Montreal Canadiens: 5 quick hits from the home opener victory

4. Montreal Canadiens’ young defenders handled their first game well

For clarification, these two “quick hits” tie in with one another, with one being positive and one being negative, so I wanted to put them together on the same slide rather than rolling with three positives and two negatives just to re-visit a topic.

That said, it was great to see the Montreal Canadiens’ youthful defense core go out and handle their first game quite well. Kaiden Guhle made his NHL debut and played top-pairing minutes with ease. While there were things to clean up (we’ll get there), he handled his first NHL game well.

Arber Xhekaj also made his debut against the Leafs and brought that physical presence. While he was not involved in any fights, he threw the body around and was able to get things going. When Xhekaj got called for hooking, giving Kerfoot a penalty shot, he went on to miss, and the next shot on the broadcast was Chris Wideman grabbing Xhkeaj by the helmet and saying, “it’s over.”

This stuck out as Xhekaj was able to let that go and get back to it. It was a rookie mistake, and Xhekaj was able to learn from it. It was good to see Xhekaj learning on the fly and making adjustments.

While Jordan Harris and Johnathan Kovacevic did not make their debuts, they fared well, given the circumstances. Kovacevic was more than Harris as he was throwing the body around and playing a role in the defensive zone.

5. But Montreal Canadiens’ young defenders have work to do.

The last quick hit feeds off the fourth one; with the young defenders having a good performance, there is still work to do. The Leafs put up three goals, and at times there were some defensive responsibilities that were missed.

At times it felt like Jordan Harris was out of sorts and got outplayed by the opposition. Harris threw the body around, which was good to see, but there are certainly holes to clean up. This is not the biggest shock, though.

These are kids. Harris has played 10 NHL games which makes him the defender with the third most games played in the team’s defense core. Beyond that, since the Habs were playing the Leafs tonight, the broadcast shared that Mark Giordano has played more games in his career than all six Habs defensemen who were in the lineup tonight.

Things can “hopefully” only go up from here. So while there were a lot of positives from the youngsters’ performance in game one, there were things they can improve upon as well. On the bright side, the Habs finished on top and collected a victory.

The Connor Bedard fans may be punching air, but it’s always nice to give the fans a win on home ice to kick off a season.