Oh Dear Lord. This season has gone from bad to worse to somehow even worse to this could be the worst 82 game season in Montreal Canadiens history.
But there are things that we can learn. Patterns, cause and effect, and assumptions that can help us learn from this abysmal season and make sure that it doesn’t happen again.
And by abysmal I mean abysmal. The Marianas Trench has nothing on how low the Montreal Canadiens have gone this year. And simply put, there is no digging out of it this year.
We are going to try to steer away from the more obvious observations: The Montreal Canadiens are bad; this shows how important Carey Price is to the team for like the 5th time; the defence is in shambles and can’t stop a tumbleweed; Jeff Gorton should just blow up the team and start fresh with just a few select guys.
Those are all truths and very easy to see. It will be tough, but this team is in need of a rebuild, but the nice thing is that Cole Caufield and Nick Suzuki are still young enough to be a part of that rebuild, and the young talent already a part of the system is pretty good. Mattias Norlinder (who just recently got sent back to the SHL for the year thank God) didn’t look awful in the NHL, just inexperienced. Jesse Ylonen looks good and just scored his first NHL goal. The Young Tsar Alexander Romanov has been one of the lone bright spots on the team this year.
But everything else?
Jeff Petry is in the middle of the worst season in his entire career. Jake Allen has been hung out to dry all season and has been doing his best just to stem the tide. Joel Edmunson and Paul Byron have yet to see the ice this year, and even if Carey Price and Shea Weber could return, why would they?
But, lets try to salvage some sort of lesson from this year so far