Contrary to the numeral suggesting otherwise, this not yet another centennial number related post. Simply, I received a letter over the New Year’s weekend from a woman named Louise Charpentier that went like this:

Dear Robert, I'm a long time reader of your site and have been a Canadiens fan since 1973. My father, who is 74 has been following them since the days of the Rocket. We're having a debate over how many players have scored 100 goals in a Canadiens uniform. I can guess about 35, my father says at least 75. Who's right and who's closest?

Well Louise, your father is off by 19 and you are off by 21!

There have been 56 players in 100 seasons that have reached the 100 regular season goal total. Two of the players on your list, Michael Ryder (99) and Richard Zednik (98) fell just shy.

Here are the 56 players in order. The list is surprising in a sense, as I would have been certain that some players would have had more and ranked higher. It also knocks me out the Newsy is still tenth after all this time.

For the curious, the three highest ranked present day Habs are Tomas Plekanec (88), Andrei Markov (77), and Andrei Kostitsyn (64).

1 Maurice Richard 544

2 Guy Lafleur 518

3 Jean Beliveau 507

4 Yvan Cournoyer 428

5 Steve Shutt 408

6 Bernie Geoffrion 371

7 Jacques Lemaire 366

8 Henri Richard 358 

9 Aurele Joliat 270

10 Newsy Lalonde 266

11 Mario Tremblay 258

12 Howie Morenz 257

13 Dickie Moore 254

14 Claude Provost 254

15 Mats Naslund 243

16 Bob Gainey 239

17 Toe Blake 235

18 Stephane Richer 225

19 Peter Mahovlich 223

20 Guy Carbonneau 221

21 Didier Pitre 220

22 Elmer Lach 215

23 Ralph Backstrom 215

24 Bobby Rousseau 200

25 Larry Robinson 197

26 Pierre Mondou 194

27 Saku Koivu 191

28 Vincent Damphousse 184

29 Yvon Lambert 181

30 Bobby Smith 172

31 Shayne Corson 168

32 Gilles Tremblay 168

33 Guy Lapointe 166

34 Mike McPhee 162

35 Rejean Houle 161

36 Brian Savage 155

37 Mark Napier 145

38 John Ferguson 145

39 Pit Lepine 143

40 Ryan Walter 141

41 Martin Rucinsky 134

42 Ken Mosdell 132

43 Frank Mahovlich 129

44 Mark Recchi 120 

45 Claude Larose 117

46 Doug Risebrough 117

47 Johnny Gagnon 115

48 Don Marshall 114

49 Pierre Larouche 110

50 Floyd Curry 105

51 Kirk Muller 104

52 Stephane Lebeau 104

53 Bert Olmstead 103

54 Billy Reay 103

55 Alex Kovalev 103

56 Serge Savard 100