The Montreal Canadiens signed Nick Cousins to very little fanfare in the summer. He has quickly proven that he needs to be a regular in the Habs lineup for the rest of the season.
The Montreal Canadiens were expected to make a huge splash in the offseason. They cleared cap space by trading away Andrew Shaw and Nicolas Deslauriers and they were nowhere near the cap to begin with. The only forward they signed to replace them was Nick Cousins.
This wasn’t exactly what fans had in mind when the Canadiens cleared close to $5 million in cap space by moving Shaw and Deslauriers just a few hours before free agency opened. It appeared they had big plans and needed to open up more space. These two trades resulted in them having over $10 million to send on July 1.
The Canadiens ended up signing Keith Kinkaid and Nick Cousins that day. They also attempted to lure Sebastian Aho from the Carolina Hurricanes via an offer sheet. The Hurricanes claimed it was the easiest decision they ever made to match the offer and this left the Habs entering this season with plenty of cap space once again.
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They would spend $3.5 million of that space on defensive defenseman Ben Chiarot who inked a three-year deal worth $10.5 million. Still, the Chiarot contract combined with a one-year deal worth $1 million for Cousins and $1.75 million to Kinkaid to be Carey Price’s backup wasn’t the big splash fans wanted.
However, the menial deal for Cousins is proving to be a great contract for the Habs. The 26 year old forward was either a healthy scratch or injured for the team’s first six games of the season. He finally made his debut against the Minnesota Wild and immediately found the scoresheet.
Late in the first period of that game, Cousins started the breakout by making an under the radar play. He was under pressure around his own blue line and flipped the puck across the ice to an area where he knew one of this linemates, Nate Thompson or Nick Suzuki would get to it first.
Thompson dumped it into the Wild zone and Cousins jumped in on the forecheck. He immediately forced a turnover with a little contact on the Wild defender and some nice hand-eye coordination to knock the puck down. He then found Victor Mete in the slot with a nice pass and Mete one-timed it to make it 1-0.
I don’t think Cousins got enough credit for this play. I mean, Victor Mete went 126 games without someone being able to set him up for a goal. Less than 15 minutes with the Montreal Canadiens and Nick Cousins found him in the slot for his first career goal. That’s impressive stuff.
In his second game with the Habs and once again playing on the fourth line with Thompson and Suzuki, Cousins got another assist. He made a cross-ice pass to Thompson and then ran a little interference on a St. Louis Blues forward in the slot, but kept it subtle enough to avoid a penalty. This opened up a passing lane for Thompson to find Suzuki and the rookie scored to make it 4-1 and put the game out of reach.
Cousins was held scoreless against the Wild in a 4-3 loss but then scored his first of the season last night against the San Jose Sharks. Thompson made a nice defensive play at the Habs blue line to steal the puck from the Sharks and moved it up ice to Cousins, setting up a two on one with Suzuki.
Cousins elected to keep the puck and shoot, but was stopped by Sharks goaltender Aaron Dell. When the rebound bounced back to Cousins, he looked like a pure goal scorer. The puck was in his feet but he quickly kicked it back up to his stick and then from what appeared to be an impossible angle, he fired the puck behind Dell into the net to open the scoring.
It was an impressive offensive contribution from someone deep in the Habs lineup. It was his third game out of four where he found the scoresheet as well.
I wouldn’t expect Cousins to continue scoring three points in every four games for the rest of the season. However, I do expect him to prove to be an invaluable member of the Habs bottom six. His versatility, veteran presence, tenacity, and work ethic make him a perfect component of a fourth line.
If he can continue to add some offence, perhaps he will earn a promotion to the third line and start winning puck battles for Jesperi Kotkaniemi. It’s been just four games so it’s a little early to promote him, but when he signed with the Habs it appeared there might not even be a regular roster spot for him. He has proven in four games that he should not be a healthy scratch again for a long time.