Montreal Canadiens: Three Single Season Records That Will Never Be Broken

Most Penalty Minutes

You could make an argument that no one will ever score more than 60 goals for the Canadiens, or that there is no way they will ever lose more than 16 games in overtime like they did in 2011-12. Of course, it is quite unlikely they will ever have more than 23 ties like they did in 1962-63 but the rules of the game could change in the future, you never know.

One thing that is incredibly unlikely to ever see in the NHL again is the same number of penalty minutes players used to put up. Back in the day, line brawls, players leaving the bench to jump somebody and stick swinging incidents were commonplace.

These days? Players almost never fight and there really is no such thing as a “goon” anymore in the NHL. While that does speed up the game and take away some of the unnecessary violence, it does change things,

Without looking it up, it is hard to even guess who was the leader in penalty minutes on the Habs last season. Turns out, it was Michael Pezzetta, who played just 51 games and had 81 penalty minutes. He also lead the team in fighting majors with five. That’s a fight every ten games.

Chris Nilan used to fight ten players per game. Okay, not quite. But he must have come close on a few nights. In 1984-85, the Habs tough guy, who also played on a shutdown line with Bob Gainey and Guy Carbonneau, had 385 penalty minutes.

I guess when you aren’t afraid to cheapshot the other team’s goaltender 200 feet away from where a play was blown dead, the PIMs will add up.

The only current Montreal Canadiens player with more CAREER penalty minutes on the Habs is Brendan Gallagher with 397. Nilan pretty near had that in one season. We are never going to see that happen again.