Montreal Canadiens Attempt For Historic Win

The Habs have yet to trail an opponent at any time this season. That’s an impressive feat when you consider that they played their first four games on the road and faced some tough teams along the way. With the team charging forward to begin the year, they come home to Montreal in an attempt to set a record for wins to start the season, which stands at 4 games.

An interesting note brought up by Arpon Basu of NHL.com is that the last 3 Habs teams which began the season 4-0 all went on to win the Stanley Cup. That’s a good point, but they all happened before many of the expansions took place, so I’m not sure it applies in the same way this season. But, it’s still encouraging to see them have such a great start and to understand that most times when a team begins the year that hot, it indicates that they’re in store for good things.

Here are some notes on the season so far. The Habs are:

Tied for 4th in goals for
Tied for 7th in goals allowed, GA/GP, and Shots/GP
Tied for 21st in PP%
12th in PK%
Tied for 18th in Shots against/GP
27th in Face-off win %

As we can see, there’s plenty of room for improvement on the PP and face-off Win fronts. However, the shots imbalance is very encouraging and has directly resulted in more scoring overall for the Habs. If they can fix the face-off issue, it should also help the PP units.

These are a few notes on some of the Habs players now that we have seen enough games to start getting a feel for how they play together.

Tomas Plekanec: looks to be on a mission, focused on leading and helping Carey Price as much as possible to take some weight off his shoulders. One of the three most impressive players on the team so far.
Max Pacioretty: Has taken the Captaincy and ran with it, and then some. There’s no doubt now that he was the right choice and he’s definitely leading by example. Between him (17) and Plekanec (16), they have 33 shots on net. Keep shooting boys, it’s working wonders!
Brendan Gallagher: Continues to work hard and is doing the little things. Results should come soon enough and there’s no criticism for his play so far.
Alexander Semin: I wish people would get off his back. I’ve watched him very closesly through 4 games and he’s been outstanding. He works hard, follows and supports the play very well, fore-checks and back-checks. I have no issues with his play so far and he’s even surpassed my expectations in maturity and passing ability.
Lars Eller: I can’t believe that I am saying this, but I actually like Eller better as a winger. You can tell that he’s getting his trigger reflexes sharpened and he’s been a consistent presence in front of the net on his line. Looking like a great move so far.
Alexei Emelin: The hard hitting Russian is back at it with a vengeance this year. He is 4th in the league with 14 hits with the second on the team being Jeff Petry with 8. That pairing is one hard-hitting duo.
Nathan Beaulieu: While the second defensive pairing dominates in hits with 22 total, the third pairing dominates in Blocked Shots with 8 a piece for a total of 16. P.K. Subban is next in line with 7 BS and the remainder have 5 or fewer.

Some other interesting notes, with 1 more point, Plekanec (502) will move past Ralph Backstrom for 21st all-time on the list of Habs top scorers. Meanwhile, Andrei Markov (496) is right behind him, needing only 2 points to tie Vincent Damphousse (498) for 24th and 5 more points to tie Bob Gainey (501) for 23rd. And if you’re wondering who’s next on the list for active scorers, Max Pacioretty (286) just moved into the top 50 and sits 1 point behind #49 Kenny Mosdell.

I’m looking forward to the home opener tonight and the possibility of a historic win #5 to start the season. It’s not often that the Habs get to make history, but with this group it seems to be something we should get used to.

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