Canadiens’ Dach willing to do the work after hitting rock bottom in loss to Vegas

MONTREAL — Things went from bad to worse for Kirby Dach on Saturday, but it often goes that way before it gets better.

That’s a tough reality for Dach to face right now, but at least he isn’t hiding from it.

As Montreal Canadiens coach Martin St. Louis said after Dach’s mistake set off a chain of terrible ones his team made in the second period to go down 5-0 in what turned out to be a 6-2 loss to the Vegas Golden Knights, no good could come from turning away from it.

“You can’t hide when things don’t go well,” St. Louis said. “When you start hiding, it’s going to take a long time to get back. You just have to face the music. You have to get after it.”

What choice does Dach have?

He’s been working hard, but, as he admitted after the game, he needs to work even harder.

“It’s (expletive) time to dig in and get it done,” Dach said. 

There is no other way, and he knows it. 

The 23-year-old, who missed all but four periods and change last season after tearing the MCL and ACL of his right knee, has been searching for his confidence since the start of training camp. And when we spoke to him about it after Thursday’s practice, he acknowledged it’s not just going to suddenly materialize out of thin air.

“You just have to roll with the punches and work through it,” Dach said. “I don’t think there’s a magic potion or a magic pill or something that’s going to flip the switch. It’s going come from me working on the details and making sure I’m doing everything right on the ice and being in the right spots for that switch to finally flip.”

It didn’t happen on Saturday, so Dach needs to invest on a whole other level than he has so far to generate a different result when the Canadiens play again on Tuesday. 

Perhaps he hadn’t quite been able to do it the way he needed to yet because his inconsistent play hadn’t quite cost the Canadiens before the way it did against the Golden Knights on Saturday.

But the feeling Dach was left with after this game is one he’s not going to want to have again any time soon.

“I’m just disappointed in myself,” he said. “Just trying not to think about it too much, honestly, but you have games like this where you (expletive) the bed and you give up a goal and you continue to turn the puck over and it seems like the puck’s always bouncing over your stick, and it makes you scratch your head as an athlete. 

“Trying my best not to think about it and move forward and get better each and every day and try and put in the work, but it’s definitely frustrating.”

That’s what this game was for linemate Juraj Slafkovsky, too. 

He committed an egregious turnover at the offensive blue line that led to Vegas’s third goal just 49 seconds after Callahan Burke capitalized on Dach’s mistake.

“Just stupid,” Slafkovsky said of his decision.

St. Louis didn’t use that word to describe all the ones his team made in that second period, but he might as well have.

The coach’s third-period decision to pull starting goaltender Samuel Montembeault from the net and spare him further from what the Canadiens subjected him to in the middle frame said enough. 

St. Louis was frustrated with his team for taking a step back after several forward led to their best performance of the season in their last game—a dominant 3-0 win over the Edmonton Oilers—and said he hoped the result was the product of growing pains and not some greater malaise that will carry forward to their next game.

Then, St. Louis expressed a different sentiment pertaining to Dach.

“I feel for Dacher,” he said. “He missed a lot of time and it’s frustrating for him, because we all know how good he can be.”

Dach showed flashes of it in Chicago, but not enough to stick with the Blackhawks after they drafted him third overall in 2019.

The Canadiens traded Alexander Romanov and the 98^th overall pick in the 2022 Draft to acquire the 13^th-overall pick from the New York Islanders before flipping that pick and the 66^th-overall pick to give Dach a rebirth in Montreal.

He set career highs in goals (14) and assists (24) in 58 games of his first season with the Canadiens and really began to flourish towards the end of it. The Fort Saskatchewan, Alta., native appeared ready to build on that last season before a collision with Chicago’s Jarred Tinordi stopped him in his tracks in Game 2.

Dach hasn’t been able to get back on course since.

He’s posted just one goal and eight points through the first 20 games this season, and Saturday’s performance left him at minus-15, which is the second-worst rating in the NHL (behind three players who are minus-16).

It was expected to be a slow burn for Dach—as it would be for any player coming back from what he went through last season—but he’s no longer willing to wait.

“There’s no point playing sorry or feeling bad for myself that I missed the year,” Dach said on Thursday. “I’ve got to go out and just be better sometimes.”

Hitting rock bottom on Saturday might get him there now. 

As hard as it is to go through, that’s often what it takes before the tide begins to turn.