The Montreal Canadiens home opener did what great sports moments are supposed to do: it brought us all a little flash of joy. And I don’t need to tell you that we all desperately need a wee bit of exuberance and elation at this exact moment in history.
The warm fuzzy feelings in the Habs Nation started gathering steam Monday morning when the team announced that after months of negotiations they had signed Calder Trophy-winning defenceman Lane Hutson to a long-term deal. Fans love the 21-year-old D-man from Michigan for the very good reason that he is one of the most exciting players to join the team in, oh, 50 years or so.
But it’s more than that. With that signing, Habs management has now locked up its young core for the next several years, a core that includes Hutson, captain Nick Suzuki, Cole Caufield, Juraj Slafkovsky, Noah Dobson and Kaiden Guhle. Even better, with the exception of Dobson, whom they had to pay more for because they picked him up in a trade, all of the players they signed long-term were developed from within and all have team-friendly deals. In other words, they’re leaving money so the team can go pay for a stellar supporting cast.
Fans also love this state of affairs, which is why not one single person was grumbling on Tuesday when team president Geoff Molson announced that he had signed contract extensions for senior managers Jeff Gorton and Kent Hughes. Molson also promoted Gorton to the position of president of hockey operations. Hughes remains general manager.
Then came the home opener Tuesday. First off came the tribute to Ken Dryden, one of the Canadiens’ greatest-ever net-minders. The homage was awesome, of course, because Montreal does these things like no one else in professional sports. They also do opening ceremonies like no other and Tuesday was no exception.
I loved the out-of-the-box idea that each player got to choose the song they skated on to the ice to — some of the coolest being Metallica’s Enter Sandman for Brendan Gallagher and Three Days Grace’s Animal I Have Become for Ivan Demidov. Clearly the team’s two hard rockers! The three francophone players — Samuel Montembeault, Alexandre Carrier and Zach Bolduc — all picked French-language songs. My theory is they clearly spent the summer reading my book on French identity and the Habs, Le CH et son peuple. (Haha.)
For a while there, I thought the game was going to throw a wet blanket on all this positive thinking. It was not particularly exciting hockey for large stretches and it looked like Montreal might well lose it when they went down 4-3 in the third. Then came the kind of theatrics this young team delights in doing. Demidov scored an absolute beauty to knot it up at 4-4 and then in overtime, Hutson showed why he’s worth every penny of the $70.8 million he’s going to be getting under the new contract. He danced around the opposition and while their heads were spinning, he sent the puck over to Caufield, who ripped one in off the goalie.
Magic. I was walking around Old Montreal after the game and the streets were literally buzzing with Habs chatter. Fun.
Before the game, it was a sea of Habs jerseys outside the Bell Centre and hot on the heels of the contract extensions for Hutson, Gorton and Hughes and with the first game in the home barn just minutes away, fans were positively pumped in a way they haven’t been in years.
“I’m super excited for the season, I think we have such a promising team,” said James Gauthier. “Everyone’s bought in, all with a common goal. All rooting for each other, just hanging out when they’re not playing. And that can only be positive in the long run. So I love it.”
I tell Gauthier that there’s a sense of community that wasn’t there before.
“It’s a family,” said Gauthier.
I mention those images many of us saw from Monday’s practice when coach Martin St. Louis told everyone on the ice that Hutson had signed long-term with the team. They all just start hugging and congratulating their teammate. Honestly I got a little choked up watching it.
“I’ve never seen a team that bonded together like this,” said Gauthier.
Jaideep Kanungo, who grew up a hardcore Habs fan in Edmonton (?!?), came all the way from Calgary with his partner and their young son to catch the home opener and like Gauthier — and everyone else in the Habs universe — Kanungo sees a new culture in and around this team and he loves it. A perfect example he noted is Hutson signing for less than he could probably have gotten.
“It just shows how committed he is to the team, how committed he is to the winning,” said Kanungo. “Above all it shows how Kent Hughes, Nick Suzuki, all those guys have set a culture that’s a collective. It’s not about the money. They care about the experience. They care about the team. You look back to the Pierre Gauthier years or the (Marc) Bergevin years, there was always some drama… you look now, there’s no drama. They’re a professional team. I think it starts with Kent Hughes and Jeff Gorton. They’re really professional. They clearly have experience managing players. But I think it comes from Nick Suzuki, too.”
That’s exactly what you’re seeing. The players are indeed a family, but even more importantly the team and the fans feel like more of a community than has been the case in a long, long time.
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