March 3 1920: Canadiens Fire 16 into Quebec’s Net

Newsy Lalonde records four goals in a 16-3 win over the Quebec 03/03/1920.

A 16-3 score sounds like a preliminary IIHF match between Canada and Japan, but on March 3 1920 the Montreal Canadiens set an NHL record with 16 goals against the Quebec Bulldogs. The 13 goal differential also stands as a franchise record in Montreal.

Now to be fair the Bulldogs, despite the presence of scoring leader Joe Malone, were the basement dwellers of the league and would be playing their last season in Quebec before moving to Hamilton.

In the first half of the 1919-20 season, the Bulldogs surrendered 81 goals in a dozen games. Including the March 3 game, they allowed another 96 in the final twelve, wining just four games all season.

To add salt to the wound, Quebec would face the Canadiens that Wednesday evening with goaltender Frank Brophy playing with a strained ligament in his thigh.

So with their goalie’s mobility limited, the already weak defended Bulldogs were at the mercy of the defending NHL champions and their top-ranked scorers.

The lone injury for Montreal that night was defenseman Bert Corbeau, who took ill just before game time and had to be helped onto the train afterwards.

The game was pretty much over after the first period by which time Montreal had a 4-0 lead. Didier Pitre already had three goals in the first period, and Odie Cleghorn had the other.

Seven Goals in a Period

The second period would see another Canadiens benchmark. Newsy Lalonde would score three goals, rearguard Harry Cameron would score the first two of his record setting four goals and Cleghorn and Amos Arbour added singles to give Montreal a team record seven goals in the period. That record has been matched six other times, the most recent in 1987.

Four Habs Score Three or More Goals

Lalonde scored his fourth goal in the third period, and Cleghorn became the third Canadiens player to record three or more goals that evening.

Arbour notched his second of the night and Cameron’s third and fourth goals set a team record for Habs defensemen that has only been equaled once since (Sprague Cleghorn – 1922).

To date, no other NHL team has had a game in which four players recorded three or more goals.

Odie Cleghorn

Malone managed to get  one of his league leading 39 goals that night for Quebec, but on that March night he would have needed a whole team of Malones to match the Canadiens.

Canadiens Halloween Birthday Greetings

October 31 is not just a night for trick-or-treaters, but also a birthday for a few Habs player both past and present.

A Happy 50th Birthday to former Canadiens great Mats Naslund.

The cup-winning winger, dubbed “The Little Viking”, ranks 11th in career points with 612 in 617 regular season games.

Naslund was also a member of the Canadiens 1985-86 Stanley Cup winning team and won the Lady Byng Trophy in 1987-88.

Already as star player in Sweden, before joining the Canadiens, he is in the International Ice Hockey Federation’s Hall of Fame.

 

 Former center Phil Goyette turns 76 years old.

Goyette played in seven seasons with Montreal (1956-63), playing on the last four of the Canadiens five straight Stanley Cup teams.

He played nine more seasons in the NHL, amassing 674 points in 941 games.

 

Current Canadiens center Tomas Plekanec turns 27.

Plekanec is having a great start to the 2009-10 season with 10 points in his first thirteen games.

Hopefully Pleky can celebrate tonight by lighting up the Maple Leafs!

 

and most importantly…

Though no longer with us, one of the Montreal Canadiens first superstars was born on this day in 1887.

Edouard “Newsy” Lalonde  was a member of the Canadiens in their first season (1909-10) and scored 16 goals in just six games.

He would be a member of Montreal’s first Stanley Cup winning team (1915-16), and was captain on three occasions.

He was a player-coach for seven seasons (1915-22).

After retiring as a player in 1928, he returned to Montreal four years later as the team’s bench boss for two full seasons and part of a third.

Lalonde was elected to the Hockey Hall Of Fame in 1950.

The Canadiens first captain would be 130 years old today.

Jean-Baptiste “Jack” Laviolette was born in Belleville, ON on this day, in 1879.

Growing up in Valleyfield, QC, Laviolette was a two sport star athlete in both lacrosse and hockey and eventually gained stardom, in the International Hockey League, with the Michigan-Soo Indians before joining the Montreal Shamrocks in 1907.

Laviolette as a member of the Michigan-Soo Indians

In the the late fall of 1909, he was approached by J. Ambrose O’Brien, to not only play, but also captain, coach and assemble a new French-speaking pro hockey team in Montreal for the newly formed NHA.

He quickly worked to bring on long-time friend Didier Pitre and Edouard “Newsy” Lalonde to the new franchise.

As exciting a chance it appeared to be for Laviolette, the ambitious challenge soon turned to discomfort as the Canadiens finished dead last in their first season with a 2-12 record.

Laviolette turned the captaincy of the team over to Lalonde the following season, and brought in a goaltender by the name of Georges Vezina. The team improved to .500 that year, but failed to reach the playoffs.

Laviolette found himself captain again in 1911-12 when Lalonde left the Canadiens.

The struggling start to the franchise would later become success as  the Canadiens won their first Stanley Cup championship in 1916. By that time, Laviolette was only with the team in a playing capacity.

The Canadiens claimed a second NHA title the following season, but they would lose to Seattle in their quest to repeat as Stanley Cup champions.

In the 1917-18 season, the Canadiens were part of the newly formed NHL.  Montreal would take first place that season.

His playing career ended in the spring of 1918 when he lost his right foot in a car crash. The Canadiens held a benefit game, for their first on and off-ice leader, in 1921 where Laviolette participated as a referee.

Laviolette died in 1960, and would be inducted, as a lacrosse player, into the Canadian Sports Hall of Fame later that same year.

He would become an honored member of the Hockey Hall of Fame, posthumously, two years later.

Montreal Canadiens features from the National Film Board of Canada

Show of hands, how many of you remember those old National Film Board films that they showed in school?

How many of you dozed off only to be woke up by the sound of the film crunching through the projector?

Now, if the school teachers had shown the film selections I discovered on the NFB’s website, we might have paid attention more.

I’ve pulled three films for our Habs film fest. Get out your popcorn and enjoy.

First up is  one of the NFB’s most popular films.

 Sheldon Cohen’s “The Sweater”

This 1980 animated short is based on Roch Carrier’s book “The Hockey Sweater”

Carrier recounts the most mortifying moment of his childhood.

At a time when all his friends worshipped Maurice "Rocket" Richard and wore his number 9 Canadiens hockey jersey, he was mistakenly sent a Toronto Maple Leafs jersey from Eaton's.

Unable to convince his mother to send it back, he must face his friends wearing the colors of the opposing team.

 

 

 Leslie McFarlane’s 1953 short “Here’s Hockey”.

Featuring Jean Beliveau, this short film focuses on hockey from the inside out.

Known as Canada's national pastime, this film demonstrates why hockey is such an exciting spectator sport. From east to west, the connection between fans and players is evident in the excited cries of "we've won!"

From Pee-Wee to Bantam, from the Canadian Amateur Hockey Association to the big league pros, Here's Hockey! shows what it takes to make a great hockey player.

 

 

And now, our feature presentation.

Jacques Payette’s 1998 film “The Rocket”

This 42 minute documentary features rare footage along with interviews from journalists, photographers, former NHL President Clarence Campbell, Canadiens GM Frank Selke, referee Red Storey, Emile “Butch” Bouchard, and Maurice Richard himself.

Who will lead them?

Well the Montreal Canadiens roster officially got trimmed by one more player.

Despite a “rally of the masses” on Sunday afternoon at the Bell Centre, Habs GM Bob Gainey told CJAD radio on Monday that Alex Kovalev would not be returning.

 Fans rallied Sunday to keep Alex Kovalev in Montreal

Hours later, Kovalev took the money ($10 million over two years) and ran up the highway to Ottawa Senators.

The Northeast Division will be fun to watch this season without a doubt.

With Kovalev’s departure and the likely signing of Saku Koivu to either Buffalo, Atlanta, Anaheim or whatever square Eklund’s rumor dart hit this afternoon, this leaves the captain and all assistant captains off to greener pastures.

Mike Komisarek defected to the Toronto Maple Leafs on July 1 and Christopher Higgins was traded to the New York Rangers on June 30.

The question now has to be asked, who will be the next captain?

Andrei Markov has been an assistant captain in the past but is unlikely as a captain.

You have to remember that Koivu was criticized for not speaking French. Markov can barely speak English so it’s safe to rule him out.

The Kostitsyn brothers??? Georges Laraque ??? Forget it!

Scott Gomez seems to be an early popular choice, despite not playing one game for the Canadiens.

Sorry Mr. Gomez, but there’s too much tradition to just walk in and take the “C”.

Ditto for Mike Cammalleri and Brian Gionta.

All likelihood two of these three will be alternate captains.

Young bucks Josh Gorges, Maxim Lapierre and maybe Guillaume Latendresse would be a good choices as an alternate captains in my opinion, but I feel none of this trio is at a full leadership level.

Roman Hamrlik is the long-time veteran on the team, but could be moved before the start of the season.

In any event, the Canadiens have never gone without a captain in their history.

Jean Beliveau is the Canadiens’ longest serving captain

Guy Carbonneau and Chris Chelios alternated months in the 1989-90 season when the team vote was as close as the Quebec Referendum vote.

The captaincy of the Montreal Canadiens has always been voted on by the players, so ultimately it will be up to the final roster when it is set sometime in late September.

The players may elect to go a shared route in the 2009-10 season.

Either way, that individual is the go-to man by the fans and media of a team with 100 years of history, and 16 years and counting without a Stanley Cup.

Preferably I want a long standing captain like Koivu (win or lose), and not a revolving door that we saw in the mid-90’s.

But let’s not rule out the current captain just yet, shall we?

List of Montreal Canadiens Captains

Jack Laviolette           1909-10	Emile Bouchard                    1948-56
Newsy Lalonde            1910-11	Maurice Richard                   1956-60
Jack Laviolette           1911-12	Doug Harvey                        1960-61
Newsy Lalonde            1912-13	Jean Beliveau                       1961-71
Jimmy Gardner           1913-15	Henri Richard                       1971-75
Howard McNamara      1915-16	Yvan Cournoyer                    1975-79
Newsy Lalonde            1916-22	Serge Savard                       1979-81
Sprague Cleghorn        1922-25	Bob Gainey                          1981-89
Billy Coutu                  1925-26	G. Carbonneau/C. Chelios    1989-90
Sylvio Mantha             1926-32	Guy Carbonneau                   1990-94
George Hainsworth     1932-33	Kirk Muller                           1994-95
Sylvio Mantha             1933-36	Mike Keane          Apr – Dec       1995
Albert “Babe” Seibert  1936-39	Pierre Turgeon                     1995-96
Walter Buswell            1939-40	Vincent Damphousse             1996-99
Hector “Toe” Blake     1940-48	Saku Koivu                           1999-??
Bill Durnan    Jan – Apr      1948