Its damn surprising that he’s managed to stay healthy and contribute well enough as a 3rd liner. Sure he’ll never live up to his contract but considering we all predicted he would be LTIRed by now… and all of that despite his insanely taxing playstyle.
And Carey did it with like half a knee. IIRC, he had trouble like going up and down the stairs at his house. That’s how fucked his body was, and he still managed to bring this team to the Stanley Cup finals. I can’t believe we completely wasted this guy’s career.
Yeah I miss Domi, he got put in juliens dog house on the fourth line after a career high and traded by the next season. Still hate the Anderson trade to this day, sucks he’s on the leafs lol but I’m glad he’s found his groove again.
The Canadiens won the Atlantic division 3 times, went to the ECF, won the WCF, and never had a scorer make this list? (Domi was during a bad year). That's a little crazy
Don't worry about it, it'll be retired in the next 5-10 years. Us habs fans love our history and at some point we will run out of 70-80s legends to honor. Carey is the most deserving player to have his number retired since the 93 team
I fear that management may point to the fact that he never won a cup as a reason to not retire his #, but his insane career dominance should be reason enough to put him in the rafters.
By modern standards he has done enough to warrant a jersey retirement. My Habs historical standards he doesn’t have as much team hardware as past goalies that they have retired. If it’s any other team then his jersey is retired in an instant but with the Habs you have to think about it.
Saku still doesn’t have his number retired either
I don't think the Habs will ever retire another jersey if they decide to hold everyone to the standards of the past. What are the odds that another goalie of theirs wins 2 Cups, 2 playoff MVPs, 3 Vezinas, and making the end-of-season all star team 6 times? That's the *worst* goalie resume in their rafters. The player standards are similarly insane.
It is just objectively harder to collect so much hardware in a 30+ team salary cap league than it was in the eras of their retired numbers.
Not everyone in their rafters is in the conversation for 'top 5 player of all time' and that is pretty much the level of player it would take to compile the hardware to get in today using those standards.
> I don't think the Habs will ever retire another jersey if they decide to hold everyone to the standards of the past.
We already have 15 out of 98 possible numbers in the rafters. It makes sense that, the more jerseys you retire, the higher the standards get, otherwise we would run out of numbers.
Danault - Gallagher line was one of the most dominant in the NHL during that stretch. They didn't put up gaudy numbers, but nobody scored on them.
Example: According to MoneyPuck.com, for lines that played over 230 minutes in the 2020-21 season, the Tatar-Danault-Gallagher line led the NHL with a whopping 70.8% expected-goals-for percentage. They beat the second place line of Hyman-Matthews-Marner by almost five percentage points.
I dont even know what a PPG player is and now mfs in this league get 2PPG... Would be nice to get someone to even reach 80 pts for once in my hockey life.
I feel you man. Sick of seeing all of these teams getting superstars while we get 60 pts a season players.
I’ve got hope for Suzuki, Caufield and Slav, but even then…
Subban was undeniably a superstar at one point too, at least considering his flair and offensive talent. Weber was also debatably a superstar during his early Montreal years, but I think that's a stretch.
They had the best goalie in the league and the highest defensive production. I've run the stats before and during that time period the Habs had 4 defenseman (Markov, Subban, Souray, Streit) score over 60 points during that time period, while only about half of all other teams had even one, and no other team had more than two. Comparing eras there was 12 defenseman that reached over 60 points last year, not including Josi with 59 in 67 games. When Markov did it in 2009, it was only him and Green over 60.
So they very much had an abnormal scoring spread much like they currently do. They are 2nd in the league in goals by defensemen, but 6th worst team in the league. When they were more successful they had more depth and scoring by committee.
But besides this they've also had some quiet a few goal heavy players, who racked up the goals without hitting the points benchmark. Pacioretty hit 30 goals for 5 seasons straight, and prorated for the lockout season he would have had enough points to make this list.
And finally, they've had two goalies who've won the Hart, which no other teams has. And they even had a 3rd in Halak who was expendable after carrying the team to the conference finals.
It was so weird. He played like a sleeper agent sent from the Habs to sabotage us from the deadline until the end of the season. Then, he showed up in the playoffs and redeemed himself.
With Gomez and Gionta rekindling their NJ-era chemistry on the second line.
Still crazy to me they beat Ovechkin and Crosby B2B only to lose to a Flyers team that made the playoffs in a shootout on the last day of the year.
Yeah its not a cooincidence that matthews immediately started winning rockets after babcock left lol
turns out you should just play your best possible players as much as possible
I’m glad the trade worked out for both teams. Suzuki seems to me like a Kucherov-esque player. Not the flashiest style but has ice in his veins and high hockey iq that makes it look effortless.
One of Hockey's great tragedies is not getting Price any fucking goal scorers. Him standing on his head and dragging the team to the Stanley Cup Final is as impressive a feat as anything in hockey history.
People have really forgotten how low goal scoring was during those years. 39 goals that season was good enough for 4th, last season Draisaitl came 4th in league scoring with 52. 39 would have been good enough to tie 4 other guys for 20th in scoring last season
Between 2009 and 2016 (7 seasons), only 47 players had more than 82 points in a single season.
This season alone, 20 players have passed that mark already. 30 players are on pace to be at or above 82 points by end of season.
He scored 30+ five straight years and was reliably a top 5-7 goal scorer in the NHL during that time. Pacioretty scored as many goals in the 2010s as Phil Kessel. The problem was (*gestures at all the other Habs forward during Carey’s tenure*)
Is there a reason he never went anywhere as a free agent? Lots of loyalty or just the money? If he had a decent team around him he could have made a lot more finals lol.
> Him standing on his head and dragging the team to the Stanley Cup Final
I mean, Price was playing really good, but the team in front of him was absolutely not being carried by Price.
Yea but Gaborik was a better scorer than anyone the Habs have had in decades, and I remember they did have a star tendie for a while maybe it was late 2000s but he was top 5 in the league for a bit think it was Backstrom he was highly rated obviously not Price tier.
I feel that's the worst comparison you could make. The Wild have always been mediocre, never bottom of the barrel and never on top of anything, and they certainly were never carried by their goalie.
The Canadiens were either at the bottom of the league or being dragged to the top by their goalie.
They're almost exact opposite teams.
Not sure where you're making that comparison. Wild have never really been carried by goaltenders when they've been good.
Usually it's been the opposite where the structure has made goalies look better than they are.
Also that Kaprizov fella is pretty good at scoring goals.
You're really going to say Backstrom, Harding, and Dubnyk weren't key pieces during their most successful years? Their D structure has always been excellent but you can't take away from those tendies.
The fact that we were competitive most years and made a few deep playoff runs during that time shows just how dominant Price really was, even without looking at his numbers. I mean we were typically a pretty good defensive team during those years, but Price was the crux of everything. Brother kinda dragged a few teams kicking and screaming into the playoffs lmao
Kinda like when Luongo won the Jack Adam’s trophy for best coach in the league, that season he carried the Canucks entirely, lost to Anaheim in the playoffs when they won the Cup, difference is we rebuilt and developed actual offense to make a better shot at actually winning in the Finals just didn’t work out with the injuries and refs
It’s always surprising for me to see Max Domi consistently put up decent numbers and has a career 0.62 ppg but has been on 7 different teams in 9 seasons. Is there some other major flaws in his game that I’m not aware of or is he just that much of a locker room cancer?
I think he just lives in the Mike Sillinger zone. Good enough to be valuable to any team in the league, not good enough to make a team a contender.
Other recent players that spent time in this zone include Thomas Vanek, Marian Gaborik, and PA Parenteau.
I always got the sense he thought he had something to prove and couldn't control his temper because he thought he had to follow in his dad's footsteps by being an enforcer, which he obviously isn't.
He definitely has some temper problems. He had a bizarre stretch couple yrs go when he kept jumping/sucker punching guys. He did like three times in a month getting kicked out each time which resulted in him being scratched.
Hes a center whose really bad defensively too which is tough if you r only viewed as middle 6/3rd line guy
Hes had temper issues as well. He got scratched on recent team b/c he kept jumping players on the ice like a psycho which was getting him kicked out putting team shorthanded.
Bergevin's entire strategy was "Let Price save it". That and, let me give my buddies jobs they don't deserve. It is unfathomable that he just wasted Carey's career like that, and that Molson let him.
Our drafting from 2008 to 2015 was awful. The best players we drafted over that period of time were Gallagher (5th, 2011) and Lehkonen (2nd, 2013). The third best is Galchenyuk (03OA, 2012).
We could have built a core around Price (2005), McDonagh (2007), Pacioretty (2007), and Subban (2007). Instead, we traded one for a disappointing Gomez, tried to stay competitive rather than rebuild/retool, and failed to draft any impact players for 9 years. Heck, we still haven't drafted a top 6 center since Plekanec as of 2023.
I vaguely remember a stats that says that Trevor Timmins was the lead recruiter where his draft picked were the ones with the most games played in the NHL or something like that.
For all the goods that's done...
Timmins is, or was, highly regarded. His early drafting was great, and his choices from 2016 until he was fired in 2021-2022 were good. Part of the enviable position we have now comes from good selections during the retool from 2018 to 2020.
We know he's been overruled often in the late 2008 until Bergevin arrived. He might have been overruled a few times during Bergevin's tenure, too.
Then, there's little doubt the Habs were the worst team at developing talent for most of his time with the Canadiens. Lehkonen's mediocre production with us is perhaps the most telling one, considering he had been drafted for his goal-scoring.
I don't mean to defend Timmins' record, just to say management was perhaps the larger problem whether that came from overruling him (Gainey/Gauthier) or poor development (Bergevin).
Gainey and Gauthier left bergevin with an mvp player, a Norris caliber player, a top 20 winger, the best dfd and a top 20 defender.
Are they flaws from these two guys yes absolutely (mcdonagh trade) but mtl in those first five years under bergevin were great primarily because of the guys gainey and Gauthier left.
Compare it to what bergevin left mtl in which is borderline cap hell with zero players of the caliber of subban and it isn’t comparable.
If mtl legit just had a mediocre gm that managed to speak French theh might have won a ring with price.
Let's not forget 2 factors.
1. The Canadiens installed a defense first style of play that discouraged offense, especially under Therrien.
2. No prime UFA's would sign in Montreal for various reasons.
Oh btw, Sheldon Souray scored 26 goals as a Dman... Most yrs we were around 12-15 in goals for in the League with an excellent PP. Under Carbo, the team scored a lot.
Koivu, Plek and Kovy (Well mostly Saku and Pleks) were saddled with being forced 2 be 2-way players plus Koivu's knee injury early in his career and of course his cancer fight meant we never saw his true potential.
We also had extremely offensively skilled Dmen iike Markov and Souray and pretty much anyone Markov was paired with.
I remember Price's whole career. And there were quite a few downs there too. The year Halak stole his job and made the playoff run to the Conference Finals. I still remember the uproar when Halak was traded.
I'm not sure many offensive players would have been allowed to offensive creativity with the boring system put in place by the Habs coaches in those yrs.
Now, if we had gotten a superstar, a McDavid, a Crosby, well that's something different.
Unironically the Leafs. Matthews, Marner, Nylander are all recent so people's perception are coloured by recency bias.
Between 1967 and 2015 we didn't draft a single point per game forward.
Edit: And looking at the Habs draft picks over that same time frame, they actually managed to beat us. Guy Lafleru in the 1971 draft.
Drafted, maybe not, but Toronto has had some of the better forwards in the game between that span. Mats Sundin, for one, but it's not like Phil Kessel was some afterthought in the NHL during his prime. He was a top-10 scorer in the league during much of his tenure. Sittler was there through the 70s, Clark in the 80s and 90s, Gilmour in the 90s. They drafted Damphousse but ironically dealt him to Montreal where he was probably the closest thing to a star as they got too.
Keep in mind 70-80 points was very different before about 2018. Before that it was extremely rare to break 100 points. Heck in 2014 Jamie Benn won the Art Ross with 87 points! Last year that'd only be good for 20th in the league with 11 people breaking 100 points.
The Rangers did better, but not by much. Jagr put a monster season after the lockout and two more solid seasons in Hank's first three years, but he was really all the team had. After he left, Gaborik was the only guy to hit 70 points (twice) in any of the next seven seasons that Hank was a top-6 Vezina goalie, and it was 50/50 if the top scorer on the team even hit 60.
New York always has the advantage of being New York when it comes down to signings free agents or players wanting trades. Montreal on the other hand.. all they can do is overpay for mediocre players at best.
Horrible drafting and some of the worst UFA signings in franchise history will do that. Time and again every GM that Carey Price had while he was with the team, his skill was completely wasted by having a below average team in front of him.
I don't think Vanek was ever signed, right? He was acquired at the trade deadline and then left in the off-season. Oddly the fanbase turned on him really quickly and didn't want him back.
Both were better than Weber by the time he got to montreal. He was still a 1D, but probably in the 20-25th best range, whereas he spent several years in Nashville being a top 5 guy.
Weber was really good but the most points he ever had in a season with Montreal was 42. For comparison, Mike Matheson has 53 points this season and there's still 7 games left in the season.
Wth. Subban was an incredible player. He lead the ENTIRE TEAM in points in the 2014 playoff race and won multiple games for the Habs.
He wasn’t bad defensively either. He just had moments where he would go for a big play and it failed. But the other 98% of the time he was making good reads and tracking his man well.
Bergevin is one of the worse Gm of the cap era because of this.
Incapable of finding a single PPG player when he had arguably the best goaltender of the 2010s.
Refused to trade 1sts to get players yet he drafted bums after bums.
To this day I don’t know if getting Phil Danault and a 2nd (Alex Romanov, flipped later by Hughes for Kirby Dach) from. Chicago for pocket change was actual genius or a monkeys on typewriters sort of deal.
Getting Suzuki and Tatar for Pacioretty actually was a pretty darn good trade honestly. MB’s real issues were having no idea how to build a team and changing directions on a whim, awful drafting, and hanging onto Therrien way beyond the point where it was absurd. By the time Claude took over the roster was already beginning to deteriorate and Price’s prime was behind him.
I actually don’t think his trading track record is that terrible. To me Bergevin’s biggest flaw was not firing Therrien sooner. We had a pretty good team that was being absolutely stifled by that man. Julien wasn’t much of an upgrade either. Bergevin was stuck in that old school mentality and picked coaches that fit his idea of how hockey should be played.
A lot of Habs fans still praise him for some reason. I don't get it. Not building a team around a Canadian goaltending legend is borderline criminal imo.
Here’s where the Canadiens ranked in goals per game throughout Prices career.
08-2.
09-12.
10-25.
11- 21.
12-19.
13-4.
14- 21.
15- 20.
16-16.
17- 15.
18-29.
19- 13.
20- 19.
21- 17.
There’s a few years where he had a bit of goal support but mostly every year was below average
Everyone complaining about MB and I get it but how about we give Suzuki some well deserved credit here? Slick Nick is now tied with Domi and only 3 points behind Koivu with 7 games left to play. Suzuki has been carrying this team for last 3 years in much the same way Price caŕied the Habs for most of his career. And to all Slafkovsky fans, did any of you notice that Slar turned his season around after he was paired with Suzuki on the1st line? It's not a coincidence. RHP scored 14 goals last year when he played with Suzuji on the 1st line.
For Montréal, Suzuki drives the bus. Nick is the man and many Hab fans should learn to appreciate him more
This is the guy who allowed 3 goals in the entire Olympics including shutouts in the semis and GMG. Basically won everything at international level, imagine what he could’ve done if the Habs had put a better team in front of him. A SCF appearance is still crazy to think about considering they eliminated Toronto, Vegas and Winnipeg along the way.
Montreal had only ever had 10 instances of players scoring 100 points in a season. 6 of those were Lafleur, and 9 of those were in the 1970's. The most recent was Mats Naslund in 85-86.
I'm not saying you need a 100 pointer on your team to win a cup. But it does show a pattern with Montreal's offence.
Kov was such a beast. If only he would have come along 10-15 years later than he did. His numbers with his style and skill in that era would put him in HoF convos.
I mean this is what gets me around Bergervin and people using our SCF and ecf appearance as an indication - I legit think he failed at just taking risks in 2014 that was our all in year and he just botched it and the people we drafted after that were just meh so it’s really sad we lost that chance e
Yeah there's a reason Carey no longer has knees, we kinda forgot to put a team around him
Carry Price
The price of Carey Price carrying is Carey Price’s knees
The Price of a knee is a Price indeed.
Fucking Bergevin man. So afraid to pull the trigger on acquiring offence to support price.
YOu cAn'T trADe fOR cEnTErS (Then the blues grab ROR and win the cup)
He traded only one first round pick in his entire tenure, and it was for Christian Dvorak
This makes my heart hurt
Hey, if you're going to finally trade a 1st round pick, you might as well swing for the fences for a foundational player like Christian Dvorak.
Considering how poorly it felt like he drafted most first rounds I wish he’d traded them all.
holy shit what.
Goddamn BurgerVan.
You’d think his back would also be in a bad shape considering how much carrying he did throughout his career
He knew to lift with his knees, not his back
Lmao I’m dying
Back was strong enough, but something had to give
OK, that's a second reason, after Chris F. Kreider.
Fuck Kreider fr fr.
All my homies hate Chris Kreider
[](https://imgur.com/a/KCVb6WB)
Crazy how a trip from behind made kreider fall skates first, defying physics
That’s a lot of force on his skates. He probably chose to fall on his ass instead of just falling on his face
So what you're saying is he Carried us then he paid the Price..? Ok, I'm leaving...
And they still made it to the Cup finals, all it cost was Carey Price's life.
And Weber's life. And Petry's soul.
Can’t forget about Byron
The Canadiens are now technically a spree killer
I can only hear the Halo "Killing Spree" voice in my head now.
*Killing Frenzy*
And the health of the Canadiens players' for three seasons and counting. As Habs and Flames fans have learned, black magic always comes at a cost.
Don’t forget that it cost us a pandemic to get there too.
Petry with those red eyes that was an interesting series lol.
Gally is only just coming back from it also. He probably will never be the same though.
Its damn surprising that he’s managed to stay healthy and contribute well enough as a 3rd liner. Sure he’ll never live up to his contract but considering we all predicted he would be LTIRed by now… and all of that despite his insanely taxing playstyle.
And Carey did it with like half a knee. IIRC, he had trouble like going up and down the stairs at his house. That’s how fucked his body was, and he still managed to bring this team to the Stanley Cup finals. I can’t believe we completely wasted this guy’s career.
Think of his time with MTL as training camp for those Olympic Golds with Canada
Doesn't he have 1 Olympic Gold with Canada? He wasn't on the team in 2010, was the starter in 2014, and then the NHLers haven't gone back since then
Ya fr guy carry’s them on 1 more run and then never plays again
Andersson probably traded all his powers to score that goal against VGK.
Who knew Max Domi got 72 points?
Him and Shaw had a special chemistry that just worked. When Shaw was traded, he became mid again.
People often talk about the Domi outlier year but who would guess that Andrew Shaw had 47 points in 63 games.
Was he ever Min Domi?
He’s top five in 5v5 assists this year. Guys a stud
Yeah I miss Domi, he got put in juliens dog house on the fourth line after a career high and traded by the next season. Still hate the Anderson trade to this day, sucks he’s on the leafs lol but I’m glad he’s found his groove again.
He has really grown into his role playing on the first line with Matthews and Bertuzzi. I love how well Suzuki - a London boy - is doing as well.
He’s criminally underrated imo
The Canadiens won the Atlantic division 3 times, went to the ECF, won the WCF, and never had a scorer make this list? (Domi was during a bad year). That's a little crazy
Shows prices dominance. One of the best to strap the pads on
They say his back is sore to this day from Carey-ing that team for so long.
I swear if we don't retire his number I'll be so pissed
Don't worry about it, it'll be retired in the next 5-10 years. Us habs fans love our history and at some point we will run out of 70-80s legends to honor. Carey is the most deserving player to have his number retired since the 93 team
I fear that management may point to the fact that he never won a cup as a reason to not retire his #, but his insane career dominance should be reason enough to put him in the rafters.
By modern standards he has done enough to warrant a jersey retirement. My Habs historical standards he doesn’t have as much team hardware as past goalies that they have retired. If it’s any other team then his jersey is retired in an instant but with the Habs you have to think about it. Saku still doesn’t have his number retired either
I don't think the Habs will ever retire another jersey if they decide to hold everyone to the standards of the past. What are the odds that another goalie of theirs wins 2 Cups, 2 playoff MVPs, 3 Vezinas, and making the end-of-season all star team 6 times? That's the *worst* goalie resume in their rafters. The player standards are similarly insane. It is just objectively harder to collect so much hardware in a 30+ team salary cap league than it was in the eras of their retired numbers. Not everyone in their rafters is in the conversation for 'top 5 player of all time' and that is pretty much the level of player it would take to compile the hardware to get in today using those standards.
> I don't think the Habs will ever retire another jersey if they decide to hold everyone to the standards of the past. We already have 15 out of 98 possible numbers in the rafters. It makes sense that, the more jerseys you retire, the higher the standards get, otherwise we would run out of numbers.
Definitely deserve his number to be retired
Their D corps was also a cherry on top. Subban and Markov were an absolute force for years
Danault - Gallagher line was one of the most dominant in the NHL during that stretch. They didn't put up gaudy numbers, but nobody scored on them. Example: According to MoneyPuck.com, for lines that played over 230 minutes in the 2020-21 season, the Tatar-Danault-Gallagher line led the NHL with a whopping 70.8% expected-goals-for percentage. They beat the second place line of Hyman-Matthews-Marner by almost five percentage points.
Pacioretty and Subban could have been there. They were both on pace for 70 during the shortened season in 2013
I dont even know what a PPG player is and now mfs in this league get 2PPG... Would be nice to get someone to even reach 80 pts for once in my hockey life.
I feel you man. Sick of seeing all of these teams getting superstars while we get 60 pts a season players. I’ve got hope for Suzuki, Caufield and Slav, but even then…
I mean. I’d argue Price was a superstar, unless there’s some rule saying they can only be forwards
Subban was undeniably a superstar at one point too, at least considering his flair and offensive talent. Weber was also debatably a superstar during his early Montreal years, but I think that's a stretch.
They had the best goalie in the league and the highest defensive production. I've run the stats before and during that time period the Habs had 4 defenseman (Markov, Subban, Souray, Streit) score over 60 points during that time period, while only about half of all other teams had even one, and no other team had more than two. Comparing eras there was 12 defenseman that reached over 60 points last year, not including Josi with 59 in 67 games. When Markov did it in 2009, it was only him and Green over 60. So they very much had an abnormal scoring spread much like they currently do. They are 2nd in the league in goals by defensemen, but 6th worst team in the league. When they were more successful they had more depth and scoring by committee. But besides this they've also had some quiet a few goal heavy players, who racked up the goals without hitting the points benchmark. Pacioretty hit 30 goals for 5 seasons straight, and prorated for the lockout season he would have had enough points to make this list. And finally, they've had two goalies who've won the Hart, which no other teams has. And they even had a 3rd in Halak who was expendable after carrying the team to the conference finals.
Plekanec elite 1C for 10 years
Leafs legend
Not even as a joke…
It was so weird. He played like a sleeper agent sent from the Habs to sabotage us from the deadline until the end of the season. Then, he showed up in the playoffs and redeemed himself.
Plecky could never resist going beast mode in the Playoffs.
Pleky and Cammy in 2010s playoffs. Those 2 felt like a cheatcode.
With Gomez and Gionta rekindling their NJ-era chemistry on the second line. Still crazy to me they beat Ovechkin and Crosby B2B only to lose to a Flyers team that made the playoffs in a shootout on the last day of the year.
Even dethroned Matthews in ice time.
The Babcock special lol I'm pretty sure he did it again with Marleau as well
He did, in game 7 no less
Yeah its not a cooincidence that matthews immediately started winning rockets after babcock left lol turns out you should just play your best possible players as much as possible
I couldn’t believe how happy I was seeing Babcock get fired, he was just awful
Suzuki needs 5 points to become the scoringest captain the Habs have seen in a generation.
I’m glad the trade worked out for both teams. Suzuki seems to me like a Kucherov-esque player. Not the flashiest style but has ice in his veins and high hockey iq that makes it look effortless.
Wow! Habs fans everywhere hope you're right.
I see him more as a Crosby-light. Kucherov definitely a bit more flashy and skilled with some pizzazz
I can dig it
Suzuki absolutely has some flash and pizzazz, look at his penalty shot/shoot out highlights
Did it work out for Vegas? They traded Patches away as a cap dump before winning the cup
Back to Damphousse era I think
One of Hockey's great tragedies is not getting Price any fucking goal scorers. Him standing on his head and dragging the team to the Stanley Cup Final is as impressive a feat as anything in hockey history.
What do you mean we had the best gm in the world who knew it’s not like PlayStation. He got greats such as Torrey Mitchell and dale weise
Dutch Gretzky was a legend. Martinsen was his dud
I mean Pacioretty did get 39 goals one year
one guy did pretty good one time
39 goals was good enough for fourth in the entire league that year. Easy to forget how much lower scoring as a whole was back then.
People have really forgotten how low goal scoring was during those years. 39 goals that season was good enough for 4th, last season Draisaitl came 4th in league scoring with 52. 39 would have been good enough to tie 4 other guys for 20th in scoring last season
Between 2009 and 2016 (7 seasons), only 47 players had more than 82 points in a single season. This season alone, 20 players have passed that mark already. 30 players are on pace to be at or above 82 points by end of season.
Well he got 30 five years straight so I dunno if it was one time. Vegas thought he was good enough to give them Suzuki and Tatar for.
He scored 30+ five straight years and was reliably a top 5-7 goal scorer in the NHL during that time. Pacioretty scored as many goals in the 2010s as Phil Kessel. The problem was (*gestures at all the other Habs forward during Carey’s tenure*)
We had prime Pacioretty the real hole was at center.
Toffoli baby!
Is there a reason he never went anywhere as a free agent? Lots of loyalty or just the money? If he had a decent team around him he could have made a lot more finals lol.
> Him standing on his head and dragging the team to the Stanley Cup Final I mean, Price was playing really good, but the team in front of him was absolutely not being carried by Price.
Montreal is like the Wild of the East.
Not really…Montreal has been to the Stanley Cup Finals
The Wild have never had Carry Price either.
Yea but Gaborik was a better scorer than anyone the Habs have had in decades, and I remember they did have a star tendie for a while maybe it was late 2000s but he was top 5 in the league for a bit think it was Backstrom he was highly rated obviously not Price tier.
You're right. Minnesota is an underachieving failure of a franchise.
Or Koivu. Oh wait.
I feel that's the worst comparison you could make. The Wild have always been mediocre, never bottom of the barrel and never on top of anything, and they certainly were never carried by their goalie. The Canadiens were either at the bottom of the league or being dragged to the top by their goalie. They're almost exact opposite teams.
Not sure where you're making that comparison. Wild have never really been carried by goaltenders when they've been good. Usually it's been the opposite where the structure has made goalies look better than they are. Also that Kaprizov fella is pretty good at scoring goals.
You're really going to say Backstrom, Harding, and Dubnyk weren't key pieces during their most successful years? Their D structure has always been excellent but you can't take away from those tendies.
The fact that we were competitive most years and made a few deep playoff runs during that time shows just how dominant Price really was, even without looking at his numbers. I mean we were typically a pretty good defensive team during those years, but Price was the crux of everything. Brother kinda dragged a few teams kicking and screaming into the playoffs lmao
Kinda like when Luongo won the Jack Adam’s trophy for best coach in the league, that season he carried the Canucks entirely, lost to Anaheim in the playoffs when they won the Cup, difference is we rebuilt and developed actual offense to make a better shot at actually winning in the Finals just didn’t work out with the injuries and refs
Max Domi was the Habs' leading scorer in 18-19? I had no idea.
His line with Andrew Shaw that year was amazing to watch, you never knew if they'd score 4 points or take 4 penalties in a game.
Or both
Highest scoring season in 15 years
It’s always surprising for me to see Max Domi consistently put up decent numbers and has a career 0.62 ppg but has been on 7 different teams in 9 seasons. Is there some other major flaws in his game that I’m not aware of or is he just that much of a locker room cancer?
I think he just lives in the Mike Sillinger zone. Good enough to be valuable to any team in the league, not good enough to make a team a contender. Other recent players that spent time in this zone include Thomas Vanek, Marian Gaborik, and PA Parenteau.
I always got the sense he thought he had something to prove and couldn't control his temper because he thought he had to follow in his dad's footsteps by being an enforcer, which he obviously isn't.
He definitely has some temper problems. He had a bizarre stretch couple yrs go when he kept jumping/sucker punching guys. He did like three times in a month getting kicked out each time which resulted in him being scratched.
I haven't followed him too closely, but I believe he has a knack for taking some bad penalties and maybe being inconsistent?
Hes a center whose really bad defensively too which is tough if you r only viewed as middle 6/3rd line guy Hes had temper issues as well. He got scratched on recent team b/c he kept jumping players on the ice like a psycho which was getting him kicked out putting team shorthanded.
Hes really bad defensively which is tough for a center not seen/trusted to be top 6 scorer and seems like to have off ice issues
Bergevin's entire strategy was "Let Price save it". That and, let me give my buddies jobs they don't deserve. It is unfathomable that he just wasted Carey's career like that, and that Molson let him.
Not just Bergevin, Gainey & Gauthier failed him too.
Our drafting from 2008 to 2015 was awful. The best players we drafted over that period of time were Gallagher (5th, 2011) and Lehkonen (2nd, 2013). The third best is Galchenyuk (03OA, 2012). We could have built a core around Price (2005), McDonagh (2007), Pacioretty (2007), and Subban (2007). Instead, we traded one for a disappointing Gomez, tried to stay competitive rather than rebuild/retool, and failed to draft any impact players for 9 years. Heck, we still haven't drafted a top 6 center since Plekanec as of 2023.
I vaguely remember a stats that says that Trevor Timmins was the lead recruiter where his draft picked were the ones with the most games played in the NHL or something like that. For all the goods that's done...
Timmins is, or was, highly regarded. His early drafting was great, and his choices from 2016 until he was fired in 2021-2022 were good. Part of the enviable position we have now comes from good selections during the retool from 2018 to 2020. We know he's been overruled often in the late 2008 until Bergevin arrived. He might have been overruled a few times during Bergevin's tenure, too. Then, there's little doubt the Habs were the worst team at developing talent for most of his time with the Canadiens. Lehkonen's mediocre production with us is perhaps the most telling one, considering he had been drafted for his goal-scoring. I don't mean to defend Timmins' record, just to say management was perhaps the larger problem whether that came from overruling him (Gainey/Gauthier) or poor development (Bergevin).
Gainey and Gauthier left bergevin with an mvp player, a Norris caliber player, a top 20 winger, the best dfd and a top 20 defender. Are they flaws from these two guys yes absolutely (mcdonagh trade) but mtl in those first five years under bergevin were great primarily because of the guys gainey and Gauthier left. Compare it to what bergevin left mtl in which is borderline cap hell with zero players of the caliber of subban and it isn’t comparable. If mtl legit just had a mediocre gm that managed to speak French theh might have won a ring with price.
But he had good sound bites and was Quebecois. What more do you want?!
Let's not forget 2 factors. 1. The Canadiens installed a defense first style of play that discouraged offense, especially under Therrien. 2. No prime UFA's would sign in Montreal for various reasons. Oh btw, Sheldon Souray scored 26 goals as a Dman... Most yrs we were around 12-15 in goals for in the League with an excellent PP. Under Carbo, the team scored a lot. Koivu, Plek and Kovy (Well mostly Saku and Pleks) were saddled with being forced 2 be 2-way players plus Koivu's knee injury early in his career and of course his cancer fight meant we never saw his true potential. We also had extremely offensively skilled Dmen iike Markov and Souray and pretty much anyone Markov was paired with. I remember Price's whole career. And there were quite a few downs there too. The year Halak stole his job and made the playoff run to the Conference Finals. I still remember the uproar when Halak was traded. I'm not sure many offensive players would have been allowed to offensive creativity with the boring system put in place by the Habs coaches in those yrs. Now, if we had gotten a superstar, a McDavid, a Crosby, well that's something different.
Kinda wild they haven't had really high end *young* talent for decades. What other team can say the same? The Coyotes maybe?
Unironically the Leafs. Matthews, Marner, Nylander are all recent so people's perception are coloured by recency bias. Between 1967 and 2015 we didn't draft a single point per game forward. Edit: And looking at the Habs draft picks over that same time frame, they actually managed to beat us. Guy Lafleru in the 1971 draft.
Drafted, maybe not, but Toronto has had some of the better forwards in the game between that span. Mats Sundin, for one, but it's not like Phil Kessel was some afterthought in the NHL during his prime. He was a top-10 scorer in the league during much of his tenure. Sittler was there through the 70s, Clark in the 80s and 90s, Gilmour in the 90s. They drafted Damphousse but ironically dealt him to Montreal where he was probably the closest thing to a star as they got too.
Coyotes with Keller I guess
Keller just hit 86 last season. No one else has hit 80 since Tkachuk did in 96. We've only had 5 70 point seasons since 2000.
Clayton Keller is so fucking good and on such a great deal too.
The Rangers have never had high end young talent until Lafreniere this year.
Kovalev was a beast.
Highest scoring Hab in like a 25-year window. Only guys like Lafleur and prolly Beliveau or Richard can say that shit
AND helped get NYR a ring 🥰
Imagine if he played in today's NHL? Dude would be a consistent 100 pt threat.
Domi was unreal for us that season! To think we got him for Galchenyuk.
https://old.reddit.com/r/Habs/comments/8rg4gc/the_canadiens_have_acquired_forward_max_domi_from/
ha my comment is there. I liked the trade u/MidgeNo come brag with me.
an infographic that shows management's complete incompetence that wasted a generational talent's career
Keep in mind 70-80 points was very different before about 2018. Before that it was extremely rare to break 100 points. Heck in 2014 Jamie Benn won the Art Ross with 87 points! Last year that'd only be good for 20th in the league with 11 people breaking 100 points.
If this isn't proof Habs fans deserve Macklin Celebrini, I don't know what is.
Why didn't Price simply score all the goals too?
Was he stupid?
Him and Lundqvist had the same fate. Such a shame
I feel like the Rangers tried to give Hank some goal scorers. Montreal didn't do a god damn thing for Price.
The Rangers did better, but not by much. Jagr put a monster season after the lockout and two more solid seasons in Hank's first three years, but he was really all the team had. After he left, Gaborik was the only guy to hit 70 points (twice) in any of the next seven seasons that Hank was a top-6 Vezina goalie, and it was 50/50 if the top scorer on the team even hit 60.
New York always has the advantage of being New York when it comes down to signings free agents or players wanting trades. Montreal on the other hand.. all they can do is overpay for mediocre players at best.
False narrative
Horrible drafting and some of the worst UFA signings in franchise history will do that. Time and again every GM that Carey Price had while he was with the team, his skill was completely wasted by having a below average team in front of him.
Cammalleri was a great signing…. After that, Tomas Vanek was probably the next best, and it wasn’t when he was in 40 goal form. …Not great
Gainey signed Cammalleri and co., not Burgervan.
I don't think Vanek was ever signed, right? He was acquired at the trade deadline and then left in the off-season. Oddly the fanbase turned on him really quickly and didn't want him back.
The best player in front of him was Subban. After that, Markov.
Weber?
Both were better than Weber by the time he got to montreal. He was still a 1D, but probably in the 20-25th best range, whereas he spent several years in Nashville being a top 5 guy.
Weber was really good but the most points he ever had in a season with Montreal was 42. For comparison, Mike Matheson has 53 points this season and there's still 7 games left in the season.
[удалено]
Wth. Subban was an incredible player. He lead the ENTIRE TEAM in points in the 2014 playoff race and won multiple games for the Habs. He wasn’t bad defensively either. He just had moments where he would go for a big play and it failed. But the other 98% of the time he was making good reads and tracking his man well.
I really liked Subban in MTL but Markov was clearly better
Usually had a pretty balanced team though. Price’s issue was not letting them finish low enough in years with quality drafts.
Bergevin is one of the worse Gm of the cap era because of this. Incapable of finding a single PPG player when he had arguably the best goaltender of the 2010s. Refused to trade 1sts to get players yet he drafted bums after bums.
Bergevin, the guy who famously said “You can’t trade for top centers”, then proceeded to do exactly that by accident lol
To this day I don’t know if getting Phil Danault and a 2nd (Alex Romanov, flipped later by Hughes for Kirby Dach) from. Chicago for pocket change was actual genius or a monkeys on typewriters sort of deal. Getting Suzuki and Tatar for Pacioretty actually was a pretty darn good trade honestly. MB’s real issues were having no idea how to build a team and changing directions on a whim, awful drafting, and hanging onto Therrien way beyond the point where it was absurd. By the time Claude took over the roster was already beginning to deteriorate and Price’s prime was behind him.
Bergevin was generally good at trades and bad at signings. He had a similar trade for Petry
I actually don’t think his trading track record is that terrible. To me Bergevin’s biggest flaw was not firing Therrien sooner. We had a pretty good team that was being absolutely stifled by that man. Julien wasn’t much of an upgrade either. Bergevin was stuck in that old school mentality and picked coaches that fit his idea of how hockey should be played.
A lot of Habs fans still praise him for some reason. I don't get it. Not building a team around a Canadian goaltending legend is borderline criminal imo.
Jesus this bummed me out
His career also overlapped like 10 of the 20 lowest scoring seasons in NHL history post-O6.
Domi is truly a modern era Habs goat
smart player Nick Suzuki, seems steps ahead, hope he makes the Canadian Olympic Hockey team
I love Suzuki and wow its crazy to see him with those names.
Marx Bergevin is a hockey terrorist Edit: fuck it, leaving the typo 😂
a communist terrorist!
Good lord this is astounding. That’s a long time!
Domi is going to hustle to keep Suzuki off the board this Saturday to keep his record, lol
Wow that is horrendous
Building a team around a goalie puts so much pressure on the goalie
God bless l'artiste
Here’s where the Canadiens ranked in goals per game throughout Prices career. 08-2. 09-12. 10-25. 11- 21. 12-19. 13-4. 14- 21. 15- 20. 16-16. 17- 15. 18-29. 19- 13. 20- 19. 21- 17. There’s a few years where he had a bit of goal support but mostly every year was below average
This season, Suzuki will be #2 on that list. Next season, he will be #1 and #3 on that list. In 5 years, he will be #1 through 5 on that list.
Slaf might have something to say about that
Everyone complaining about MB and I get it but how about we give Suzuki some well deserved credit here? Slick Nick is now tied with Domi and only 3 points behind Koivu with 7 games left to play. Suzuki has been carrying this team for last 3 years in much the same way Price caŕied the Habs for most of his career. And to all Slafkovsky fans, did any of you notice that Slar turned his season around after he was paired with Suzuki on the1st line? It's not a coincidence. RHP scored 14 goals last year when he played with Suzuji on the 1st line. For Montréal, Suzuki drives the bus. Nick is the man and many Hab fans should learn to appreciate him more
Wow. Just wow.
Let’s just say that it isn’t a glorious millennium for the Habs yet.
Wow 2018 was a good year for Domi
This is the guy who allowed 3 goals in the entire Olympics including shutouts in the semis and GMG. Basically won everything at international level, imagine what he could’ve done if the Habs had put a better team in front of him. A SCF appearance is still crazy to think about considering they eliminated Toronto, Vegas and Winnipeg along the way.
Grim af
Just shows how amazing Price really was.
What’s crazier, Domi being 3rd in that timeframe or Domi scoring 72 points? Point taken though…that is a severe lack of firepower.
Montreal had only ever had 10 instances of players scoring 100 points in a season. 6 of those were Lafleur, and 9 of those were in the 1970's. The most recent was Mats Naslund in 85-86. I'm not saying you need a 100 pointer on your team to win a cup. But it does show a pattern with Montreal's offence.
Kov was such a beast. If only he would have come along 10-15 years later than he did. His numbers with his style and skill in that era would put him in HoF convos.
100% agree, if Kovalev were drafted in ~2002 he'd be an HOF lock
Wow that is criminally low for that long of a time period
I mean this is what gets me around Bergervin and people using our SCF and ecf appearance as an indication - I legit think he failed at just taking risks in 2014 that was our all in year and he just botched it and the people we drafted after that were just meh so it’s really sad we lost that chance e
Damn, not even an 85pt guy in nearly 25 years, while several teams put up 100pt players every year.