Whiskeylung’s Spooktacular Habs Recap

Whiskeylung’s Spooktacular Habs Recap

It’s Halloween. A night of ghosts, goblins, ghouls, the most boring lineup in the NHL. The Toronto Blue Jays wanting to win it all tonight. And hopefully they do so we can stop talking about it. And maybe the scariest thing of all, Samuel Montbo taking the net tomorrow against the Ottawa Senators. Just joking. I’m being a total hypocrite because I I don’t think it’s a big deal. Goalies have five bad games. It happens. I did it for the Vine. The the the thing is Montreal Canadians are doing great. If Montbo starts clicking and we’ve got Dobh clicking really well as well. We’re laughing. We’re laughing. But I thought I’d take this uh time to do a overview of what’s happened so far this season. Break down where the story lines are at. Talk about what could be in the future. So, let’s do it. Let’s talk about it. I want to treat eight wins, three losses, 16 points, 727 points percentage. Uh they’ve scored 40 goals allowed 33 so far. So generally good offense, middling defense, but enough to get in front of the pack early. Hello playoffs. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. There is still a lot of work to be done. Uh Nick Suzuki centering the team on the first line in the 11 games that he’s played. He scored two goals, 14 assists, 16 points plus nine. That ties him for first overall in points. And and is that first in the league for assists? No, he’s also tied with uh Malcin for 14 with 14 assists. Say something. Nice shoes today. I use tomorrow, guys. Then you have Cole Coughfield with nine goals. Also has four assists to his credit as well. 13 points in 11 games plus seven. His shot percentage 29%. Looking back to this time last year, that was in or around his shot percentage. By the end of the year, it dropped to around 15% which is a lot more realistic. 29%. It’s bonkers. He’s choosing his shots wisely. But this this could be the season where he just stays hot. And then tying things up up front, your Islavski. Five goals, one assist, six points, 11 games, plus four plus minus. Uh he might not have the totals that uh you really want to see from him, but it doesn’t reflect how good he’s been playing. His work in the corners, his physical play, forchecking, definitely assisting in Suzuki’s and Cawfield success. Although it doesn’t it doesn’t always reflect in the numbers, right? I’ll tell you what has been reflecting in the numbers. Your support for this channel. It’s been incredible. We’re at 18,000 subscribers. I thought that we would only reach 18,000 subscribers this month. I mean, November, the month coming up. Uh we’re way ahead of schedule. We might hit 20,000 subscribers before the end of the year, before the end of November even. But I’m going to get to November a little bit. I’m a little bit worried. Even still, I want to encourage you if you like this content to hit the subscribe button. We’d love to have you as part of the community. And uh don’t worry subscribers, you can just hit that like button. It helps me with uh I don’t know what it helps me with, I’ll be honest. Continuing our conversation for our forwards, let’s talk about Alex New Hook. New Hook has four goals, four assists in his 11 games. He’s off to a fantastic start. He’s not just supporting his line, he’s providing pure offense. We all know that New Hook has the speed, but not necessarily puck protection skills and shot selection. So, it’s really it’s heartening to see him off to such a good start in terms of offense. Now, he’s been working with a couple of guys that I think have been helping with that. Specifically, Ivan Demidov, who has two goals, seven assists, nine points in 11 games, leading the rookie point total and assist tally so far. Demidov obviously still being mentioned in Calder conversations, but Matthew Schaefer is doing really well. He’s getting a lot of minutes in New York. And defensively, I’m seeing a lot, you know, left to be desired. But that reminds me of uh Hudson. So, it’s it’s going to be an interesting race towards that Calder trophy this season, especially since we have another candidate on our team with Oliver Kapan. In Kapan’s 11 games, he has four goals, three assists leading to seven points at a plus one. I see a lot of great things in Kapan. I see a hard for checker. I see a hard back checker. I see some defensive responsibility in him. And currently, he is 51% on the dot. That’s good. That’s pretty good. I think that’s like Suzuki stats. Then we have Zack Bulick who has six points altogether with four goals and two assists. He’s lined up with Doc and currently Valeno. and their line, you know, there’s some things that need tuning. Five on five, it’s not the most eye-catching line, but Doc has been putting in the work lately, and I’m seeing great things. And in terms of Bulldick, he has a great shot, and he’s tenacious. So, I continue to be excited about do about Bull Dick. But I wanted to talk about a surprise, and it seems like the surprise has happened twice. We are in the Renaissance. Brennan Gallagher is sitting at six points in 11 games. They’re all assists, but man is he propping up that line. He’s lined up with Evans and Anderson. Anderson has two points along with Evans. Both two points, one goal, one assist each. So, Gallagher is finding his points. Now, on the back end, there’s lots of good stuff to talk about as well. Mike Mat has continued his campaign of smart, sound defense while still putting up insane time on ice. Where’s he at anyway? 27 minutes. 27 minutes. 25 minutes. 27 minutes so far this season. He’s averaging 25 minutes on the ice every single night. If you still don’t think that Mike Mat is a valuable asset to the team, if you’re still all pent up into a rage, a mob mentality about Mike Mat, you’re dead wrong. He’s an extremely important component to this team. His tools are would be so difficult to find at trade deadline. They need to figure something out with Mike Mat or someone else on the team needs to figure out a way to replace him. There there’s going to be contract talks. Noah Dobson, a huge boon to the success of the Montreal Canadian so far this season. Very sound defensively. You might remember there being one very visible slip up, but aside from that, adding offense, adding defense, he’s been great. Hudson obviously extremely important to the offensive side of things. He’s a blue line quarterback. He makes all sorts of things happen and he’s okay with getting in and getting dirty when it comes to putting on offensive pressure. In terms of defense, he is uh a dog. He might not knock his opponents off the puck all the time, but he is putting his stick into the works and jamming up his oppon opponents and using his skating to create difficult to play against situations. Then there is Alexandre Kerier and Kaden Goully. Ghoully of course is out and that hurts. There’s no question we’re better when he is playing. He’s sound defensively. He puts in the work. He’s hard to play against and he’s got a heavy shot offensively. There are some shortcomings. He’s not particularly having the best season yet. And I really hope that he is on the road of uh of recovery, but if you’re going to be injured, this is the the best part of the season to do it. But honestly, and Ker, he’s just been completely a value pick. Worth his weight in gold and such a pest to play against defensively. I don’t know if if others feel this way, but when he does show offensive flashes, it’s like, wow, he he might be really good offensively, but he doesn’t capitalize too often. He’s still able to work the puck around and and he has a decent shot. Jaden Strubel, Arborai. Well, uh we Yeah, maybe we’ll get to those guys. So, we talked about the forwards, we talked about defense. The big the talking point that people like to talk about certainly recently has been Montbo and Doesh. Who is the true first starting goalender? Uh, it’s timely because I just responded to a community member about Dobesh and I think I actually said it pretty succinctly. I think we know what Montbo’s ceiling is and I think we might know what Doesh’s ceiling might be, but it’s not a resting level. he can’t yet produce that level consistently. And with Montebo, he really helped us get into the playoffs last season, but he played a lot. And the numbers where he really shined through wasn’t save percentage. It wasn’t goals against. It was high opportunity save percentage. He he blocked shots that would often go in, which I think lends itself more to the defense not being so great. Now that the defense is tuning up, people are finding holes on Montbo that maybe he’s not the best at uh solving the solution for solving the solution. I mean, finding the solution. You know what I’m You know what I’m talking about. It’s hard to just talk about this stuff like over and over. I don’t know how you see some podcasters just talking a big continuous line of thinking. I’m not I’m not that type of guy. I’m not that’s not me. I think that’s all I want to say about the the goalending situation. Montbo has to climb a mountain right now and Doash just needs to make sure that he’s got secure footholds and not fall down the mountain that he’s currently on. And maybe they can meet in the middle and we would have a beautiful, beautiful tandem. What I’m trying to say is I want you to root for Montebo. I don’t want you to be like, well, Dash is the new hotness. Let’s just uh jump on board that train. No, we want them both to excel. So, the things that are going well, uh, well, the first line is our impact line. Lethal scoring power. Uh, it feels incredible to say that the league is aware of the Montreal first line, and they’re scary right now. It’s speed, lethal, young energy. Defensively, Mat and Dobson are putting up big minutes. The coaching staff obviously trusts them to shut down offensive pushes. And our rookies are showing up in uh in colors. They’re not getting sheltered shifts. Emov is learning defense and as a whole the team is trying to be a do everything team. Being offensively sound and defensively sound at the same time. There are areas of opportunities. However, and maybe areas of opportunities isn’t the right way to say it. Maybe what we should say is where are the questions? Well, let’s get goalending out of the way. Yeah, it would be uh nice if Montembbo was performing just as good as Doesh and they were getting equal starts, but currently Dobesh is showing that he is the individual who should be getting more starts and I think he should be getting more starts and hopefully that’s what happens. There have been times where I have also questioned the rationality of pulling Doash after a shut out. Roll the hot hand. I think it’s it’s time questions around uh defense and depth defense and offensive uh or I should say forward defensive skill sets. They have a great top end, but the bottom six forwards and Arbberjaki and Strubel are they are they reliable night in and night out? I think Strubel has had very consistent play. uh one particular egregious collapse that uh led to the start of a loss, but that’s not a throw the baby out with a bath bath water type thing. Same goes for Arboraki. He started the season great and then you saw his minutes diminish over and over and over where was it for good reason? I think a lot of the times it wasn’t. I think that the mistakes that Arborjakai makes are the same mistakes that Ghouly will make. it is relying too much on other individuals or having too much confidence in other individuals forwards on the team that you think has their opponent, the guy that they’re on. Jakai and Ghoulie I feel will turn off their monitoring of those opponents that are being watched and that’s that’s when something sneaky happens and they get they they’ll get blamed for it. But I I mean I think that Arborjakai does get uh blamed for things that are out of his control more than anybody else on the team. That’s probably a really dumb opinion and it might be showing some of my bias because I think that Arborjaki he’s been muzzled a little bit and he’s lost his identity, but his identity doesn’t necessarily suit the style of play for the Montreal Canadians. So he does need to learn the style that they’re going for. Uh, another question is, will Slavovski continue to get the points trickling in? He’s fine. Six points is is fine. If he continues at the pace that he’s going, he’s going to finish the year with uh well, 44 points actually. He needs to pick it up a little bit. Yeah. So, that is a question. He needs to he needs to start producing a little bit better. And I think that happens naturally. I I I think that the reason why he isn’t picking up as many points as he could be is the way that they break into the zone. He breaks into the zone, he wins a battle, the puck gets to Hudson, the puck gets to Suzuki, the puck gets to Cfield, and it goes in the net. Is he getting a point from that? No. He would have the third assist. I think that that happens a lot. I’m not positive about it. Does somebody want to uh go back and watch all the tape and tell me that is indeed what’s happening? I’m going to guess that that’s what’s happening. The last thing is sustainability. 83 is awesome for a record. The hockey season is long. They need to keep production high, avoid injury, and maintain a good mental uh energy. If they lose like five games in a row, this is not the team that I would count out if that happened, but it affects them. It does affect them. And that brings me to this month’s schedule. So, we all know that they face off against the Senators at 8:00 p.m. on Saturday. and only you get like they’re not playing much uh these next few days but they’re playing on Tuesday against the Flyers and they have the Devils. That’s a tough matchup. And then the Mammoth, another tough matchup on the 11th, the Kings 13th, the Stars. Why is my camera going crazy? Saturday, the Bruins. I really hope they take it to the Bruins. They should be able to. November 17th, Blue Jackets. 20th, Capitals. 22nd, the Leafs. 26th, Mammoth again. 28th, the Golden Knights. 29th, the Aves. This is supposedly their toughest month uh schedulewise. If it goes bad, it could go really bad. If it goes good, they’re really setting themselves up for success. It’s hard to nail down exactly what uh makes a a schedule difficult, but I looking at this, it does it does look like a difficult schedule, but things change all the time. Tampa, they were having a really rough start, but they have surged and come back. My optimism is still skyhigh though. I think that they’ll do fine. There are some must-win type games and there are others that you would really love to see them win and then there are others that uh you you could understand them losing. But what we’re currently seeing, it’s not just a good start. It’s a sign of what this team could become. when your top players like Suzuki, Caulfield, and Slaf are producing and your rookies are stepping up like Demidov, Kain, uh Doesh, and then you have your trusted veterans uh to do the job like Mat, then it’s not just it’s not just luck anymore. It’s not digging deep. It’s not what happened last season necessarily. This is building an identity. It’s building a fast, skilled, aggressive a team that’s willing to win puck battles. a team that’s willing to come back when they’re behind, capable of scoring, uh mindset of being defensively reliable. That’s a that’s a huge shift even just from last year. If what’s currently happening holds, we’re not just looking at a team that is opening up their playoff window. We’re looking at a team that is solidly in a playoff window for years to come. What do you guys think? Do you think this is sustainable? Which player surprised you the most so far this season? What areas do you think that Montreal needs to shore up? Drop your thoughts in the comments. I’d love to hear from you. I hope you had a wonderful Halloween. I’m actually recording this before I go out trick-or-treating. So, wish me luck. My son and I are going out. I think that the rain is actually holding off, but it was supposed to be like torrential downpours. My favorite part about uh trick-or-treating is that my son doesn’t really like a whole lot of the candy bars. So, uh those are mine, especially if there’s peanuts in it, and those are my favorite ones. Thank you so much, everyone. I I appreciate all the support that you you continue to give me. You guys know what to do. Hit that like button. It helps me out with search results maybe. Yeah, search results probably. Subscribe if you’re not already subscribed. I would love to have you as part of this community. And as always, I will see you down in the comments. [Music]

The Montreal Canadiens are off to an incredible 8–3 start, surprising a lot of fans and analysts. It’s not just one player carrying the load — the entire team is contributing.
Nick Suzuki is tied for first in the league in assists and sits top-10 in overall points. Cole Caufield is tied for first in goals. Lane Hutson continues his breakout with top-three production among NHL defensemen, and rookie Ivan Demidov leads all rookies in both points and assists.
Alex Newhook’s strong play has given Montreal a dangerous second-line option, while Juraj Slafkovsky’s physicality, board battles, and forechecking are standing out even when he’s not hitting the scoresheet.
On the back end, Mike Matheson has been rock-solid defensively and logging big minutes. In net, Jakub Dobes has overtaken Sam Montembeault as the go-to starter, giving the Habs a spark between the pipes.
Overall, this team looks fast, confident, and more cohesive than we’ve seen in years — proving that the rebuild is truly starting to bear fruit.

🎶 Music Attribution:
Zelda & Chill
🎧 Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GdzrrWA8e7A&t=71s
🎧 Playlist: YouTube ▸ https://www.youtube.com/user/gamechops
🎹 Music and Artwork by Mikel
Mastered by Dj Cutman
Composed by Koji Kondo, Manaka Kataoka, Yasuaki Iwata, Toru Minegishi
Originally from the Zelda series

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