Martin St. Louis finally forces a Canadiens player to take accountability

I doubt Martin St. Louis is reading my articles. Still, I mentioned in our Kirby Dach piece on Saturday morning that the head coach doesn't give enough accountability to his players. On Saturday night against the Columbus Blue Jackets, St. Louis finally gave one of his underperforming players a proper benching, but it wasn't Dach. Juraj Slafkovsky made a couple of costly mistakes in the second period when the team had a lead, which led to him sitting for most of the frame.

Arpon Basu explains the breaking point in his article for The Athletic. The head coach begged for good habits from his team, entering the second period with a 1-0 lead. However, Slafkovsky made two crucial mistakes that almost cost his team a goal.

The Canadiens iced the puck with only two of three forwards getting a change before it happened. Slafkovsky and Dach got on the ice in time, but Jake Evans was stuck to take the defensive zone faceoff. Slafkovsy had a chance to get the puck in deep and get Evans a change after the faceoff, but he turned the puck over at the blue line and forced Evans to stay for another 30 seconds.

St. Louis didn't bench him immediately, but Slafkovsky's next shift featured two more giveaways. St. Louis gave Slafkovsky's place on the first line to Joel Armia, and Slafkovsky played just one more shift in the last 11 minutes.

“I was annoyed, a lot of guys on the bench were annoyed, too. We had a tough time getting pucks behind them. We had an opportunity to do that. We had simple plays coming out of our zone and we’re trying to go cross-ice or … we just couldn’t execute. And there comes a point where the next line’s just got to simplify, get a deep puck, trust the forecheck and start our O-zone. And we did that.”

St. Louis must be starting to teach accountability. Winning habits are what will turn the Canadiens into a playoff contender instead of a lottery team. For one night, the Canadiens had those habits in a 5-1 win against the Blue Jackets.

We can't get too ahead of ourselves, as the Blue Jackets will likely be among the league's worst teams. Montreal should be defeating teams like Columbus, which is a small step in the right direction. Is this a sign of things to come for St. Louis' tenure?