MONTREAL — Oliver Kapanen got the call at roughly 3:30 p.m., less than four hours before the scheduled puck drop Saturday for the Montreal Canadiens home game against the Philadelphia Flyers.
Forward Josh Anderson would be unavailable because he needed to attend to the biggest day of his life — his wife expecting the couple’s first child — and thus, Kapanen was in, all of a sudden.
Anderson, just a year after suffering through a season where he felt like a meaningless player, is now the opposite of that. His coach considers him a “culture driver” for his team, and with Anderson naturally preoccupied with more important matters, Martin St. Louis needed to jump into action.
Anderson’s absence had a ripple effect throughout the Canadiens’ lineup in this critical game — because the Canadiens no longer have non-critical games on their schedule — and their ability to pull out a 3-2 victory without their culture driver was in large part because of how some of those ripples impacted the game.
“I talk about what’s next, right? That was what’s next for me as a coach,” St. Louis said after the game. “The player’s not going to be here, and as a group we talked about it, we’re going to play hard for Andy. We can’t replace what Andy does just with one guy,…
