Thursday night was all Habs for the first 40 minutes as the kids showed up to play, the veterans followed suit, and the fans in attendance were treated to a big fight, Juraj Slafkovsky’s first, and total domination by the home team who is now 3-0 on home ice this season while playing some offensive and entertaining hockey as they beat Arizona 6-2.
After losing two straight on the road, the Habs returned home on Monday night to take on Pittsburgh. They found themselves down two in the third period but completed the comeback, eventually securing a 3-2 overtime victory.
After a preseason to forget, the Habs were at least able to kick off their regular season on a winning note before dropping their first two road games of the campaign. Plus, some thoughts on Juraj Slafkovsky’s usage so far.
The Habs had the lead early in the second period on Saturday in Washington but allowed three unanswered before the middle frame came to an end. That was the difference as they fell to the Capitals 3-1.
Jake Allen held down the fort early and often on Friday night but the Habs couldn’t muster up anything offensively as they fell 3-0 to Detroit in their first road game of the season.
The Canadiens will be running with a very inexperienced back end for a while as the team announced Thursday night that Mike Matheson will be out for two months due to an abdominal muscle strain.
Topics in this edition of the HW Podcast include Montreal’s season-opening victory over Toronto, discussion regarding the many rookies in their lineup, their prospect pool, and much more.
A Montreal squad filled with rookies took on the heavily-favoured Maple Leafs to open up the season on Wednesday and looked entirely like they belonged. A great effort helped them squeak out a last-minute victory for the 4-3 win with 17 seconds left in the game.
Last season, Nick Suzuki led the Habs in scoring for the first time in his career. Now, as the newly-minted captain begins his eight-year contract, can he build upon his production from last season?
Monday was the final cutdown day in the NHL with teams having to have their season-opening rosters set by 5 PM ET and with the Habs carrying a lot of players still, they had some work to do to get to that point and those moves have now been made.