A Winning Habit
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Montreal Canadiens: The Saving Graces of the Preseason

By Omar L

MONTREAL, QC - NOVEMBER 19: The Montreal Canadiens salute the crowd after defeating the Toronto Maple Leafs in the NHL game at the Bell Centre on November 19, 2016 in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. (Photo by Francois Lacasse/NHLI via Getty Images)
MONTREAL, QC - NOVEMBER 19: The Montreal Canadiens salute the crowd after defeating the Toronto Maple Leafs in the NHL game at the Bell Centre on November 19, 2016 in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. (Photo by Francois Lacasse/NHLI via Getty Images) /
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Montreal Canadiens
MONTREAL, QC – Montreal Canadiens (Photo by Francois Lacasse/NHLI via Getty Images) /

The preseason has come and gone for the Montreal Canadiens. Although it had its struggles, there were some performances that made it worth watching.

The previous stop was Saturday September 30th against the Ottawa Senators. The next one for the Montreal Canadiens will be the regular season. This year’s preseason was pretty long compared to previous year’s. You can understand the rationale for wanting more time to test players on the ice, but eight games is a little too much.

Montreal finished the preseason with a 2-6-0 record. This had a lot of fans pretty concerned despite the fact that it didn’t matter. The preseason is mostly for the coaching staff to try out new combinations and players on the team. It’s what’s happening during the games that we should be paying attention to rather than the result.

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However, the games gave Habs fans a lot to talk about as well. Although Claude Julien was hired last February, it felt that the team was fully going to be his this season. He wanted to challenge the old players and the new to buy into his system.

Some members on the team excelled in it, and others truly struggled. That was a large part of their inability to play up to par in the first few games. They looked disengaged and irresponsible and fans were starting to worry as to whether those aspects of the preseason would find its way into the regular season.

Either way, there were players that stood out the right way and who made the preseason worth watching at times. There was already a lot of excitement and anticipation for this new year, but after some of the things we saw these last two weeks, it could be even greater than before.

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