Montreal Canadiens: Victor Mete is proving to be a trend setter in the NHL

Victor Mete’s first career NHL goal was a long time coming for the Montreal Canadiens, and it’s quietly spread to other areas of the league.

The Montreal Canadiens needed that win against the Minnesota Wild Thursday night. The team was in a bit of a funk defensively and helping Carey Price earn a shutout while holding Minnesota to only 17 shots is a good way to add to their overall confidence. That and Victor Mete finally scored his first NHL goal.

Sportsnet had some “fun” tracking Mete’s drought. According to their Stats Twitter account, the 2016 fourth-round pick had the longest drought to begin an NHL career in Montreal Canadiens’ history at 127 days. Mike Komisarek held that record before Mete at 123 days, and hopefully, his tenure in Montreal isn’t anything similar.

However, it looks as if Mete scoring has opened up some of the bad luck flood gates in the NHL. Later in the game, Nick Suzuki scored his first NHL goal off a sweet Max Domi feed. Not too much of a glorified drought, but it was still nice to see Suzuki hit that milestone after seven games this season.

The next to get hit by the Mete boost was Haydn Fleury. The Carolina Hurricanes defenceman has been on the hunt for his first NHL goal as well sitting on 96 games without scoring. That changed during the team’s game against the Anaheim Ducks, where Fleury put one in the net at the top of the left circle to make it 4-2 for the Hurricanes.

Then there’s 2019 first-overall pick Jack Hughes who finally got his first NHL point Friday on Miles Woods‘ first of the season in the second period. There was a lot more to the narrative there as Hughes was one of if not the most anticipated players heading into this season.

Perhaps the Mete luck spreads to the rest of the Montreal Canadiens. There are still a number of players on the team without a goal, including Paul Byron, Nate Thompson, and Nick Cousins, to name a few. Thompson isn’t much of a goal scorer, while Cousins just recently made his debut with the Habs. Byron, on the other hand, is a bit of a concern given his past production and his contract.

The Habs do have a pair of games this season, giving Byron ample opportunity to pot one in. Additionally, one of those games is against the Minnesota Wild. It worked for Mete and Suzuki, maybe Bruce Boudreau can get some of the other Montreal players going as well.