“I think the game is fair.” So Dominic Ducharme crossed at the end of his second match at the helm of the Canadians, losing 2-1 in extra time to Winnipeg, a duel whose men dominated 41-21 on penalties.

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Then we gave the runner the opportunity, even if the idea of ​​sending Philip Danault and Joel Jeremiah to start overtime raised many skeptics.

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Here we are, three weeks later, feeling like Groundhog Day. Ducharme was leading his 12th team^H Match as head coach of Habs. For the fifth time, he saw his forces bow to break the tie. This time, Canucks won 3-2 in overtime, with a nice goal from JT Miller.

Five play-off losses under Ducharme, nine since the beginning of the year. But above all, there is no victory. Therefore, there is no goal keeping 29 minutes 55 seconds of play in 3v3, a mode in which the play is as open as Buffet Vichy in Montreal-North at the time.

So, is the “game” really honest? Or should we give it a taste?

Tired

It is important here to salute the sincerity of Ducharme. After each of the five losses, he took the time to explain his thinking.

Claude Julian would have responded that “this is called coaching,” and he had the right to do so. Also, coaches are not accountable like the minister! Michelle Terrain was going to shut down, as boiling as he was after defeats.

Ducharme, for his part, finds a way to explain where he is heading, even if we can guess that he would like to internalize the defeat with a different entourage than the journalists. In short, he is transparent, and in doing so, we understand that his decisions are taken into account, not a simple intuition.

So, the time you spend circling the neutral zone, tracking your steps? It was a matter of gaining speed and movement. But at some point, we could have brought the disc faster into the opponent’s area, Ducharme admitted. With speed and movement, we want to create confusion. ”

“We were trying to exhaust them, to force them to keep the same players on the ice. We had a chance to score. They didn’t control overtime. We didn’t score in our luck, they scored their goals,” added Jonathan Drouin, one of the strikers.

This approach clearly did not work. Sure, Josh Anderson had a rupture, but it took Drouin holding back in the neutral territory to make that possible. Above all, it was scored by Miller, one of the players who said CH was trying to get tired. Miller has been on ice since the start of overtime! Fatigue didn’t stop him from taking turns mocking Thomas Tatar, Nick Suzuki, and Jake Allen to end the match.

Even if wins are rare, players still do what their coach asks them to do.

“Yeah, it’s frustrating,” Drouin admitted. Nobody will come home satisfied with just one point. Sometimes we get frustrated, I’m the first to do it. This is to follow the process and it will be fine. ”

The coach was not wrong when he assured that “if we score tonight, everyone will tell us how many characters we have, after establishing a tie at the end of the match.” To always be in good faith, it is important to realize that the Danault and Paul Byron duo at the start of overtime accomplished their mission, which is to ensure that the CH goblin is possessed. In fact, Byron stayed on ice for only 25 seconds before giving up his seat.

But one thing is clear: Hockey is not fair. It gets even worse in a season shortened to 56 games, with every point lost in extra time going to a direct opponent in the race for the playoffs. Ducharme said the hockey game was sincere, and added that the points will go to the Habs sooner or later.

About a month later, these points still did not return. Ducharme will have to find a way to return, be it by reviewing Shea Weber’s responsibilities, hoping Suzuki’s equalizer will give him confidence, and the goal he witnessed in overtime doesn’t take away from him. In short, to find ways your team wins a lot in 60 minutes.

But Ducharme will have to find a way to force hockey to be more fair to his team, because with his loss rate accumulated, the season could end sooner than expected.

On the Ascension: Alexander Romanov

He has regained his confidence, as evidenced by his few gentle streaks in possession of the disc. Two of them also caused penalties for Canucks.

Bottom: Joel Jeremiah

He was entitled to a first sentence in the third period, during which he played only 2 minutes. The second fell at a press conference, when Dominic Ducharme hinted that he had lost his leg in the second goal. From Canucks.

Issue: 6

Jake Allen suffered a sixth consecutive loss. Poor’s had only nine offensive support goals in that series, averaging 1.50 per match.

in detail

Armia on 4^H Triple

We’ll tell each other, things are not going well for Joel Jeremiah. Firstly, there is a minor detail that prior to Friday night’s match, the striker had not scored a goal since March 6 … well, Armia was again disqualified from the scoring sheet in this loss to the Vancouver Canucks at Bale Center. If we do the math, it won’t give him any points in the last five matches, nor goals in the last 7 games. This is without a doubt the reason why Dominic Ducharme lost patience, and during the evening we saw Jeremiah who found himself with the team’s trio. It should come as no surprise to find him somewhere in the stands in the near future …

Drwin is in the middle!

In an attempt to find the magic formula, Dominic Ducharme briefly enters Jonathan Drouin as center at the end of the second term. It didn’t last and Drouin returned to the winger in the third period … The Quebec player didn’t score a point on this fine Friday night at the Bale Center, like many of his team-mates elsewhere, but he still plays hard, with 4 shots on target. Nick Suzuki is the other China national team striker who also threw 4 times Friday night, scoring his sixth goal of the season. Around the same time, Max Basioretti was wearing the 15th^H And 16^H Season for the Golden Knights …

Engineering variable arbitration

The two referees stationed at the Bell Center on Friday evening (we will not call them to avoid inflicting shame on their loved ones) had a rather difficult evening, thank you, and we have heard the players of the two teams harass many of their decisions since the seats several times during the evening. Among other things, the Canucks bench players got up in one shot when Jonathan Drouin clearly stopped him in overtime, to allow Josh Anderson to go alone towards goalkeeper Thatcher Demko. Often times this is the biggest management problem in the National Hockey League: consistency … or rather, inconsistency! The Friday Night match was another great proof of that.

They said

With Richard Lappe, Journalism