The Canadiens can thank the NHL schedule-makers that they play in New Jersey on Thursday.

Because if they didn't, they would have surely felt the wrath of Jacques Martin for the second time in just over a week.

Martin held a high-intensity practice a day after Montreal blew a two-goal first period lead to lose 3-2 to the Philadelphia Flyers. That practice was preceded by a team meeting where, by all accounts, Martin was the only one who really spoke.

The Canadiens learned their lesson and came out flying against the Los Angeles Kings the next game, thoroughly dominating in a 4-1 win on home ice.

But the lesson wore off in the next game, a 3-0 loss in Atlanta, albeit that Thrashers team is bringing out the worst in many of their opponents lately.

Again, a wake-up call was received, and the Canadiens came back with another dominant 3-1 win at home against Buffalo.

So with the lowly Edmonton Oilers in town Wednesday night, it was a perfect opportunity to see if this team had finally grasped the concept of bringing it for 60 minutes night after night. Of not trying to coast their way to victories. Of being a true winner.

And they failed.

The blown two-goal lead in the third and an overtime winner on a bad turnover by Mike Cammalleri masked a greater malaise that is plaguing this club right now (and if you want to know what my colleague Brian Wilde thought of Cammalleri's post-game performance, click here. Hint? He wasn't impressed).

The Canadiens are simply unable or unwilling to accept that they are not good enough to take a night off, or even a period off, and win. They are good enough to beat any team in the league when they stick to their system for an entire game, from opening faceoff to final buzzer, but anything less than that and they'll be in trouble.

If I can see that, and surely most of you can see that, and the coach can see that, why can't the players?

Does that fall on the coach? Perhaps, seeing as it's his job to get his message across to his soldiers.

But right now the Canadiens have alternated wins and losses in seven straight games, becoming a picture of consistent inconsistency in the process.

And the coach wasn't a happy man Wednesday night.

"There's always a balance you're trying to establish between team play and individual play," Martin said. "Individual play took over for us there, and it cost us a point."

I would argue this tendency to abandon the system periodically could cost the Canadiens a lot more than just a point in the standings. It could get pretty serious in a hurry.

As Eric Engels pointed out earlier Wednesday in dubbing this game a must win, the Canadiens don't exactly have a picnic of a schedule awaiting them this month.

Of the 14 games between now and New Year's Eve, 10 are on the road, and seven are against teams who are in a playoff position as of Wednesday night. That doesn't count Saturday's opponent, the San Jose Sharks, who are not your typical non-playoff team. Nor does it include games at Toronto and Carolina, where wins are not exactly a given for Montreal.

The Canadiens have been a pretty good road team thus far with a 6-4-0 mark, and if they win six of their 10 road games this month they should be in pretty good shape. Except of those seven games against playoff teams I mentioned, five of them are on the road.

Let's assume the Canadiens continue playing .500 hockey through the month the way they have the past seven games, that would give them a 22-15-2 record heading into the New Year.

That would be phenomenal.

But I have a feeling that if these bad habits continue manifesting themselves in this way, the Canadiens will be lucky to survive this brutal stretch in such good shape. In fact, it risks being a far more dire situation than that.