HABS FINALLY FUN TO WATCH
Lead NHL in goals, style: Cowan
TSN hockey analyst Dave Poulin has one of the brightest minds in the game and is a man I really respect.
After playing four seasons at the University of Notre Dame and never being selected in the NHL draft, Poulin went on to play 13 seasons in the league with the Philadelphia Flyers, Boston Bruins and Washington Capitals. He won the Selke Trophy as NHL’S top defensive forward for the 1986-87 season, earned the King Clancy Trophy in 1992-93 for leadership and humanitarian contributions and is a member of the Flyers Hall of Fame.
After hanging up his skates, Poulin spent 10 years as head coach at Notre Dame, before becoming vice-president of hockey operations with the Toronto Maple Leafs and then joining TSN in 2014.
Poulin started writing a weekly hockey column for the Toronto Star this season, which is outstanding. In his latest column, Poulin gave his early impressions of the seven Canadian teams “through the eyes of a player.”
It’s not a surprise Poulin has been impressed by the Canadiens’ 4-0-2 start — who isn’t? — noting that they look “very different.”
He added: “You even like watching them play!” Bingo!
After too many years of the Canadiens playing an incredibly boring brand of hockey, they are finally fun to watch. The Canadiens have scored 29 goals — seven more than any other team heading into Monday night’s games, including the Maple Leafs, who had 22 goals in seven games. The Canadiens were also tied for first place in the NHL’S overall standings with the Vegas Golden Knights (5-1-0) and the Leafs (5-2-0).
The last time the Canadiens finished a season leading the NHL in goals was 2007-08. They also finished first in the Eastern Conference that season with a 47-25-10 record with Guy Carbonneau as head coach before losing to the Philadelphia Flyers in the conference semifinals. In one of Bob Gainey’s most puzzling decisions as general manager, he fired Carbonneau the next season when the Canadiens had a 35-24-7 record. With Gainey taking over behind the bench, the Canadiens would get swept by the Boston Bruins in the first round of the playoffs.
Since then, the Canadiens have only finished near the top of the NHL in goals once, in 2012-13, when they ranked third. They have never ranked higher than 12th in any other season. Their worst ranking was 29th in 2017-18, and last season they ranked 19th.
It’s only six games into this 56-game season, but the Canadiens have already provided a lot of entertainment for Montreal fans locked in their homes because of the COVID -19 curfew. It’s a shame there won’t be any fans at the Bell Centre when the Canadiens play their home opener Thursday against the Calgary Flames (7 p.m., TSN2, RDS, TSN 690 Radio, 98.5 FM). Again, it’s only six games and you have to remember the Canadiens started last season with an 11-5-3 record before falling apart after long-term injuries to Jonathan Drouin and Paul Byron. But this new-look team has much more depth, as Corey Perry showed when he scored in a 5-2 win over the Vancouver Canucks on Saturday night while taking the place of Joel Armia, who is sidelined with a concussion. Victor Mete has gone from being a first-pairing defenceman last season to a healthy scratch. Jordan Weal was a regular on the power play last season, now he’s with the AHL’S Laval Rocket.
So far, every off-season addition GM Marc Bergevin made has worked.
Tyler Toffoli was named the NHL’S player of the week on Monday and his five goals were tied for the league lead through Sunday’s games. Toffoli also ranked eighth in the NHL scoring race with 5-3-8 totals. The last Canadiens player to finish a season ranked in the top 10 in NHL scoring was Mats Naslund, when he finished eighth in 1985-86 with 43-67-110 totals.
Josh Anderson has 3-1-4 totals in his first six games with the
Canadiens, already matching his point total from last season when he had 1-3-4 totals in 26 games for the Columbus Blue Jackets. Then, he was playing with a bad shoulder that eventually required season-ending surgery. The 6-foot-3, 226-pound right-winger looks healthy now and is hoping to regain the form that saw him post 27-20-47 totals two seasons ago with Columbus.
Defenceman Joel Edmundson has 1-1-2 totals and is plus-8 while averaging 18:13 of ice time. The 6-foot-4, 227-pounder also dropped the gloves and put a beating on the Canucks’ Tyler Myers on Saturday night as payback for the vicious hit Myers put on Armia the previous game.
Rookie defenceman Alexander Romanov has 1-1-2 totals and is plus-5 while averaging 19:05 of ice time.
Backup goalie Jake Allen has a 2-0-0 record with a 2.01 goalsagainst average and a .907 save percentage.
One player who hasn’t had a great start is Carey Price, with a 3.14 goals-against average and a .893 save percentage. But Price has a 2-0-2 record because the Canadiens have scored 19 goals in those four games.
In previous seasons, a slow start by Price would have doomed the Canadiens. Not now.
This has indeed been fun to watch.