Montreal Canadiens: The Perfect Ending To A Perfectly Un-Perfect Season

Watching the first game at the Bell Centre after the death of Guy Lafleur at home was emotional. I couldn’t even imagine what it would’ve been like to have actually grown up watching him live, or actually being in the building the night the city stood and ovated Guy for over 10 minutes.

But on April 30th, the Montreal Canadiens gave Guy Lafleur the send off he deserved.

Lafleur wore the number 10 for his whole career in Montreal, and believe me, everyone in the arena knew it right around the point where Montreal scored their 6th goal partway through the second. 3 goals in the first 5 minutes of the game is a flurry, 4 goals in the first period is very good, 8 goals by the second put everyone on double-digit watch.

And in a game where everyone was skating like Lafleur, shooting like Guy, it was the least likely player who brought us to that magical number, naturally. Tyler Pitlick, an oft-injured throw in from the Tyler Toffoli trade, who it seemed was added just to have a monopoly on all the Pitlicks in the NHL, who hadn’t scored a goal in over a calendar year, ripped one right off the faceoff in the third period.

And there was no goal fatigue on that one. Everyone celebrated like mad. Because sometimes in routs the players stop celebrating. Like, I know that Christian Dvorak is a low-key guy, but could you at least crack a smile after you score a goal? I looked at his face and couldn’t tell if he had just scored a goal or got called for a penalty.

But the crowd goes crazy for the tenth goal, and as the Bell Center team lit up Guy Lafleur’s #10 jersey from the rafters, the chants of ‘Guy, Guy, Guy!’ filled the packed arena. In fact, you can hear it in the highlights on TSN. You know, if you can even find it anymore, unfortunately.

It doesn’t matter that this was a glorified AHL team against the worst NHL team in the league. The Montreal Canadiens got to honor one of the greatest hockey players to ever lace up the skates in the most perfect way possible.

And just two days before Lafleur would be honored for 2 days in the Bell Centre, and have his funeral broadcast for the whole continent to see.

It genuinely looked like Brendan Gallagher, who was parked right in front of the net (where else would he be?), tipped in the very first shot of the game for a goal. And I was very happy with that. It was a very difficult year for Brendan Gallagher, who admitted that he was dealing with injuries this year, and it felt good that he scored in the last game of the season.

However, it wasn’t Gallagher that was leading the parade to the bench, as is the goal-scorer’s duty; rather, it was the youngster Jordan Harris. Because Gallagher did not tip the puck in, the little one-timer from the 10 game veteran went straight into the back of the net.

(Don’t feel too bad for Brendan Gallagher, he scored Montreal’s 4th goal on the powerplay, and should have a long offseason to heal from his various injuries).

Jordan Harris has been really impressive in his short time in the NHL so far. The poise he shows with the puck feels like he’s played 10 seasons in the big leagues, not 10 games. Harris isn’t an offensive juggernaut, and shouldn’t be putting up big numbers, but his poise in the defensive zone and ability to make passes makes him a really interesting prospect on a team full of interesting prospects.

Of course, there is the other first of the night…Tyler Pitlick scored his first goal as a member of the Montreal Canadiens. I don’t really see him on the team next year, with his lack of production and risk of injury, but I can see a team taking a run at him for a depth option. But at the same time, this might be the last hurrah.

Oh, and Cole Caufield scored his first career hat trick, and in the most Cole Caufield way possible. His first goal was just under 15 seconds after Mike Hoffman scored Montreal’s second goal, and it was a beautiful, clean wrist shot.

His second goal was a beautiful run where he cut through the defenders and put a back-hander into the back of the net. The third goal was Caufield finding dead space in the middle of the ice and kicked the pass that was a little bit off up to his stick and into the back of the net it went.

These three goals are the types of goals that you think of when you think of Cole Caufield. A highly accurate wrist shot, a quick and skilled mad dash over the blue line through defenders, and incredible skill to kick the puck to his stick. It is without a doubt the first of many hat tricks for his career.

We all know how good Caufield has been in the second half of the season, but do we really know? In half a season, he basically caught up to all the rookie leaders in goals. But if you take the goal-scoring pace Caufield had in these games under Martin St. Louis over an 82 game season, he would have scored 50 goals. And he is only 21 years old.

And after his third goal, the second of three chants came raining down: ‘Caufield! Caufield!’

After the game and the mandatory stick raising thank you to the fans, the Montreal Canadiens presented Alex Romanov with the Beauchamp-Molson Trophy for the most dominant Canadiens player without winning any other trophy, and then came the speeches.

The first speech came from Samuel Montembeault, and I will be honest with you, I did not understand a word of it. The arena was still very loud, the microphone was peaking and reverberating, and Montembeault was speaking French.

Yes I know. I am a terrible Canadian and Montreal Canadiens fan for not knowing much French, but you can blame the Ontario French teaching system for that. But it wasn’t so much about the speech, but what happened after.

After Montembeault finished his speech, the whole arena stood and cheered for him. And it felt so great and so cathartic for a player that has been given so much grief and hatred throughout this season. And so much of it is not warranted. Many acidic fans wanted a scapegoat for the way this season went, and many fell on Montembeault.

He was never brought in to the team to be the starter. He was supposed to be the third-string goalie after Carey Price comes back early in the season. But with injuries to Price and Jake Allen thrust him into the starting position, and the team in front of him was really bad.

And that’s the thing! While Montembeault had some lapses in play, for the most part, he played really well. There is no reason to hate Montembeault for this season. He performed admirably, and it was amazing to see him get the respect he deserved.

It took until the day of the game to learn that Carey Price would start for the Montreal Canadiens in the final game of the season. It was his 700th career start, and it might be his last. Sounds poetic, doesn’t it?

And it was a win. A good win. Price didn’t need to be incredible, but he did flash the leather against Ben Chiarot in the third, which brought out the third chant of the night: ‘Carey! Carey! Carey!’ and the Superman theme being played in the Bell Centre for perhaps one last time.

If this isn’t his last game, it seems like it will be his last season as a starter, as Price has admitted that a 50-60 game season seems unreasonable on his body.

It truly would be the end of an era.

Carey Price has been the face of the franchise for about a decade or so. Sure, there were players who played well, like Max Pacioretty or Shea Weber, or sheer cult of personalities like P.K. Subban or Brendan Gallagher, but there has been no one that has had as much impact on the team as Price.

To me, he’s right up there with Sidney Crosby, or Alexander Ovechkin, or Connor McDavid, in just how important and synonymous these players have become to the team that they play for.

But every era has to come to an end, and it is hard to see a better way to leave on top. Sure, Price could’ve had a shutout and that would’ve perhaps been the most perfect way to leave things, but we are just splitting hairs at this point.

I’m just glad that we got one last great Carey Price performance, if this is indeed his last.

As previously mentioned, there were a handful of firsts that occurred this season, and by definition, generally younger players are more likely to hit a first milestone like that. Jordan Harris is 21, as is Cole Caufield.

The future is bright, and it will be getting a lot brighter this offseason.

We still aren’t 100% sure what this offseason will bring. Kent Hughes and Jeff Gorton have expressed interest in going big game hunting in the offseason for a big name free agent, which points away from a rebuild.

But every move at the trade deadline pointed towards a rebuild. Almost every older player with value was moved. Tyler Toffoli, Ben Chiarot and Artturi Lehkonen all received very good returns, while veterans like Joel Armia and Jeff Petry, who struggled immensely and had their stocks plummet, were kept to try to add some value to their names.

But the big price is Montreal’s and Montreal’s alone.

The first round pick.

Montreal has the best odds for winning the draft lottery, and even if the Canadiens lose the lottery to Arizona or Seattle, the Canadiens will still be getting a fantastic young player to jump start their rebuild.

The defensive prospects seem to be there for the Habs, although they might be lacking that true #1 defenseman, which is good because the big names in this draft are all forwards. There is a gap between Nick Suzuki and the other young centres, like Jake Evans and Ryan Poehling, a gap that could be filled by a Shane Wright or Logan Cooley or Matthew Savoie.

Unfortunately a big hole in the Canadiens lineup is a first line winger to play with Suzuki and Caufield, and there isn’t a de-facto top winger available in the draft, but maybe that will be filled in free agency.

The fact remains that the Montreal Canadiens will be better next year. Cole Caufield and Nick Suzuki will take another step forward. A high draft pick will make an immediate impact. The future is bright. I am just glad I was there to see the first step.

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