Summarize and humanize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in EnglishMONTREAL — The parallels between Ivan Demidov’s NHL debut and the team he joined Monday night having an opportunity to clinch a playoff spot are easy to draw.This was a stressful situation for a young Montreal Canadiens team and has been for a few days now, having failed in their first two attempts to secure that trip to the playoffs. And it was a stressful situation for Demidov as well, traveling from Russia via Turkey on Thursday, being welcomed at Pearson Airport in Toronto that night by a mob of Canadiens fans and entering the lineup at such a critical juncture of their season without a single full practice.But that’s a small picture view, a limited window into the significance of Monday night to the bigger project the Canadiens are trying to complete, which includes a playoff appearance.In that sense, Monday night was a failure. The Canadiens could still miss the playoffs, though the point gained in a 4-3 shootout loss to the Chicago Blackhawks still makes that an unlikely scenario.But in the big picture, Monday night could not be viewed as a failure.The Canadiens wanted this group to play meaningful games this season, and these games are extremely meaningful. And the group might not be rising to the occasion right now, with three straight losses in games where a win would clinch that playoff spot.These are learning moments, and the Canadiens should hope that the Columbus Blue Jackets force them to win their final game of the season Wednesday night at home against a Carolina Hurricanes team with nothing to play for aside from keeping the Canadiens out of the playoffs.Martin St. Louis compared it before the game Monday to Rory McIlroy at the Masters, how it must have felt good for McIlroy to win it himself in the playoff rather than back into his first Green Jacket. The Canadiens would be McIlroy in this analogy, the Blue Jackets would be Justin Rose, and what St. Louis didn’t know Monday morning was that his team would push a 5-foot par putt on the 18th hole with the championship on the line left of the hole.“I feel the guys are going through a time as a young team here where we don’t get to practice these feelings of wanting something, it’s so close you can almost touch it, and the stress level goes up,” St. Louis said after the game. “When you want something so bad and you’re working so hard, can you calm your mind through the storm? Can you calm the mind through the storm so you can make reads and execute? I think it’s a little bit clouded right now with what’s at stake.”But what was most remarkable on this night was how Demidov didn’t seem to succumb to any of that, despite having multiple reasons to do so. He was also facing a storm, and he remained incredibly calm in that storm.“I thought he was great, and I think the one player who wasn’t worried about much or stressed out, it was him,” St. Louis said. “It’s almost youth and naive, that’s why I wasn’t afraid to inject this kind of talent. He hasn’t gone through what these guys have gone through all year, (so) he just comes in and just plays. And I feel like we’ve got to get the guys to just trust the training and go play. But it’s a normal feeling for them. You can’t practice that. You’ve got to live it, and that’s what we’re going through right now.”Demidov, too, had to live it. He couldn’t have known how this day of firsts would go for him, starting with his first morning skate and ending with his first NHL game. You can’t practice that either.Despite everything the Canadiens were playing for Monday, much of the day and many of the decisions were centred around Demidov’s arrival more so than the possibility of clinching a playoff spot.They held a full morning skate, partly because their starts to games had become an issue of late, but also because St. Louis wanted Demidov to feel part of the group before his first game. St. Louis placed Demidov at right wing on a line with Alex Newhook and Joel Armia because Demidov prefers playing on the right side and having a lefty centreman would help him get the puck, so Armia was there to help insulate Demidov with a defensively sound forward.This was the biggest game of the Canadiens’ season, but it almost seemed bigger that it was Demidov’s debut.As Demidov stepped on the ice for his first morning skate with his new teammates, he fiddled around with the puck in the neutral zone for a while, seemingly not quite knowing what to do. And when the skate began with the Canadiens doing their routine warmup drill, Demidov got in the back of the line and watched, not wanting to mess it up.The drill is done at a quick pace, with four stations where the blue line meets the boards and a lot of quick passing. During the drill, Demidov’s agent Dan Milstein was chatting with Canadiens general manager Kent Hughes in the stands, looking down on the proceedings. Executive vice president of hockey operations Jeff Gorton was seated several rows above.When Demidov finally got to the front of the line, Jayden Struble came skating toward him with his stick on the ice, waiting for a pass. It never came. Demidov missed it, and when Struble kept skating toward the next station, he sent the pass over a second or two late. Demidov hit his next pass before entering the drill and, just before he got to shoot on net, he flubbed the final pass and was left with no shooting option. Armia quickly reacted and left a puck in front of Demidov so he could get his shot, and Demidov instantly roofed a wrist shot over Sam Montembeault’s glove and into the back of the net.Armia laughed and shook his head. Demidov barely reacted.Fast forward to warmup, after Demidov triggered a roar from the Bell Centre crowd for his solo lap, he settled in for line rushes. Armia set up on his usual side at right wing, so Demidov went to the opposite side of the ice. Except it was Demidov who would be playing on the right and not Armia, so once Armia realized this, he motioned to Demidov they would need to switch. Demidov looked up and gestured to confirm that he would need to switch sides, and once Armia began skating over to his side of the ice, Demidov took off as well. The two of them nearly collided as they skated past each other.It wasn’t a vision of a kid who was not nervous about making his NHL debut. It was the opposite. Nick Suzuki, who now sits next to Demidov in the Canadiens dressing room, another sign of the rookie’s importance, said the warmup was indeed making Demidov nervous.But once the game began, despite the crowd reacting every time he touched the ice, everything seemed to become normal for Demidov. He was playing hockey, and despite the nerves evident for everyone around him, his own nerves appeared to disappear.St. Louis wanted to make sure he didn’t overcoach Demidov in his first game. He has said this before of other players entering his lineup, most recently when Joshua Roy played his first game of the season.“I think it’s important that he knows how we play in our zone, because you need five guys to be on the same page there. So that’s a starter, for sure,” St. Louis said Monday morning. “Offensively, he’s going to figure it out, and we’ll bring that gradually. To me, probably more than anything, it’s how we defend, how we forecheck, and everything in between. Usually, good players figure it out.”Demidov figured it out quickly.His first NHL point came on his third NHL shift.
LE PREMIER POINT D’IVAN DEMIDOV DANS LA LNH
IVAN DEMIDOV’S FIRST NHL POINT#GoHabsGo pic.twitter.com/9mg1ghdKcK
— Canadiens Montréal (@CanadiensMTL) April 14, 2025There was a TV timeout several minutes after that assist to Alex Newhook, and as soon as the whistle blew, Demidov jumped off the bench to loosen up his legs. He went for a little skate to the Canadiens’ net and turned back to find Lane Hutson waiting for him just inside the Montreal blue line. He gave him a fist bump. He was in disbelief.“I was just shocked and surprised,” Hutson said. “Like, wow, he’s here. That was crazy, and he kind of just shrugged it off.“Then he did it again.”On Demidov’s next shift after that TV timeout, he scored his first NHL goal on his first NHL shot. And it was a thing of beauty.
IVAN DEMIDOV, TU ES UN MAGICIEN
YOU’RE A MAGICIAN, IVAN DEMIDOV#GoHabsGo pic.twitter.com/z6HQsModRb
— Canadiens Montréal (@CanadiensMTL) April 14, 2025There is so much in that one goal that is so typical of Demidov. Most players would have just fired that puck on net. The fact Demidov faked that shot at full speed before pulling it over to his backhand and being able to move laterally to pull that move off is what makes him special.“I think there’s a select few in the league who could do that,” Hutson said. “He wanted to will his way to score, and he did. Could have had more, too.”If there was any question as to how Demidov would be able to translate his game from the KHL to the NHL, however, it did not come on that first point or on that first goal. It came here.If that looks familiar, you might have seen it here. And if you missed it, here is something Demidov did in the KHL playoffs with SKA Saint Petersburg just a couple of weeks earlier.That sequence came in overtime of Game 4 of SKA’s series against Dynamo Moscow on April 2, a game SKA went on to lose to go down 3-1 in the series before ultimately losing in six games.Unfortunately for the Canadiens, it all resulted in a costly loss.“If we win,” Demidov said afterward, “I would say it’s a good game.”Hutson drove Demidov to the morning skate and the game. He picked his brain a little bit, wondering how this compared to his reality in Russia.Hutson went through this a year ago, making his NHL debut in Montreal’s 81st game of the season. Except for him, there was nothing at stake. The Canadiens had long since been eliminated, sitting in a spot in the standings that allowed them to draft Demidov nearly two months later. The Detroit Red Wings were clinging to slight playoff hopes at that point, and in that sense, the Canadiens were in a very similar spot to where the Blackhawks were Monday night. The game had playoff intensity, except Hutson was on the other side of it.No one knows better than Hutson how difficult it was for Demidov to walk into a game like that and perform the way he did.“I was just sitting back as a fan, just like everyone else, because honestly, it was pretty hilarious,” Hutson said. “You don’t imagine it looking that easy. And on top of all that, he was tracking back, lifting sticks, and creating tons for everyone. He’s special for sure.”St. Louis was so quickly impressed that Demidov was on the ice in the final minute of regulation in a tie game with the Canadiens’ playoff hopes on the line, and was on the ice again in overtime.He had said that morning how good players figure it out, and he had clearly seen by that point that Demidov is a good player.“You can see how he uses his mind, his skill, his feet,” St. Louis said after the game, “it’s all connected.”That is just about the biggest compliment St. Louis can give.Demidov’s debut might not have come in a playoff-clinching game for the Canadiens, and they have now left themselves vulnerable to not reaching that goal. Hughes said before the game that the two biggest determining factors in Demidov arriving this early were SKA’s premature elimination from the playoffs and the Canadiens being in a position to make them. Were that not the case, Hughes said, the Canadiens would have started Demidov’s contract next season.Them deciding to burn a year of Demidov’s entry-level contract to help this playoff push and help once — or if — the Canadiens reach the playoffs was the same as the decision not to sell off veterans on expiring contracts at the trade deadline, Hughes explained. It was management’s way of helping this playoff push without overly mortgaging the future.Because Demidov is about the future far more than the present, just as the Canadiens and their rebuild are about the future far more than the present.“We’re more focused when it comes to somebody like Ivan of what he represents to us over the next five to 10 years more than tonight,” Hughes said Monday morning.The Canadiens didn’t clinch a playoff spot Monday night, but the exercise wasn’t a total failure. It showed Demidov’s ability to rise to an occasion, to have a calm mind through a storm, to execute and apply his skill to a level of hockey he had not yet seen in an atmosphere he had not yet experienced.“Everything he was doing was pretty insane,” Hutson said. “It would have been nice to get the right result, but he’s special, for sure.”(Photo: David Kirouac / Imagn Images)
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