Purity

   

    "Real men don't score empty-net goals." That was long-time NHL defenceman Al Iafrate's response when a reporter asked him why he passed up an easy scoring opportunity and knocked the puck into the corner instead. (Although his actual language may have been rather less than politically correct.)

    "I don't like gimmes," said Brett Hull after he scored 86 goals in the 1990-91 season without putting one in the empty net.

    And Rocket Richard, the first player to score 50 goals in 50 games did so without any gimmes at all. In fact, when he became the first player to record 500 goals in his career, he still had never scored an empty-net goal. When he retired with a lifetime total of 544, all of them had been against a goalie.

    Now the Maurice "Rocket" Richard Trophy is the NHL's award for the most goals scored in a season;  named after perhaps the purest goal scorer in league history. A Canadiens player has never won it since its introduction in 1999.

    That could change this year.

                                  🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒

    Cole Caufield has 47 goals with eight games to go in the regular season. Like the Rocket, he's never scored an empty-net goal in his entire NHL career to date and he seems to be disinclined to start now. In the last game against Tampa, Nick Suzuki could easily have served up Caufield's 48th into an empty net, but decided to shoot it himself instead. Nobody seems to want to say out loud it's about Caufield preferring to score "pure" or "ethical" goals, but their actions say otherwise.

    Caufield may have the smile of a cherub but he's also got the stubbornness of hellhound. If he's decided he wants 50 goals without an empty-netter, he's likely going to be quietly determined to do it. It'll be interesting if it's Game 82 and he's got 49 goals, but he's got a few games to accomplish his mission before it gets to that point.

    The beautiful symmetry of Richard recording the first-ever 50-goal-season without an EN goal and Caufield doing the same thing to become the first Canadiens player to win the Richard trophy is pure art.

    Some around the league are raising the question of whether empty-net goals should even count for the Richard trophy, as the man himself never scored one. If those weren't counted, Caufield would be two goals ahead in the race for the lead. Colorado's Nathan MacKinnon has 50, but five of those were without a goalie.

    That's all conjecture, though it's an interesting thought. Empty-net goals do count, and that's unlikely to change. But it says something about the personality of the player to not only want to meet his goal, but to accomplish it in his own way. 

    Juraj Slavkovsky has said his Canadiens' teammates will be looking for Caufield every chance they get as they help him hit the 50-goal mark. They'd just better not expect him to go for the "gimme."

                              🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒

    So what difference would it make if Caufield happened to add an empty-net tally to his total this year? For fans, none at all. Fifty goals are 50 goals and there'd be no asterisk in the record book if some of them were easier to bury than others. His 50 would be just as legitimate as MacKinnon's.

    For Caufield, though, we're seeing a young player challenge himself  to be better and live up to standards he sets in his own mind. His determination to do so is a reflection of what he expects of his level of play. That's something a coach can't teach or inspire in someone who isn't built that way to begin with.

    That's the kind of determination and self-set standard that wins Stanley Cups.

    And we know there are no "gimmes" in the playoffs.

    

    

The Dog and His Reflection

     

    A Dog, to whom the butcher had thrown a bone, was hurrying home with his prize as fast as he could go. As he crossed a narrow footbridge, he happened to look down and saw himself reflected in the still water below, as clearly as in a mirror. But the greedy Dog thought he was looking at another dog carrying a bone much bigger than his own.

    If he had stopped to think, he would have known better. But instead of thinking, he dropped his bone and lunged at the dog in the river, only to find himself swimming for his life to reach the shore. At last he scrambled out, and as he stood dripping and miserable on the bank, he realized what a fool he had been.

    His own bone was gone, carried away by the current. And the other dog and the bigger bone had never existed at all.  - Aesop

                               🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒

    Lots of Canadiens fans...and those who eat up endless hours of airtime talking about the Canadiens... this season are on the same wavelength as Aesop's greedy dog.

    Their team hasn't won a Stanley Cup in 33 years. They haven't had a fifty-goal-scorer or a one-hundred-point producer in longer than that. Until this past spring and the arrival of Lane Hutson, no Habs player had won the Calder Trophy since Ken Dryden in 1972.

    This is a time to appreciate the team Montreal leadership is building. The Habs are young, fast and score a ton of goals. It's fun and exciting to watch them, knowing they'll never quit. It's joyful to see the players smile, and the little rituals of friendship that are the building blocks of a real winning team. Fans should be happy at last.

    So, to hear them complain about Martin St.Louis failing to coach a better defensive system, listening to them give up on this player or that one, or the need to trade Kaiden Guhle for a second-line centre is frustrating for fellow Habs supporters who want to feel good about their team.

    Since the trade deadline has passed, at least there are no more suggestions of signing Nazem Kadri or trading for Alexis Lafreniere. Still, though pundits like to go on about how Ivan Demidov is slumping and Mike Matheson is used too much. They talk about how the Habs aren't tough enough and without more size will do nothing in the playoffs. Or how going into the postseason with two rookie goalies is a bad idea. Or whether the team will be playing into the late spring at all. They're rehashing done deals like Logan Mailloux for Zach Bolduc as though their crystal balls are shinier than Kent Hughes'.

    

                              🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒

    Critical fans, problematic management and overly-zealous media have chased players out of Montreal in the past. Patrick Roy. John LeClair. Jose Theodore. P.K.Subban. They booed Carey Price in preseason. Canadiens fans are tough on their team out of love, allegedly, but how can you love a team you seem to hate? 

    And why bother tossing speculation and judgement around? Hughes is not listening to you. Other Habs' GMs have succumbed to public pressure and jumped too unwisely on moves they should never have made (Scott Gomez, I see you there) but Hughes is made of different stuff. He's not going to be pushed into action by anybody outside his bubble. So critics who want to pick this roster apart should perhaps consider looking for a perfect team to support or report about instead of wasting their breath crapping on this one.

    The Canadiens are not perfect by a long shot. They have holes in the roster. They still have learning to do before they win it all. But they're growing up together and for fans who've been with them for the long haul, it's a joy to see. 

    If old Aesop taught us anything with his fable of the dog and his reflection it's that always craving the bigger, juicier bone means ignoring the bone you already have. And if you're not careful, you can end up with no bone at all.

    

    

The Belt

     

    When your kids are little, they're like sponges. They hear everything you say and their capacity to absorb knowledge is better than their diapers. They're sweet and funny and make you love them. In return, you teach them how to walk and talk, eat with a spoon, dress themselves and have manners. You show them how to be kind, how to share and how to cope with their big feelings. 

    Then, they start to grow up and you teach them about things like honesty, responsibility and graciousness. When they inevitably break the rules or act out, you send them to time out or you confiscate a favourite toy. You explain what they did wrong and why they need to learn not to do that again. You're a gentle, guiding hand.

    Suddenly, before you ever even register it's happened, they're teenagers. They develop ideas, values and opinions of their own and most of the time, they're not the same as yours. They roll their eyes when you advise them. They challenge you and demand to know why you set the standards you do. They know how to push your buttons and try your patience. Their mistakes grow in consequence too. Instead of writing on the wall or spilling an entire bag of flour, they're throwing parties that wreck your house and crashing your car. Sometimes they drive you around the bend and you yell at them. You may even go old-school and whip off your belt to snap it at them in frustration. 

                                🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒

    The young Canadiens players have grown into metaphorical teenagers (some not too far off being actual teenagers.)  That means their coach/dad isn't treating them like toddlers any longer. Marty St.Louis expects the early, basic lessons to be ingrained by now. He wants to work on more advanced issues, so when players regress and start wetting the bed again it sorely triggers his temper. 

    In the Habs' last game against Detroit Alex Newhook had the misfortune of making the fatal error that caused that temper to fray. Like any dad who's just had enough of kids who don't listen and repeat the same mistakes, St.Louis lost his cool and snapped.

    In the grand scheme of things, it wasn't that much...just a few shouted words and a bit of swearing. For St.Louis however, it was a departure and notable for that reason. Newhook could have been any of the Canadiens players who made a big mistake on an important play. He's certainly not alone in contributing to lost points this season, but he was the one in Marty's sights at that moment. It had to be embarrassing and a bit of a shock to the system to be on the receiving end of such a rare display by a coach everyone likes and admires. It was also a learning experience for the rest of the players who know they're lucky it wasn't them to draw coach's ire and will try extra hard to avoid the same treatment.

    More than momentary frustration on St.Louis' part, the incident underlined one important fact. The kids aren't kids anymore. Sure, they're the youngest team in the league, but they're also gaining experience in every single game. Their coach is becoming harder on them because their errors have bigger consequences now than when they weren't expected to crawl out of the basement as quickly as they have. 

    Now expectations have grown and the pressure to keep improving is real. As we've seen with the healthy scratches of Brendan Gallagher and Arber Xhekaj and the benching of Sam Montembeault, the coach is getting tougher in his decision-making. He's not the guy who carries the kids on his shoulders at the parade anymore. He's the dad of teenagers who need a little more tough love these days.

                                🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒

    Fortunately, as the Canadiens continue to evolve and grow up, their coach really is an actual dad of teenagers. The same challenges facing his three growing sons face his evolving young players. And he's learning too. Just as a first-time dad grows with his kids, St.Louis is developing as a coach. A new dad doesn't have the tools to deal with teens. He learns how to teach and how to discipline as time goes on.

   St.Louis is well equipped to cope with the unexpected. He also has lots of patience...most of the time. When that patience is at an end, he's shown the kids are old enough to take it when he calls them out publicly and know they deserve it.

    The coach has been remarkable in his forbearance. St.Louis is a winner who's spent the last four-plus years clinging to patience, even though it eats him up to lose. He's about ready to move on from teaching to motivating. 

    For now he's yelling at them, but we (and they) have to expect he knows when and how to use the belt too.

Glass Houses

     

    Once upon a time, in a little town in Alberta, Kirby Dach was born on a freezing January day. The hockey gods looked fondly upon him and bequeathed to him three gifts. The first was the gift of size. As he grew to his full mass at 6'4" and 220lbs, he developed the frame he'd need to withstand the physicality of the NHL. The second was the gift of hands. The Chicago Blackhawks drafted him third overall because he proved in junior he can put the puck in the net, and set up his teammates effectively. The third gift was the gift of speed. NHL EDGE has him in the 95th percentile for maximum skating speed reaching 23.42 MPH in November of this season. 

    Though the gifts of the gods were generous and rich, they came with a curse. The ghosts of Maple Leafs past conspired to thwart the young player by giving him a glass skeleton. At first there were concussions. Then a broken ankle or wrist, and these weren't exactly breaks from crushing hits. Eventually it became apparent Dach could hurt himself buttering toast. The Blackhawks had enough of gluing him back together and Kent Hughes took him on as a reclamation project.

    In Montreal, Dach's woes have continued. The Glass Bone Curse has followed him and he's yet to play more than 70 games in a season at any level. With the Canadiens, his best season saw him lace up for only 58 games in 2022-23. The following season, he played just two.

    When he's in the lineup, Dach is noticeable for his gifts, but by the time he gets up to speed and starts to feel the game once more, the Curse strikes again. 

                                  🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒

    It's not easy for a body to absorb the punishment dished out over 82 games in an NHL season, plus preseason and playoffs. It's normal to sustain injuries and a lot of it in Dach's case is pure bad luck. He's not the first gifted Canadiens player to stand on the brink of "written off" because of injuries. Before Rocket Richard even reached the NHL he'd gained a reputation for being injury-prone. 

   In his first game with the Montreal Senior Canadiens (a team in the QSHL) in 1941, Richard crashed into the boards and suffered a broken ankle, missing the majority of the season. While still in the QSHL, he broke his wrist in 1942, which limited his play and hindered his progress. In his NHL rookie season with the Canadiens in 1943, he scored 5 goals in his first 16 games before suffering a broken leg that ended his debut season early. Even his own general manager, Tommy Gorman, thought Richard would never cut it as a pro hockey player because of his "brittle bones."

    In the early years of Serge Savard's career, he was beleaguered by broken bones too. In March of 1970, he crashed into the goalpost and shattered his left leg in five places. He spent months in a cast and underwent several surgeries. Ten months later, he broke the same leg again. And during practice for the 1972 Canada-Russia Summit Series, he broke his right ankle, which kept him out of games four and five.

     Like Richard before him, observers were skeptical Savard would last very long in the NHL. Seven Stanley Cups, a Hall-of-Fame career and a retired sweater proved them all wrong.

                                 🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒

    Both Savard and Richard eventually overcame the perception of their fragility. In Richard's case, after his disastrous rookie season, he devoted time in the summer to intense training to build up his muscle strength and help support his joints and bones. He had a breakout second season and was never overly sidelined again.

    Savard ended up changing his game entirely. His early impressive skating ability was hampered by the recurring leg injuries, so he turned his attention to becoming a stay-at-home defenceman. When paired with Larry Robinson or Guy Lapointe, Savard's play allowed them to join the rush. They owe him a lot for their own stellar careers.

    As for Dach, perhaps he's just unfortunate. Perhaps his bad luck is now in the past and he'll come back stronger from his latest upper-body injury. Or maybe he really is cursed. The thing is, if he doesn't follow the example of guys like Savard and Richard, he's soon going to run out of road in Montreal. Like his predecessors, he needs to work with the experts to find out why this keeps happening to him and how he can change his approach to prevent it.

    Michael Hage is coming soon. The Habs' lineup is already flush when everyone is healthy and there soon won't be a place for a guy who spends more time on the training table than on the ice. It was a great attempt by Hughes to give Dach a new start. Now the player will have to find a way to adapt and stay healthy.

    If he can't, all the gifts of the hockey gods don't matter. If he can't...the Curse will win.

Family Ties

   

     "When you're part of a team, there's a family spirit. You have to be understanding, respectful toward others, helpful towards people. I love helping people." -Martin St.Louis, August, 2025.

    "Every teammate will always be a brother to me." - Nick Suzuki, January, 2026

    The Canadiens have built their young team around the concept of family: loyalty, having each other's backs, supporting everyone as they work together to build a winner. In the beginning, four years ago, everyone bought into the concept. The up-and-coming players were just getting into the league all together, learning as they went. The team has grown and gelled as a unit, but now things are changing.

    When the players came in as beginners, it was easier to sell the idea of the team being a family. Now some have developed more quickly or farther than others. Some brothers are inevitably finding themselves looking in from the outside while others thrive.

                       🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒

    There's been a lot of chatter in the last couple of weeks about the Habs' rebuild entering a new phase. With an entirely healthy roster, St.Louis has to make personnel decisions he'd rather not. Beyond that though, there's the delicate balance of emotion and pragmatism he's got to achieve within himself.

    St.Louis is a passionate guy who seems to genuinely care about his players. He's invested in their growth and development so it can't be easy for him on a personal level to park Sam Montembeault and Patrik Laine. He wants to give them every chance to improve and he's tried that. It's not working for them this season, and the coach has to put his emotion and his family feeling aside for the good of the team. It's not easy to tell a proud veteran like Brendan Gallagher he's sitting either. 

    It's going to get harder to push the "family" philosophy when some members get shoved aside.

                      🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒

    In some ways, St.Louis is on just as steep a learning curve as his players. When he started, he was free to be patient with rookie mistakes, to have few expectations and to use his available players as he saw fit. With injuries, inexperience and general holes in the lineup, he didn't have much to lose. Now he's got experienced, healthy players and there's competition for jobs. Now his decisions are beginning to have real consequences for the players individually and the team as a whole. That carries a new level of pressure for the coach. It's fresh territory for him too.

    A lot will depend on how players deal with becoming spare parts, or just not needed at all. If they're able to keep that "family" feeling going, if they're able to smile even when they don't play. If players are unhappy they'll take away from the group feeling of wellbeing and when that happens, it creates tension that makes it harder to remain confident. Monitoring the team mood and ensuring nobody becomes a distraction will become more important a part of the coach's job.

    That's where Martin St.Louis' new challenge lies. It's not good enough to make the tough decisions about who to play and who to sit anymore. Now there's a level of emotional detachment he's going to have to develop in order to  avoid burning out in that department. It's a blessing to have a passionate coach, but he's going to have to moderate how invested he allows himself to be. And it will be harder to promote the family vibe when he maintains a professional distance.

    The balance will be tough to achieve because it can't be much fun to learn your family doesn't need you anymore. It's probably less fun to have to tell that to a kid you feel like you've raised to be an NHLer.

    When St.Louis masters the skills of diplomacy and managing disappointment he'll be an even better coach. If anyone can marry empathy with cold facts, it's probably him.

Poetic Justice

    

     Today the Montreal Canadiens have a problem they haven't faced in a very long time. They have a starting goalie the team can't trust. Sam Montembeault seems like a solid, likeable teammate. He's worked hard to make it as a guy for whom the NHL wasn't a given. Based on the play that won him a contract extension, he's been handed a very long leash by Martin St.Louis. Now though, he's taken up all the slack.

    Five times this season, Montembeault has given up a goal on the first shot of the game. That's nearly a quarter of all his starts this year. Sure, he's made some big saves but they lose any momentum they create when he gives up a stinker from the blue line right after. He gives up goals in the last minute of close games, and he gives up shorthanded goals. He blows leads regularly. His numbers are AHL-worthy.

    Montembeault hasn't just been bad this year, he's been poetically bad. He's been limerick bad:

    There once was a goalie named Monty

    Whose play in the net wasn't jaunty.

    When blowing a lead

    At breathtaking speed

    He saves fewer shots than my Aunty.

    He's been haiku bad:

    The team on the bench

    With disappointment watches

    The red light go on.

    He's been sonnet bad:

    In the glory days of Patrick and Ken

    The puck-stopping highlights and Hall of Fame.

    Their banners among the finest of men.

    Who wrote their own stories of the great game.

    The long line of luminous stars stood tall

    The team never worried about the net

    Guarding the cage an impenetrable wall.

    So cool under fire, never see them sweat

    Spring was the season for planning parades

    In the good old days, the usual route

    But even the greatest dynasty fades

    And the once ravenous throng becomes mute

    When the expected chain is broken down

    And disappointment shrouds the hopeful town.

    He's been ode bad:

    There was a time when goal was not in doubt.

    They passed the torch from hand to hand

    Never a drought

    Always rising to meet demand

    Standing tall whether squeaker or a rout

    It is not now as it has been of yore

    Security is gone

    Limits are drawn

    The things which we have seen we can see no more.

    

    There are some flashes sure

    But not a goalie's cure

    No guiding hand remains

    To hold the vessel steady on her course,

    Save what a mate attains

    Defend against the force

    All hope and glory his to earn

    From mediocrity and fear divorce.

    

    And of course, he's been epic bad, but we're not writing a book here. He might be good in the room, but as Scotty once said, "If he's good in the room, leave him there." It's time for St.Louis to take his predecessor's advice. 

    Montembeault is costing the Canadiens points. More concerning, he's costing them confidence. If a team is always thinking about helping out the goalie, the players aren't thinking enough about their own jobs. 

    There's no doubt the Habs' team defence is an issue as well, but it starts with the goalie. When you have a fragile goaltender, you have a fragile team. And when you're holding on to a wild card spot in an extremely tight division you can't afford fragility. Monty has had lots of chances to find his game this year, but hasn't been able to do so with consistency. It would be a crying shame if this good young team is kneecapped by lousy goaltending.

    It's time to give the keys to Jakub Dobes and ride him the rest of the way. There's no rhyme or reason for anything else.

   

    

We Love it When a Plan Comes Together

    

    The award-winning science fiction writer Stephen Leigh once wrote "Rumors are like lightning on summer tinder, producing flames that dance in flickering brilliance from person to person, sometimes flaring in great conflagrations of exaggeration before finally extinguishing themselves in the cold waters of fact." He was talking about prejudice and race relations in his novel Speaking Stones, but he could just as easily have been talking about the insanity we witness every year around the NHL trade deadline.

    So far this season, we've heard all the rumours, from Michael Hage, Kaiden Guhle and two first-round picks for the Blues' Robert Thomas, to Patrick Laine to the Kings for Corey Perry. Like they've all got arseholes, everyone has an opinion about what the Habs will do at the deadline. The thing is, the only opinions that matter are those of Kent Hughes and Jeff Gorton. The rest of the talk is (apologies to Macbeth) sound and fury, signifying nothing. It's Leigh's great conflagration of exaggeration.

    If we've learned anything from Hughes and Gorton it's that we'll only find out what they're up to once they're done doing it. It'll probably be something no rumour monger thought about, and if they do nothing it's because there was nothing to do. Either way, all the predictions, rumours, potential line combos and trade proposals are only a way to kill time until there's something to talk about.

                        🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒

    These guys are very smart. They're not your grandpa's GMs, who'd trade Tomas Plekanec, Carey Price, a first-rounder and a couple of prospects for a late-career Vincent Lecavalier. They also wouldn't have traded Higgins, Ryan McDonagh and prospects for Scott Gomez and his anchor of a contract. (You know who you are, Bob Gainey.) So the pundits and the peons are wasting valuable oxygen talking about what HuGo is going to do.

    They have a plan. They'll stick to that plan because they're already ahead of schedule in their rebuild and they're working from a position of strength. They have the picks, the prospects the money and the pros they need to make a deal if it fits their plan. However, they're not like other Canadiens' GMs. They don't care about attracting a big, established French Canadian player. They won't sell the farm for a centre based on one or two good seasons. And they won't go all in on a veteran rental who may or may not fit with the team's culture on the off chance they can sneak into the Conference Finals or better.

    Speaking of culture, the HuGo plan has been unwavering in a couple of areas. They want players who match up with the current roster in terms of age and contract status. They also want smart guys with hardworking character. It's unlikely they'd take on a player like Nazem Kadri, despite all the rumours of their interest, because he's older, more expensive and way dirtier a player than the rest of the team. They have little interest in courting controversy or distraction around their young guys. If there's a move coming, it'll likely be more of a Kirby Dach situation, in which a young, talented former first-rounder with a ton of potential needs a new start.

                        🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒🏒

    The Habs got to the Finals in 2021 when nobody expected it. That could happen again just because of the "if you punch your ticket anything can happen" philosophy. Perhaps Jakub Dobes will pull another rookie goalie miracle out of his butt and carry the team far, but the most realistic scenario is the Canadiens will make the playoffs (barring an unforeseen disaster in a tight Eastern Conference race) and give a good showing of themselves, but they won't go all the way this year. They don't have tight enough team defence or, arguably, enough grit and toughness right now and adding a piece at the deadline, unless it's an unexpected blockbuster, won't change everything overnight. If they can take another step forward over last year's results, it's all gravy for fans who've not seen a Cup since '93.

    Hughes will not trade a player if he's not fairly sure of that guy's upside. Maybe that means they already suspect someone like David Reinbacher will never reach his potential due to a fragile physique and will be willing to move him. Or maybe it means the prospects are all on track and nobody will leave. He'll be very careful about giving up a player who might be a star somewhere else. That's what he does to other team's GMs.

    In any case, we'll all know the truth on Friday, when the rumours extinguish themselves in the cold waters of fact.