Tuesday morning in Brossard, long before any of his teammates took the ice, Scott Gomez came out of the dressing room with strength coach Pierre Allard a half hour early and spent time shooting pucks.
He took one timers from the circle, he worked on quickly roofing shots from around the crease, he worked the give-and-go.
Alone.
The sense that Gomez felt that night's game against the Atlanta Thrashers was an important one for his team was obvious. But perhaps a little less obvious was the sense of responsibility he was feeling himself to help get his teammates out of what could have become a historic scoring slump, but which more importantly could have made this season's playoff qualification a very tricky affair.
From the early moments of the game, that sense of responsibility was reinforced in the way Gomez was applying himself shift after shift, giving defenders cause for concern when he was on the ice.
Then after the game – one where he assisted on the eventual game-winner in a 3-1 victory – Gomez confirmed that he did indeed feel a need to bring more to the table, and that he was a given a little nudge in that direction by a man whose own reputation and legacy in this city is forever joined at his hip.
Gomez said recently, or perhaps not so recently, but at some point in "the last little while" he had a chat with Bob Gainey, the man who acquired him and his massive contract from the New York Rangers as the starting point of a complete overhaul of this team.
The trade was, and still is, seen as a big mistake.
But when Gomez was putting up nearly a point a game over the second half of last season and playing so well in a playoff run that ended three wins shy of a berth in the Stanley Cup final, it was at least possible to justify it.
Except this season it really hasn't been possible at all, not with Gomez headed toward the worst year of his career, and especially not with Ryan McDonagh entering the league and playing so well for the Rangers when he never – ever – should have been needed to complete that trade.
Gainey's not blind, clearly, and Gomez says he saw a need to step in quite some time ago, but it didn't happen right away.
"Earlier on in the year when things weren't going that well, I just walked by him and you could hear that voice. ‘I'm here if you need to talk.'" Gomez said. "Finally (it happened) one day. It was just good to hear old war stories. But it's not like anything's changed. I've got to be aggressive with the puck, I've got to go want it, I've got to skate it in. It's what I've done my whole career."
He said Gainey emphasized the need to stick to basics. And no, the advice was not given while walking through Old Montreal.
But just as Gainey is not blind, Gomez isn't either. Nor is he deaf. He heard the booing pointed in his direction the other night, he's heard the criticism and he's seen his lack of production on the ice.
"To play in front of people who are so passionate, they'll let you know," Gomez said, before starting to laugh. "And the past couple of days, they let me know."
I wrote quite some time ago that the one thing I learned to respect about Gomez during last year's stretch run and the subsequent playoffs is that he cares. Except it was impossible to get that impression this season as his struggles trickled over the All-Star break and into March, when the games matter too much for anyone to be lagging behind.
Gomez admitted Tuesday night that he would think to himself at times, "What the (hell...you can guess the word he actually used)."
But he said talking to assistant coach Kirk Muller about it, and ultimately Gainey, made him realize how much he was "cheating" and how it needed to change.
"It reminded me of the old Lou (Lamoriello) days when we would do the same thing," Gomez said. "I mean Bob, what are you going to say? The guy's a Hall of Famer and the guy cares. It was just nice to sit down and talk. We all know Bob's presence. I don't know if that guy ever gets rattled. We just talked and went over stuff, what he was seeing, what I was seeing. I like to think that I don't need that, I would laugh when I saw Lou. But I guess sometimes I do need that."
Though I suggested that Gainey is merely trying to protect his own legacy by coaxing a better performance, I don't believe that to be entirely true. It's probably more just a byproduct of Gainey's true intentions in trying to set Gomez straight, which are based on how Gainey knows just how much he is needed for the Canadiens to win.
But just because Gomez played an inspired game Tuesday doesn't mean he will play another one on Wednesday when the Canadiens can all but put another post-season berth in the bank with a win in Carolina. His consistency has been lacking all season, and even though Gomez said all the right things after the game, it is no guarantee it will change.
But if it does, if Gomez becomes the player he's been in the past – one that's not worth his salary, but one that helps his team win – it's an interesting subplot that we might once again turn to an intervention from Gainey as a starting point for a turnaround of an enigmatic player who is so vital to the Canadiens' success.
And while Gomez said he can't go back in time and fix what's been a trying season – at best – the fact is he can. But the road back toward having a sniff at redemption will start with having more days like Tuesday, where he began the day admitting to himself he needs to do more, and finished it by doing just that.
