The Montreal Canadiens will finally wrap up their lengthy preseason schedule tonight. It is part of the Kraft Hockeyville games so it will be played in Bouctouche, New Brunswick against the Ottawa Senators.
The preseason will then mercifully come to an end after eight contests. They say preseason results don’t matter in the standings, and that is probably true. I mean, does anyone really know which team is having the best preseason right now?
You probably have no idea which teams are atop the preseason standings, or who is leading the scoring race. But Habs fans definitely know who is at the bottom of the NHL preseason standings.
Canadiens preseason record a sign of things to come
The Canadiens will play their 8th preseason game tonight, and somehow they are still in search of their first win. They did lose one game in overtime, so that’s a single point in the preseason standings.
Again, points don’t really matter as everyone’s record will be wiped clean when the regular season begins next week. But when a team can’t even win a single preseason game, it doesn’t bode well for them when things start to actually count.
The Canadiens are already a team coming off a last place finish from last season. They don’t want to count on getting back to what they were doing last season to get off to a decent regular season start. They obviously can’t count on whatever they have been doing in the preseason to work either.
Losing seven games in a row in the NHL is a rarity these days. With the days of parity upon us, teams just aren’t bad enough to lose that many in a row very frequently. But the Canadiens just did it in the preseason, which is somehow even more unlikely.
With the rosters that teams put together in the exhibition schedule, games should be a coin flip on any given night. To come out on the losing end of a coin toss seven straight times is either really, really bad luck, or a harbinger of things to come.
In the case of the 2022-23 Montreal Canadiens, I am afraid watching them fall behind quickly and lose every game is a bad omen for the upcoming regular season.
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