Mr Viral
The Montreal Canadiens truly could not have given us a better week of hockey than the one they just delivered right before Christmas.
The Tricolor secured three victories, including two total dominations, scored 14 goals, allowed only five, and provided us with some wonderful emotions throughout the week.
It was really enjoyable and fun to watch the Habs this week, as the team played some excellent hockey.
Well, I know it was against the Buffalo Sabres and the Detroit Red Wings (twice), but still, the Habs won those matches.
Last night, the beautiful 5-1 victory of the Habs against the Red Wings allowed Martin St-Louis’s group to climb to 6th place in their division and get within seven points of the Ottawa Senators, who are in the last playoff spot.
However, what captures attention, well before the standings among Habs fans, are the performances and individual statistics of the players.
And the ones that stand out the most are those concerning a certain Patrik Laine.
With his 8th power-play goal last night, the Finnish sharpshooter now ranks 2nd in the entire NHL for power-play goals since the start of the season.
Patrik Laine is now tied for SECOND in the NHL in powerplay goals (8).
He’s played in 9 games this season. #GoHabsGo
pic.twitter.com/VWrDpz2fSN
— NHL News (@PuckReportNHL) December 22, 2024
Only Brayden Point has more than Laine with 11, and three players (Andrei Svechnikov, Brady Tkachuk, and Kyle Connor) also have eight, tied with number 92 of the Habs.
It’s completely crazy that Laine is already 2nd, considering he has only played nine games this season.
If he keeps up this pace, he will catch Brayden Point fairly quickly and take the lead in this statistic.
What is even crazier with Laine is that all his goals have been scored this month, in December.
In fact, for the entire month, practically all NHL teams haven’t scored as many power-play goals as Laine has.
Indeed, with eight goals, Laine has more power-play goals in December than 26 NHL teams.
(Credit: NHL.com)
In 3rd place, we can replace “Montreal Canadiens” with Patrik Laine, given that Laine counts all the power-play goals for the Habs since he returned to play.
In short, Laine has completely changed the Tricolor and brought a breath of fresh air into the locker room.
You can see on the players’ faces how impressed they are by Laine and how happy they are when he scores.
What also helps a lot is that Laine seems very humble. He doesn’t get a big head and just does his job by scoring goals.
In fact, yesterday, he was more focused on feeding his teammates than anything else during the five-on-five play.
On his goal, he was clearly looking to connect with Juraj Slafkovsky, but Ben Chiarot deflected the puck just before.
And later in the game, Laine tried the same pass for Slaf again while also looking for Cole Caufield throughout the power play.
You can see that Laine doesn’t want to steal the spotlight from anyone, and above all, he respects the fact that Caufield was the team’s scorer before he returned to play.
Laine took Caufield’s place on the left side of the power play, and since Laine’s return, Caufield has only scored one goal in nine games.
Nonetheless, Caufield has eight points during that same stretch.
In short, Laine clearly wanted to see Caufield score, but that will be for another time, hoping that Caufield will start finding the net again soon.
In Brief
– We wish Anthony Marcotte a speedy recovery.
A loss of voice has taken its toll on me. I will not be able to cover the Rocket today for the game against Springfield at 3 p.m. Colleagues @cedrikblondin and @VDemuy will take over. Nothing to do in such times…
— Anthony Marcotte (@anthonymarcotte) December 22, 2024
– Bravo!
So far this season Brendan Gallagher (227 goals) has passed Guy Carbonneau (221), Pete Mahovlich (223), Stéphane Richer (225), and Max Pacioretty (226) for most goals with the Montreal Canadiens.
Tomas Plekanec (233) is next! pic.twitter.com/gnfD5qFgbG
— Andrew Zadarnowski (@AZadarski) December 22, 2024
– Ouch.
Most 13-game losing streaks in the cap era:
3 — Buffalo Sabres
No one else has more than 1. pic.twitter.com/4zseTx6iaO
— Big Head Hockey (@BigHeadHcky) December 22, 2024
– Indeed.
He was not just a good goal thief, he excelled in all facets of the game. https://t.co/7k4NJVuybP
— Passion MLB (@passion_mlb) December 22, 2024
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