Montreal Canadiens: Alexander Romanov Scores First Career NHL Goal

Montreal Canadiens defenceman Alexander Romanov looked terrific in his NHL debut against the Toronto Maple Leafs last week. There was a lot of uncertainty surrounding the player who played two full seasons in the KHL, but wasn’t seen by viewers in North America very often.

He did play at two World Juniors and was incredible at both. He showed plenty of offence that was not evident in the KHL, but was also extremely physical and smart in the defensive zone.

From his experience at the World Juniors, he looked poised to step right in to an NHL lineup, especially considering he won the Tournament’s Best Defenceman Award when he was 18 and he looked just as good, if not better the following year.

All that was left was for the now 20 year old Russian to prove himself at the NHL level. He made the team out of their abbreviated training camp and played really well against the Maple Leafs, earning several shifts on the team’s second pairing with Jeff Petry late in the third period of a tie game against a high octane offensive team.

He also made a great breakaway pass to Tomas Tatar on the Canadiens third goal of the night to get his first career point.

Romanov looked good in his second game which was a big 5-1 win for the Habs over the Edmonton Oilers on Saturday night.

All that was left for Romanov to do was score his first NHL goal.

Well, he took care of that early on tonight, in his third career game. Romanov was on the ice for an offensive zone face-off. Jake Evans won the draw and Paul Byron tapped it back to Brett Kulak. Kulak fired it across the blue line to Romanov who wristed a shot on goal that snuck through Mikko Koskinen and in to make it 1-0.

The Canadiens got into penalty trouble late in the period, taking three consecutive penalties. This forced Romanov to sit on the bench for most of the second half of the period, but he did play 4:25 in the opening frame and will surely take a regular shift for the rest of the game.