Montreal Canadiens (18-9-6, 42 pts): Last season, the Montreal Canadiens were the second best offensive team in the league, finishing with 257 goals, one behind the Ottawa Senators. This season, Montreal has been winning games with defense and goaltending instead of their offense. Their offensive leader, Alexei Kovalev, has only 8 goals, 3 of which came in the last week, after a 19 game scoring drought. 
Thankfully, while the Canadiens’ offense sorts itself out, goaltending phenom Carey Price has compiled a 2.39 GAA while winning 13 out of 22 starts. Price’s success is music to the ears of the Montreal front office, which let go of starter Cristobal Huet last season in favor of the young tandem of Price and Jaroslav Halak. Halak has been less successful when it comes to winning games than Price, but has similar stats.
The Canadiens gotten balanced production from all over the ice this season, but if they are to continue to be successful, Kovalev will eventually need to step up. In the meantime, Robert Lang (11-14-25), Alex Tanguay (10-16-26) and Saku Koivu (7-15-22) appear to be ready to help shoulder the offensive load. Defenseman Andrei Markov (5-21-26) continues to develop into one of the league’s top offensive defensemen. Markov, whose 26 points have him tied with Kovalev for the team lead, has more points than any other defenseman in the Eastern Conference, and is tied for second in the league, behind San Jose’s Dan Boyle.
Kovalev’s offensive woes have devastated Montreal’s once lethal powerplay, but if he can get back on track, the rest of the team looks like they are still ready to perform at a top caliber level and attempt to redeem themselves after last year’s early exit in the 2nd round of the playoffs at the hands of the Flyers.
Current League Rankings
Goals - T-14th Goals Against - 7th Powerplay Goals - 22nd Powerplay Percentage - 25th Shorthanded Goals - T-5th Penalty kill percentage - 15th
