In the span of 36 hours over Monday and Tuesday, the Montreal Canadiens locked up three key pieces of their organization’s future and won their home opener.
The three extensions – Lane Hutson for eight years on Monday, and the men leading their hockey operations department Jeff Gorton and Kent Hughes for five years on Tuesday – weren’t franchise altering, but they were a statement of what we already knew: the Montreal Canadiens are on the right track.
The result on Tuesday night against the Seattle Kraken in their home opener was, relatively, inconsequential but two points is two points. For the second straight year, the Canadiens started the season with two wins in their first three games. Last year, however, they didn’t get to their third win until game eight. This year, they got it done in four.
Last year, an October loss at home to Seattle was their fifth loss in seven games and the start of a six-game losing streak. While Tuesday’s 5-4 win wasn’t pretty, it was a lot less ugly than their 8-2 loss last October 29. What a difference a year makes.
It was fitting that Cole Caufield was the one to end it because he was the one who got it started.
Not only was Caufield the first player to be introduced on Tuesday night after the great tribute to Ken Dryden, but he was the first player of the core to be locked up by Gorton and Hughes. Of course he wasn’t the first one to sign, that was Nick Suzuki but that contract was signed by Marc Bergevin.
Caufield was the first player to lock in and buy-in to the team’s internal cap structure that Suzuki’s contract set. Contracts to Juraj Slafkovský, Kaiden Guhle, and Hutson followed. The other hero from Tuesday, Ivan Demidov, will likely come this summer.
The big difference this season is not just that the Canadiens are expected to compete and do well, but in three of their first four games, they had to deal with a new phenomenon, especially in Octobers in recent memory. They went into a game knowing they were the better team.
Now, that doesn’t always translate to what happened in Detroit where they got an easy win. The games against Chicago and Seattle were closer than maybe they should have been, but when those games ended, Montreal still ended up with the two points.
There will be a downturn. This team isn’t good enough, consistent enough, or deep enough to go through 82 games without one, especially this season. Having said that, the Canadiens are in a great spot. They are the youngest team in the league despite competing for a playoff spot, and their young core has bought in, and are working with management to give them an even better chance at competing than their talent alone will provide.
Like Caufield’s choice of introduction song on Tuesday night says: that ain’t working, that’s the way you do it. Money for nothin’.
