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

Montreal Canadiens players have plenty of records that have stood the test of time. Most notably of course, would be the team record of 24 Stanley Cup championships.

The Canadiens have not been able to add to that number for just about 30 years now, but still no other franchise even comes close to eclipsing their mark of two dozen championship seasons. With the number of teams in the league now, it could take hundreds of years before anyone comes close to 24 Stanley Cups.

A lot of their team records are held by players who haven’t played since the 1970’s or 1980’s. Guy Lafleur and Steve Shutt have the franchise record for goals in a season with 60. Maurice Richard still holds the record for most career goals with 544.

Not many team records, single season or career, have been set in recent years. Carey Price did take over the all-time wins record in team history, and his 361 wins will stay on the team leaderboard for many years to come.

The way the team played last season didn’t exactly scream “one for the record books” on many nights. Well, that actually isn’t entirely true.

The 2021-22 Montreal Canadiens did set a franchise record for most goals allowed in a single season in franchise history with 319. They also lost more games that any other Canadiens team with 49. They had 22 wins which is the lowest ever in an 82 game season. Their 55 points in the standings are the least ever by a Habs team in an 82 game season. (The Habs even had more points in the 56 game season in 2020-21 as well as the 48 game season in 2013).

So, they did set a few records last season, but they were not good ones. The 2020-21 Canadiens will go down as the worst year in franchise history and will forever be at the wrong end of the Habs record book.

While they didn’t break any good records last season, here are three single-season franchise records that will never be broken. (In addition to the 22 win season, hopefully).

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.

Most Shutouts

Shutouts? Did the most recent version of the Montreal Canadiens have any of those? Apparently so. Jake Allen had a pair and Sam Montembeault had one as well. That’s three in an 82 game season, which is well short of the Canadiens single-season record.

That record, is an incredible 22 shutouts by George Hainsworth in 1928-29. There are a few reasons that this record has been able to stand for nearly 100 years and will likely stick around for 100 more, if not forever.

First of all, it was back before teams were allowed to use a fairly common practice now that is known as “the forward pass.” Teams would suddenly be allowed to pass the puck ahead to a teammate immediately after Hainsworth piled up 22 shutouts in just 44 games.

The Boston Bruins were the only team in the league to score more than two goals per game in that 1928-29 season, so Hainsworth earning a shutout every other game does have a bit of an asterisk attached. It is impressive, as no one else ever had more than 15 in NHL history, so no one has come close to matching Hainsworth’s impressive shutout record.

And no one else ever will. Martin Brodeur is the only goalie to get over halfway to 22 shutouts since the 2005-06 lockout, and no one on the Canadiens has ever come close.