Montreal Canadiens forward Jake Evans believes his team must utilize their speed in order to crack the stingy defence of the Carolina Hurricanes.
Entering Game 4 on Wednesday, the Canadiens are coming off registering a combined 25 shots on net total in overtime losses in Games 2 and 3. The Hurricanes, meanwhile, challenged Montreal netminder Jakub Dobes with 65 shots in the past two games.
“I think a large part of us not getting a ton of shots and not a lot of O-zone time is we’re not forechecking great right now, we’re not putting pucks to the right areas, and we’re not using one of our main assets, which is speed,” Evans said Wednesday.
Despite being thoroughly outshot in the last two games after a 6-2 win over the Hurricanes in Game 1, the Canadiens have a chance to tie the series and make it a best-of-three heading to Carolina for Game 5 on Friday.
“We’re behind, but we’re not dead,” head coach Martin St. Louis said in French on Tuesday. “We continue.”
“We have all the tools. We can play in possession, we can go forecheck,” he added. “We’ve shown great maturity throughout the season. We’re playing a very mature team. I don’t know if we can match that maturity, but I think we need to elevate ours a little bit, and I feel we have all the tools.”
Dobes, who is celebrating his 25th birthday on Wednesday, has stood tall throughout the series against the Hurricanes despite the ice seemingly being tilted towards him. He’s allowed eight goals on 93 shots in the Eastern Conference Final, improving his playoff save percentage to .910.
Montreal defenceman Lane Hutson placed the blame on himself for Monday’s Game 3 overtime loss after his turnover in the neutral zone led to Andrei Svechnikov’s game-winner.
“He battles so hard,” Hutson said of Dobes after the loss. “Sucks that I just blew it for him, but it is what it is.”
With a win on Wednesday, the Canadiens will guarantee a Game 6 on home ice Sunday at the Bell Centre.
