How the Canadiens mastered the art of 'bouncing forward' - ESPN

RALEIGH, N.C. — Montreal has mastered the art of resiliency. Or, as the Canadiens call it: bouncing forward.

It's a turn of phrase Juraj Slafkovsky used nearly three years ago that has become Montreal's mantra during a roller-coaster postseason run through back-to-back seven-game series (without consecutive losses) to reach the Eastern Conference finals against Carolina.

Slafkovsky uttered the phrase while mired in a tough professional stretch. As a 19-year-old, he had just completed his 50th NHL game, and (finally) scored his first goal of the 2023-24 season in a 6-3 loss to the St. Louis Blues. There was talk going into that matchup that coach Martin St. Louis should have moved Slafkovsky down the lineup; instead, St. Louis put Slafkovsky on the team's top line with Cole Caufield and Nick Suzuki.

The coach's decision worked — Slafkovsky gained confidence from the goal, and coined the expression that has had unexpectedly long legs.

«I would say [I'm better at moving on],» Slafkovsky said at the time. «I don't focus on the past because I can't do much about it. I'm just looking forward after every game, trying to watch the clips shortly after a game, think about what could be better and bounce forward.»

It would be easy to chalk up Slafkovsky's statement as a non-native English speaker misusing the more colloquial «bounce back.» But that's not how the Canadiens roll.

Something about this concept has stuck for a team that's well past knocking on the door. St. Louis has — in his signature cadence — described bouncing forward as the simple «physics» of advancing somewhere new, as opposed to returning somewhere familiar. It was fitting to resurface that verbiage after Montreal's 8-3 loss in Game 6 of its second-round playoff