Waterbug

    

    For the last two-plus NHL seasons, pundits trying to explain Lane Hutson's skating have frequently called him a "waterbug." They probably mean a water strider, an insect that can actually walk and skate directly on top of the water's surface rather than swimming underneath it. They rely on water's surface tension and their slender legs are covered in tiny, water-repellent hairs that trap microscopic air pockets and distribute their weight so they don't break through the film. The way they skim the surface without resistance certainly brings Hutson's style to mind.

    Everyone can see the results of his ability, and everyone wonders how he learned to move the way he does. He explains it started when he, his three brothers and his dad were on the ice together.

     "My dad had us at a young age go on the ice and just have the skates just like this (basically untied) on our feet. We'd skate like that for 20 or 30 minutes just like a normal practice and then tie them up and kind of be able to hit our edges a little harder."

    And today?

    "They're usually pretty loose, but with how stiff skates are and how they feel, I don't need them that tight. I feel like I wear them pretty loose compared to the standard. You know, some guys are pulling them way too tight. I don't know if I could ever do that, but that's kind of how I do it." 

    He also has his blade shaped in a particular way to suit his skating style.

    "I don't know how they do it, but I just kind of get that toe shaved a little bit. So like I'm pitched forward and it just sits easier. Can kind of explode easier forward I guess. I think being able to lean forward into turns makes it much easier."

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    Jason Yee was born in British Columbia about fifteen years before Hutson was even a glint in his father's eye. He spent his youth training and striving to make the NHL. That goal wasn't in the cards for him...he got as far as playing pro in Europe...so he enrolled at the University of BC to study kinesiology while playing for the varsity squad.

    "What was really cool at the time was the NHL lockout. And so we had the Canucks practicing with us. We had the Sedins coming on with us," he recalls. "It was a really cool opportunity to see their mechanics live while comparing and contrasting against my own and my team. So that's really where a lot of this came from." 

    "This" is an entire business he calls Training 2.0, in which he breaks down the techniques the best players use in ways others can easily understand.

    "I had done a lot of power skating growing up and I was rated by coaches as a great skater," he says. "And I was good at power skating, but I was realizing that there were things that, for example, the Sedins would do that was not in the playbook of power skating. Just unexplainable things that didn't make any sense to me."

    "For example, there was a move that I now call the shuffle, which is using the outside edge to roll over on that outside edge and create lateral movement," he describes. "And that was something that is just not part of the lexicon of power skating. And there was just no descriptor for it."

    "So what I was doing at the time at UBC was a lot of movement analysis and I was using video to break down athlete's movements. And that's how I was able to discover these are actually untaught movements that don't have a a name, but that the best players in the NHL are actually doing on a regular basis."

    Among the best...and most unique...players Yee has studied is Lane Hutson.

    "The game of hockey went from pushing and gliding to being a bit more like a basketball or like a lacrosse in the sense that the players, and Hutson is a great example of it, will use footwork to move laterally and not just push and glide forward. Hutson's also able to decelerate as well as accelerate so that he can move laterally and create more lateral space and lateral deception," he says.

    "So kind of two things. And they're they're combined together," he continues. "So I call them edge drags and hip or leg adduction. That is, pulling the legs towards the centre of the midline and then also dragging the edges. So as he's dragging the edges and adducting, that allows him to decelerate and then also to move laterally. And it's something that once people see how the best players in the NHL can move laterally, all of a sudden they're like, wow, I never saw that footwork before. And that's what allows them to kind of do those little stutter steps or to do the little fakes and jukes and then be able to explode literally the other direction."

    And Yee says Hutson's different, not just because of his footwork and ability to move forward.

    "The typical stop that is taught is a two-foot stop. And when you do that, you literally stop," he says. "But when instead of doing that, you drag the heel edge inside edge or a soft drag where you drag your inside edge of your toe. And that has you shifting your weight from one foot to the other. So it's kind of like a pendulum where your weight is always shifting foot to foot, which allows you to always be in motion. In this new style that Hutson is using, he's always able to be shifting his weight foot to foot, so he's always able to maintain his momentum."

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    So, now we can see the finished product in the player who's become arguably the Habs' most important, with some insight into how he developed that way. Yee says he's got a good foundation in mechanics, going back to those open-lace practices with his dad and brothers.

    "Yeah, that's actually brilliant coaching from my perspective," he says. "That allows them to have ankle freedom. When most people are taught to skate, they do their skates all the way up and they don't articulate their ankle joint at all. And they kind of think of their lower leg as if it's in a cast or in a ski boot."

    "But that fully takes away from a player's ability to articulate the ankle. And when the ankle articulates, that allows you to create more lateral movements on the ice because the more the blade is leaned over, the more of an arc you create on the ice, right? If it's straight up and down, then you're just skating straight. If it's leaned over, it creates an arc on the ice, which allows your body to move laterally. So by having your skates undone, that allows the ankles to articulate, which allows them to bend over more, which allows the player to be more of an arc."

    For Hutson, keeping a loose skate and a very sharp blade are important, so he changes them up fairly often.

    "Probably every three weeks I get a new pair and they feel really good. Part of it's the stiffness and part of it is how the team is doing itself. If we're winning games with a certain pair of skates I'll maybe keep them a bit longer. If we're if we have a tough stretch, I might just get rid of them," he laughs. "I change my blades anytime I feel like a little slip. So I'm pretty picky about it, but I change my skate blades every game." 

    He's so picky, he knew, even as a kid, when something wasn't right.

    "They changed the shape of the blades without telling me and I didn't know it was that and I just stuck with it," he recalls. "So you sharpen them over and over and they get so thin and you're like, what the hell is this? Why am I tripping over? But I told my dad, when I was like maybe 9 or 10, I needed new skates because it was so thin and I kept toe picking.  Then I got new blades in and I'm like, these feel terrible. They were kind of profiled differently. And I knew it right away, but I didn't know what to say about it. So that's kind of how I learned what I liked and didn't like."

    He learned what he liked and didn't like, and now Canadiens fans like everything about him.

    So, what happens to all those Hutson skates only worn for three weeks at a time?

    They go to the next generation of waterbug, of course.

    "I was lucky because (older brother) Quinn has much bigger feet than me, so I was always able to get some new ones. And Lars, my youngest brother, wears mine now because he's got a smaller foot. So he likes them broken in and he's getting some pretty good skates."

The Commish

    

     If you grew up in Atlantic Canada in the 1950s and '60s, you were either a Montreal Canadiens fan, or you cheered for the Toronto Maple Leafs. There were some outliers in Newfoundland who went for Detroit because of local boy Alex Faulkner's presence with the Wings. A few contrarians declared for the Boston Bruins, but in the main, it was Habs versus Leafs when it came to fan loyalties.

    Eighty-two year old Don Sparkes has been a hockey player for more than seven decades. That's almost as long as he's been a Montreal Canadiens' fan. And this weekend, one of the sharpest Habs followers around will be inducted into Canada's 80-plus hockey hall of fame.

    Sparkes got started in hockey when he was a boy in Glovertown, Newfoundland in the 1950s. He knew every pond and inlet where a game of shinny might be happening. 

    "We used to play, you know, around the bay and they cleared the snow off beforehand," he recalls. "And we used our boots for goal posts and and when we were done, the boots were frozen up so we had to put them on like that."

    When indoor rinks began to appear in local communities, the game moved in to warmer environs and Sparkes drove 45 minutes out and back to play in nearby Gander two or three times a week.

    Then, finally, Glovertown got its own rink in 2000 (ironically known as one of the coldest in the province) and Sparkes stepped up to form an Oldtimers' team, for players over 50. He became the driving force behind the twice-weekly game that soon was drawing a couple of dozen seniors...enough to comfortably ice at least two sides a night. The other guys dubbed him "The Commish," short for commissioner of the league, and the name has stuck.

    Goalie Kevin Noseworthy says he loves playing with The Commish. 

    "He makes all the decisions. Just like [NHL commissioner Gary] Bettman. He organizes the social, brings the cards for Pass the Ace. Everything we do. He keeps us all alive."

    "I think what amazes me about Don is even at his age now, he gets as excited about a goal, I think, as [Washington Capitals captain] Alex Ovechkin does," said Noseworthy.

    "I just loved the play from day one, right?" Sparkes chimes in. "And to play with a bunch of good guys," he explains about his motivation in starting the Oldtimer's team. "We had a real good bunch. Never had a fight or a row or anything for 25 years and good camaraderie and things like that."

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    Even though he's played the game all his life and is The Commish in his own league, Sparkes was surprised to get a phone call from the Hall of Fame back in the summer.

    "August or July maybe this guy called me and said congratulations, Donald," he reveals. "I was surprised. And then he told me I'm going to be inducted into the Hall of Fame. I don't know if it really sunk in yet. It's unbelievable, especially from a small town like Glovertown, right?"

    So now Don, his two sons and his grandson will be heading to Whitby, Ontario for the ceremony, a banquet and a couple of exhibition games. 

    "They're Montreal fans, of course," he enthuses, although he admits things have changed dramatically since he first started cheering for the Rocket, Jean Beliveau and Boom Boom Geoffrion.

    "I went to a lot of games in Montreal years ago, and I haven't been up now for three or four years. But me and my brother used to go up on Super Bowl weekend, getting the Saturday afternoon game and the Sunday afternoon game. That was good. My first ticket was $30, bought off scalpers. The ticket was $15.00 but they they made 15 on it.  We didn't care as long as we got our ticket. But then the last time we went up I paid 200 for Saturday night and 100 for Sunday night. If you bought it from the same scalper, they give you 2 for $300."

    And the price isn't the only thing that's different these days.

    "It's a *lot* faster," he chuckles, noting that his current favourites include speedster and fellow Newfoundlander Alex Newhook, and the inimitable Lane Hutson.

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    The senior inductees will play a couple of exhibition games over the weekend, but Sparkes isn't sure he can make it into the fray. He had some health issues last year and has put his game on pause for the time being. He's still bringing his gear to Whitby though, just in case he's feeling energized enough to get on the ice.

    "Well, I've got to get my equipment out now and look it all over and make sure everything's okay and I gotta bring it. I'm supposed to bring a sweater from my own team, right? And they're going to give me a new sweater when I get there." 

    "I'm just ready to go. Yeah. You just gotta get your hockey bag and go on."

    Wise words from a sage and dedicated lifelong Canadiens fan.

Brotherly Love

   

    There's something special about brothers appearing on NHL ice together. All the childhood rivalries and support, the cuts and the triumphs they shared growing up give them a deeper layer of connection you usually don't get with ordinary teammates. 
    The first pair of brothers ever to face each other in a regular-season game were Corb (Vancouver) and Cy (Ottawa) Denneny, on December 22, 1917. The first to share a forward line on the same team were the Bentley brothers...Max, Doug and Reg...who all played in Chicago in 1943.
    In Montreal, Odie and Sprague Cleghorn played together with the Canadiens, and on January 14, 1922, each scored four goals in a 10-6 win over the Hamilton Tigers. Sprague was a big, violent defenceman who took particular displeasure with opponents who took liberties with his teammates...especially his brother. He once cross-checked Newsy Lalonde in the back of the head in retaliation for hitting Odie. Sprague was hit by a car in 1956 and died of his injuries.
    Upon his death, his brother, Odie, remarked, "He was my brother, and I don't like to boast, but I never saw a tougher or better defenceman than Sprague." Two days later, Odie died in his sleep of heart failure and was found by his sister just hours before Sprague's funeral.
    Then there were the Richard brothers; one of the most prolific brother duos in NHL history, teaming up on the Canadiens' five-straight Cup dynasty in the late fifties.
    "At first I wanted to take him in hand and give him a lesson in the facts of NHL life," Maurice recalled. "Then I decided we'd both be better off if I just left him alone. As it turned out, Henri never came to me for advice. But what kind of advice could I give him? He was a better stickhandler than I was and a better skater. He was a better all-round hockey player than me. The only difference was that he couldn't score goals the way I could. But he made up for that by becoming a terrific playmaker, which was just as important."
    And one of the more special nights in NHL brother-lore was the first time two opposing goaltenders were from the same family. On March 20, 1971, Ken (Montreal) and Dave (Buffalo) Dryden faced each other in nets, but only after a bit of coaching gamesmanship.
    "A visiting team designates its starting lineup first; Sabres coach Punch Imlach wrote Dave’s name in as his goalie," Ken remembered years later. "Al MacNeil wrote in Vachon’s. After the game’s initial stoppage in play, when Imlach was first allowed to make a change, he replaced Dave with Joe Daley. Dave and I sat on opposing benches watching the game."
    "Early in the second period, there was a scramble around our net. Vachon went down and didn’t get up. A few minutes later, he was still down. MacNeil motioned for me to go in. When Imlach saw me leave the bench, he put Dave back in the game."
    "I couldn’t get comfortable in the game. Already struggling with the sense of unreality that I’d felt since joining the team — if this is me, this can’t be the real NHL — this was worse: If this is me and Dave, this really can’t be the NHL. I felt like I was outside myself."

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    Of course, not all brother combos work out the way fans would hope. Andrei and Sergei Kostitsyn were both talented players, but both mental midgets when it came to decision-making. (A coincidence they were born in Belarus just after Chernobyl?)
    And many times, the Canadiens have featured "the other brother." Gilbert Dionne. Marcel Hossa. Jordie Benn. Bobby Joliat.
    This year the team has the privilege of employing the Xhekaj brothers to terrify all comers. The pair are huge, menacing and not bad at hockey either. It's early days, though, with Arber still trying to cement his place on the full-time NHL roster and Florian just breaking in. The potential for magnificent destruction is there if they can harness it consistently.
    In preseason, we got to see Nick Suzuki face off against his brother Ryan when Montreal faced Ottawa. 
    "I took the opening faceoff against him and I cleaned him up," Nick couldn't help but recalling, with a laugh. "Later in the game, we were each skating to our own benches and I took the chance to give him a little slash on the shin pads. The referee saw me do it and decided to give me a penalty. I was pretty frustrated. I told the ref, 'You know that's my brother?' and he replied 'I don't care!' and he sent me to the penalty box. I was frustrated, but it was pretty funny."

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    Now, tonight, it's Lane Hutson's turn. His younger brother Cole cracked the Washington Capitals roster last spring and is now into his first full NHL season. And this matchup promises to be special. Lane is already a Calder Trophy winner and finished fourth in Norris Trophy voting last season. He's launched this year with a point-a-game average.
    On the other side, Cole is drawing attention for his own play. While not yet piling up the points like his big brother, the pundits are comparing his skating and vision to Lane's. Both players are attempting to be low-key about their first-ever game against each other, but their dad knows what's under the surface. 

    "I’m pretty positive that whoever doesn't win is not going to be happy,” Rob Hutson said. “And when I say not happy, they're going to really not be happy. But, at the same time, some time will go by, and they’ll be fine. But there's always going to be that live-in-the-now of like, ‘Hey, I beat you last time.’

    Whatever happens tonight, fans will have the fun of watching two up-and-coming young stars who just happen to be siblings. Fifty-five years ago, when it was Dryden versus Dryden the two players did what needed to be done on the ice, then, in the end, went back to just being brothers.

    "When that first game in Montreal was over, I skated toward the boards to get off the ice," Dryden wrote about that matchup.  "But Dave knew something I didn’t. He skated past center directly into my line, and we did what hockey players don’t do at the end of a game: We shook hands. I have two pictures on my wall from my time with the Canadiens. This is one of them."

    Hopefully, the Hutsons will one day have a similar photo on their own wall. After all, brothers don't get to be NHL colleagues very often.

Culture Club

    

    When you listen to Martin St.Louis talk about his team, a few phrases come up over and over again. "Play the game in front of you." "The league doesn't care." "Success is temporary but character is forever." Out of all the Martyisms though, perhaps the most frequent reference he makes is to the team's culture.

    A strong culture is the foundation of success, according to St‑Louis. “You can have the best players, but if your team doesn’t have a good culture, you’re only going to get small pockets of success,” he says.

    "Culture" is a small word with a complicated meaning.

    Merriam-Webster says it's "the set of shared attitudes, values, goals, and practices that characterizes an institution or organization." Thomas Wolfe wrote "Culture is the arts, elevated to a set of beliefs."

    A few years ago, world-renowned expert in social psychology and communication, Helen Spencer-Oatey, published a paper called "What is Culture?" in an attempt to define what can be a fairly abstract concept.

    "Culture is a fuzzy set of basic assumptions and values, orientations to life, beliefs, policies, procedures and behavioural conventions that are shared by a group of people, and that influence (but not determine) each member's behaviour and his interpretations of the 'meaning' of other people's behaviour," she writes. Clear as mud, right?

    She goes on to define culture by explaining its characteristics. 

    "There are three fundamental levels at which culture manifests itself," she writes. "Observable artifacts, values and basic underlying assumptions. When one enters an organization, one observes and feels its artifacts. That's everything from the dress code, the manner in which people address each other, the smell and feel of the place and its emotional intensity." Okay...now we're getting somewhere.

    If we apply that understanding of what culture is, we start to get a picture of what St.Louis means when he uses the term. The Bell Centre itself is an artifact, and is filled with the evidence of more than a century of accomplishment. The dress code is the uniform in its simple, iconic pattern. We see the way the players address each other with sibling-like affection and we start to understand.

    

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    Then Spencer-Oatey gets into the heart of what culture is for the Canadiens. She says culture isn't instinctive. It's learned. 

    "Culture is learned from the people you interact with as you are socialized into a new group," she explains. "Culture is also taught by the explanations people receive for the natural and human events around them."

    In this case, it's learned from a teacher...St.Louis...who brings his own values to the group and insists his players adopt them. 

    He says in his view, culture is based on three main things. First, respect. 

    "That’s the starting point. You have to treat everyone equally," he stresses. "Whether it’s the young player earning $7 million or the guy washing the equipment."

    Next comes accountability to the team. "You have a job to do." By that, he means every person's role is important to the success of the group and because of that, each player must perform not only for himself, but for the others in the room who are depending on him to do his job.

    Finally, enthusiasm. "For me, coming to the arena in the morning after a loss, when you got blasted by reporters the day before, and working hard on the ice, is enthusiasm."

    So, in St.Louis' mind, and therefore in the minds of his players, the Canadiens culture is a combination of those three main elements. Add to them the coach/philosopher's insistence on hard work, listening and commitment and the picture of what he means by "culture" becomes clearer.

    He believes that if a team has talent and buys into the concept, it will have more consistent success; not just the sporadic runs we've seen fizzle over the years. 

    So, next time we hear St.Louis talk about his team's culture, we'll know what he means.

Playing By the Rules

    

    Your Montreal Canadiens are young, gifted and ready to go. Those who needed summer rest, rested. Those who needed the ice, skated. Everybody worked out, ate well and took a break. Now it's time for the puck to drop and for the team to pick out the pin they put into their progress last spring. 

    Unfortunately, the Canadiens are a special team playing in a less-than-special league and they're dependent on the sometimes-capricious governors of the game to make the rules.The NHL always seems to be tinkering with interpretations of existing regulations and adding new ones. Sometimes it's because there's a glaring need to fix a problem, but other times it seems the brass switches up the rules just because they can.

    This year's changes include the length of the regular season, up to 84 games from 82. While there's certainly no need for NHL veterans to play a bunch of pre-season games, risking injury from overenthusiastic young wrecking balls out to prove themselves, it's helpful to the coaching staff to have those extra early games to assess the prospects properly. Cutting pre-season games to extend the regular season means people like Kent Hughes have to move more quickly with less information than they ordinarily would. 

    The only real benefit of lengthening the season is in the balance it brings to intra-division games. With four against each rival team, the number of points up for grabs from within the division is more equitable. However, the NHL season is already a slog and adding extra games means players have less in the tank when playoff time rolls around. It feels like just another Gary Bettman cash grab.

    Many of the other changes coming this year are the behind-the-scenes type as well. Shorter term lengths on contracts, a tighter rein on signing bonuses (60% max of contract value instead of 90%) and playoff cap compliance (so no more hiding Mark Stone for half the season, Vegas!)

     Those are things affecting the work of management more than players.

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    In terms of what fans and the team will see on the ice, there will also be a few differences this year.

A Good Rule: The only new penalty added to the book is a requirement for new players to wear neck guards. Considering some of the horrendous accidents we've seen in the past, this rule is overdue. Veterans will probably complain they have to get used to them and they're not comfortable, but they said the same things about helmets, visors and goalie masks. It's impossible to imagine the game without those safety features now, and neck guards will go the same way.

    

A Stupid Rule: Other penalties aren't new, but teams have been informed they will be more strictly enforced. The stupidest of these, right up there with the automatic delay-of-game for shooting the puck over the glass, is the "jersey tuck" rule. When a player starts a shift, he cannot have his sweater tucked in. The first one to get called on that in preseason was the Flyers' Trevor Zegras, and in the following pre-season game, half the team tucked their tails in in protest. This is the sort of rule change that, if it ended up costing a team a win...especially in the playoffs...would make the NHL look even more bush-league than it already does. 

 A Fun-Sucking Rule: The saddest new rule is all teams have to keep an emergency backup goalie who travels with them in case one or both netminders gets hurt in-game. No longer will we get to watch the Leafs' own minor-league Zamboni driver beat them. Sure, it's good to prepare for eventualities, but randos suddenly finding themselves playing in an NHL game was one of the goofy joys of hockey.

    The bigger issue for the league going into the new season is dealing with rules introduced in recent years that haven't really worked out as intended. Referees still don't seem to know what goaltender interference looks like. And the offside review is ridiculous, often with play going on...even goals scored...for minutes until the review and the clock gets rolled back. 

    Hits to the head still aren't adequately policed, with inconsistency throwing confusion into an already judgement-based call. There's no doubt it's not easy to manage a game that involves male hormones on turbo boost, but there has to be a better way to ensure players know what to expect from one game to the next.

    Nobody thinks the refs will be perfect, but with a whole slate of brand-new officials about to break into the league, there's hope things will be different this year. The Canadiens are ready for the rules...if the rules are ready for them.

Anticipation

    

    It's officially fall and the air has started to smell like hockey. (No, not the sweaty, stinky glove aroma.) It's that sense of new starts, crisp days and the scent of wood smoke; the one that tells you night is coming earlier now and the games are about to begin. There are so many great reasons to look forward to this season if you're a Canadiens fan, but here are ten of them:

10. Contracts. The management team of Kent Hughes and Jeff Gorton is the envy of the NHL. The long-term cap-friendly contracts to which they've managed to sign their core ensure the group they're building will stay together for, hopefully, a long string of competitive years. Taking this approach has helped the team avoid exposing young talent to offer sheets and, now, the implausible mega-contracts we're starting to see other teams tossing around. Not only that, but it gives the players peace of mind. They don't have to worry about lawyers or negotiations and just focus on improving their games. Those reasonable contracts also leave space for management to tinker as the season goes on.

9. Progression. It seems improbable that players who have already won NHL trophies and hit scoring milestones can get better, but it seems to be the case in Montreal. Players like Ivan Demidov and Lane Hutson spent the summer on the ice and it's showing. Hutson is already at regular-season pace and Demidov is showing the confidence he'll need to make the most of his deep skill set, of which we've only had a glimpse so far. The thought of these guys maturing and getting even better is mind-blowing.

8. Entertainment. This is going to be so much fun! Already we're seeing Hutson and Cole Caufield ratcheting up their chemistry with incredibly fast back-and-forth passes no goalie on earth could stop. In fact, no goalie on earth could even see the play, let alone stop it. Jakub Dobes is coming in with the support of management as the number-one guy and he's totally built to handle that, and be hilarious while he does it.

7. Possibility of a Goalie Fight. Speaking of Dobes, we know he's an emotional player. When asked this summer whether he'd accept an invitation to go, he smiled and said it would depend on the situation. He didn't look like he'd say no, though. Usually, hockey fights are needless, silly and boorish. But there's just something hilarious about two big guys in all that gear shuffling around and trying to throw bombs. 

6. Friendship. Much has been made of the close ties these Habs players have with each other. Hughes has made that happen deliberately, by choosing not just talented, but smart young guys who are at the same stage of life and hockey. They have lots in common, so the friendship is organic and that makes their game better. It was obvious after the first pre-season game against Toronto, when the usual Hutson, Suzuki, Caufield "friendship circle" expanded to include newly-acquired Chris Kreider. Nobody on this Canadiens team gets left out.

5. Joy. For we fans, joy in our hockey team has been sparse for a long, long time. It started to pick up momentum in the last couple of seasons, and last year we realized the feeling of well-being we get after a win doesn't have to be an oddity. The joy is real and it's growing.

4. Newbies. Kreider came to Montreal because he was willing to leave money and term on the table in order to be part of this team. We didn't learn much about how he'll fit in from his first pre-season game, but his resume shows he's got a contribution to make. Since the second line has looked outstanding so far, it would be wonderful to see him click with Nick Suzuki and Caufield. And David Reinbacher has looked like he's ready to make the jump to the NHL and bring his strong-on-defence, right-handed game to balance out the blueline. If those two can fill the holes the team still had from last year, things will only improve.

3. Resilience. The players were heartbroken to lose in the third round of the playoffs last year after such emotional series against Tampa and Buffalo. They really thought they were going to make the finals and were crushed when they didn't. Now, though, they're back full of confidence and with a new goal. This is not a team to wallow.

2. A Mission. Now the team knows what it takes to win in the post-season. They've learned how hard it is and how determined they have to be. They're coming into the new year with that knowledge and the confidence it brings. They're not looking at gaining a playoff spot as something to celebrate anymore. They know they've become better than that, and they're going to prove it.

And, the number one reason to be excited about this year:

1. Contention. Not long ago, the Canadiens' seasons were over before the trade deadline. They were terrible for so long, fans almost forgot the feeling of having expectations. Now we not only have them, we believe the team can meet them. Even the writers at NHL.com think the Canadiens are for real and have a strong chance at winning the Cup this year. While it may seem silly to believe that while it's still relatively early in the rebuild, this team has taught us to never underestimate it. And this year, we won't. 

    So, this September we welcome the cool fall days and the short evenings. It's hockey time, and it's going to be a thrill ride.

MVP

     

    The other day, some NHL pundit or other decided it's already time to start speculating on who will win the Hart Trophy as league MVP in the upcoming hockey season. All the expected names were there: McDavid, Draisaitl, Kucherov, Celebrini. Even though some are calling the Canadiens a serious Stanley Cup contender, however, not one of the Best Bargain Boys made the list.

    It's funny, because the Hart is supposed to be awarded to the player who's most valuable to his team. It's not necessarily the best player in the league who should win it, but the one who's the most irreplaceable to his teammates.

    That raises an interesting question. If no Habs player is a favourite for league MVP, who's the team's own most valuable?

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    Remember the Andrei Markov Factor? For several years in the early-2010s, as Markov went, so went the Canadiens. Admittedly the team back then wasn't all that great and the success they did have seemed to be a happy accident rather than a planned strategy. At that time, Markov was the steam that moved the train. When he was out of the lineup, the Habs lost more games by wider margins and the special teams saw marked drops in production. Fans and teammates lived in fear that losing Markov for long periods could tank a whole season.

    These days there's much more balance throughout the lineup, so it's hard to choose which Canadiens player would have a Markov-esque impact on his team's fortunes. We know it's not Kaiden Guhle or Kirby Dach because the team has still managed to perform without them for long stretches. No, the team MVP is the guy who has no replacement on the roster.

    If  (heaven forbid) Cole Caufield was out for a while, there are other offensive players to pick up the slack. It would hurt, but the team would probably survive without too much of a setback. If a goalie got hurt, there are two other guys who can fill in, at least temporarily.

    Now, imagine if the missing guy was Nick Suzuki. He wins more than half his faceoffs, and he takes the most draws on the team. He plays 20+ minutes a game, including on both special teams and drives the first line with Caufield and Juraj Slafkovsky. He's the Habs' first hundred-point player since Mats Naslund in 1986, is the current Selke holder for his excellent two-way play and rarely takes dumb penalties. Taking him out of the lineup would be a serious blow to the Canadiens' hopes of contention.

    Even worse for the Habs, though, would undoubtedly be the loss of Lane Hutson.

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    When you watch Hutson in isolation, you realize the deep value in his game. Playing 24+ minutes a night, starting every power play, scoring almost a point a game...all those will qualify the former Calder winner for a Norris Trophy at some point.

    What makes him completely irreplaceable is his impact on the entire game...not just one aspect of it. Watch him on a breakout play, and he's seeing seams and opportunities nobody else does, yet he never seems in a big rush to make a creative pass. He calms the game like Nicklas Lidstrom used to do in Detroit. When Hutson's not on the ice, a sure-thing zone clearance isn't quite a sure thing anymore. So when you imagine him not in the game at all, you can see a Hutson-shaped hole in the lineup that's bigger than the player himself.

    Now think of his defensive game. He's unafraid to join the attack he (most often) starts, but when the play turns quickly you see Hutson, head down, booking it back into his own zone and using his body position and his stick to break up opposing attacks. Plus/minus isn't indicative of quality play in itself, but Hutson's +36 last year tell us good things happen when he's on the ice.

    Perhaps the most compelling thing about Hutson's game is his intelligence. A man of his slight stature can't survive in the NHL unless he's pretty bloody smart and aware. Little things, like Hutson diving into the net to help Jakub Dobes hold his skate to the post and prevent a goal, are details that wouldn't occur to the vast majority of players. He's a great skater and has wonderful vision, but neither of those are what make him so very special. It's those things added to his immense capacity to read the game and react before anyone else figures out what he's up to that cause him to stand out.

    The captain is certainly a guy whose absence from the lineup would be sorely missed, but Hutson is at a level of importance to the way this team plays that's completely irreplaceable. That's why he's the Canadiens' MVP and by virtue of being so valuable to his team should be a legitmate Hart contender as well.