CALGARY – The two teams will meet in Calgary tonight with the Stamps already having clinched the West Division and Montreal needing a win to stay alive in the East Division playoff picture.
For a brief week, it appeared that the tide had potentially shifted on the final third of the Montreal Alouettes’ season after the Als dumped Toronto 38-11 in head coach Jacques Chapdelaine’s Week-15 debut.
Montreal laid an egg at home in Week 16, falling 40-20 to the Edmonton Eskimos at McGill Stadium. The Als lost in all three phases and were limited to just over 200 yards until a garbage-time score.
The team’s still-in-tact narrow road to the post-season depends on a win against the Stampeders this week at McMahon Stadium — a place no visiting team has won since 2015.
“We lost it in the third and fourth quarter,” Als offensive quality control coach Jason Hogan told MontrealAlouettes.com. “It’s time to find out what kind of offence we are. Each week we focus on execution. If everybody executes, we can beat anybody.”
In terms of Montreal’s approach, Hogan insists nothing changes despite facing the consensus best team in the Canadian Football League.
“We think of every team the same way,” said Hogan. “If we want to get better week by week, we have to be confident in ourselves. If we show up there and play the way we can in all three phases, I think we’ll be able to get out of there with the victory.”
Als special-teamer Nicolas Boulay reflected Hogan’s opinion.
“Our record doesn’t reflect the team we have,” said Boulay, who’s registered 15 special-teams tackles this season. “With the personnel and coaching staff we have, we expect nothing but to win.”
While the struggles of the Alouette offence under both Kevin Glenn and now — once again — Rakeem Cato have been well-documented, the team’s success on defence has gone relatively unnoticed.
Bear Woods has once again led Montreal’s linebacking corps in exemplary fashion, breaking the 100-tackle mark for the first time in his career. Jovon Johnson has turned in a unique three-pick, five-sack stat line from the defensive back position.
Because of that, the Alouettes can be a pesky draw for any opponent.
On the Calgary side of the matchup, the Stampeders have led the league in pretty much every major stat category for, well, pretty much the entire season.
Dave Dickenson’s football team has played at an incredibly high level and enjoyed relative health through the first 16 weeks of the CFL campaign.
“I have faith in our guys. They’re loose, having fun a bit, having a good season,” Dickenson told Stampeders.com. “These guys understand that we just want to improve and be the best we can come playoffs.”
Having clinched the West Division, Dickenson knows his team will have to guard against complacency as they face the 4-10 Alouettes.
“The trap is that we’ve clinched West, and there is a little bit of a sense of accomplishment in doing that — sometimes you let up a bit,” said the Calgary head coach. “Montreal needs this game to stay alive. They have good talent, good speed. Their coaching change gave them a little bit of energy, so I expect a good performance (from them).”
Stamps quarterback Bo Levi Mitchell, who will be gunning for a league-record 13th-straight win, sees Montreal as a tough challenge. The Stamps pivot currently sits tied with former Winnipeg gunslinger Ken Ploen, who threw the Bombers to wins in 12-straight starts back in 1961.
“They have one of the more solid defences in the league, they do a lot of different things and bring different looks,” said Mitchell, who leads the league in pass touchdowns with 29. “We pride ourselves in taking games like this very seriously (and) making sure we go in and execute.”
While Calgary’s festivities following the clinching of the West aren’t that far in the rearview mirror, the team’s quarterback says all eyes are focused up front on Saturday’s game against Montreal.
“We are very prepared,” said Mitchell. “We’re always going to be the most-prepared team on the field. We feel like we’ve got some pretty good athletes on our team, so we’re ready.”
The game will start at 7 p.m. on TSN, CJAD 800 and on ESPN 3
