Montreal Canadiens: Jesperi Kotkaniemi shines in preseason debut

The Montreal Canadiens kicked off their 2018-19 preseason with a 3-1 win over the New Jersey Devils, and Jesperi Kotkaniem was a star.

What a way to kick off the kick off the new season. It only took three minutes (92 seconds) for the Montreal Canadiens to save the world and win the game sending the Bell Centre into a flurry of screams and cheers.

Considering last year’s preseason stretch wasn’t as favourable as the Habs would’ve liked, it was great to see the new players (young and old) make an impact, and older players (you may have to wrinkle your nose at this one) show tremendous growth.

I know what you’re thinking, “Calm down, it’s only the preseason,” and you’d be right to have that in your head. However, preseason or not, some of the things that took place on the ice is fundamental for the evaluation of some of the players on the Montreal Canadiens and others who hope to be there once October hits.

The game itself was a Habs dominating one as far as possession goes, but the Devils had their moments of scoring chances, mostly in the first period. Montreal was very particular defensively and fell into last year’s trap of getting scoring chances without any actual pucks going into the net. The usual suspects of Artturi Lehkonen and Charles Hudon fell into that trap early on.

However, a wild third period gave the Montreal Canadiens the offence they needed to put the game away.

Now it’s one preseason game down, one more to go. The next challenger is the Florida Panthers, and we can expect to see the other squad from training camp highlighted by the Max Domi centred line with Jonathan Drouin and Joel Armia in action.