town next Tuesday.

The Canadiens were still sitting in a playoff spot in third place in the Atlantic Division with an 11-6-5 record after Wednesday night’s 2-1 overtime loss to the Ottawa Senators at the Bell Centre. Last season, the Canadiens had an 11-7-4 record after 22 games. Interestingly, the Canadiens’ longest winless streak last season was five games and it was at this same time of year when they went 0-3-2 from Nov. 19-27. They also had a four-game winless streak (0-3-1) from Feb. 9-17 and ended up finishing two points out of the final playoff spot in the Eastern Conference.

The margin between winning, losing and making the playoffs has never been smaller in the NHL and four of the Canadiens’ last seven games have gone into overtime, including one shootout. The Canadiens won the shootout game and lost the three others in OT.

“I just think it’s crazy … any team can beat any team on any given night,” the Canadiens’ Nick Cousins said Thursday morning after a workout at the Bell Sports Complex in Brossard. “If you lose three, four in a row you’re going to be out of the playoffs because the standings are so tight and they’re going to be so tight until the last game of the season. I think if we can get out of this funk here that we’re in — we’ve lost three in a row now — we’ve just got to keep putting points on the board each and every night. Try and separate yourselves as best you can with how tight the division is. I think you’ve just got to eliminate the three-, four-, five-game losing streaks.”

The Canadiens have to start burying their scoring chances if they want to do that. They have scored only three goals in their last two games despite outshooting the Blue Jackets 32-26 in Tuesday’s 5-2 loss in Columbus and then outshooting the Senators 36-24, including 12-3 in the first period, which ended 0-0.

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The Canadiens didn’t go on the ice for practise Thursday and only made four players available to the media: Joel Armia, Victor Mete, Ben Chiarot and Cousins. Coach Claude Julien also took a day off from speaking with the media.

The Canadiens have a practice scheduled for 11 a.m. Friday at the Bell Sports Complex.

“The last couple of games, we out kind of out-chanced both teams,” Cousins said. “I think we’ve carried the majority of the play as well. But at the same time, when we’re not burying our chances we’re kind of keeping the other team around and I think you saw that last night. They were pretty lucky to get to overtime and then in overtime it’s anyone game. I think if we can capitalize on our chances … I think if we get the lead, we kind of want to extend the lead as well. I think if we do a better job of that we’ll set ourselves up for a better result.

“I just think it comes down to bearing down on your chances,” Cousins added. “In Columbus, we had three or four breakaways there to kind of extend the lead. We didn’t capitalize on those plays. And then last night, we had a lot of chances in the slot and (Senators goalie Craig) Anderson came up big and made some good saves. But … I think it’s on us to bury those chances. I think it will come. We’ve just got to be patient.”

In today’s NHL, you can’t stay patient too long if you want to make the playoffs.

Just ask the Leafs.

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twitter.com/StuCowan1

Copyright Postmedia Network Inc., 2019

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