Montreal Canadiens Set New NHL Record In The Worst Way

The Montreal Canadiens’ season has been filled with such bad luck on the injury front that they’ve broken a nearly 20-year-old record previously held by the 03-04 Los Angeles Kings for the most amount of games lost to injury.

The previous record was a total of 629 games lost, which the Canadiens have now easily surpassed that mark as they sit at 700 games lost to injury. What’s even worse is that the Montreal Canadiens still have six games left to play this season, which means they’ll continue to set a new record on a daily basis. The losses of Jake Allen, Jonathan Drouin and Justin Barron for the rest of the season, coupled with Shea Weber remaining on LTIR all season long, will likely push the Canadiens to the mark of approximately 730 games lost to injury, thus obliterating the previous record held by the Kings by 100 games.

It really goes to show how unlucky the Canadiens have been this season when it comes to injuries and Covid protocol placements this season. In fact, Nick Suzuki is the only player in the entire Canadiens organization that hasn’t missed any time this season; having played in all 76 games for the Canadiens this season. For our superstitious readers, wood was most certainly knocked on as the previous sentence was written.

If the Montreal Canadiens stopped playing hockey today it would take the Calgary Flames over 549 more games to catch them in number of games missed by injured players https://t.co/gIIRe0dzxO pic.twitter.com/hs6vDkXgBm

— Man-Games Lost NHL (@ManGamesLostNHL) April 2, 2022

More Records Broken For The Montreal Canadiens

The Canadiens set a new record on Friday night that has also caught the eye of many statisticians across the league, as Carey Price‘s return meant he was the 46th different player to suit up for Montreal this season. It tied a record for the Canadiens that was set way back in the 2000-2001 season; another injury-filled year and one of the worst on record in Canadiens history.

To have 46 players suit up for one team in any given season is impressive. It’s the equivalent of having iced two distinctly different 23-man rosters throughout the season. The Canadiens utilized every single player they had on contract in the professional ranks this season with the exception of Weber, JS Dea and Joël Teasdale, who only came back from his knee surgery in late January.

With the Montreal Canadiens historically diffcult season set to end in the next two weeks, it’s important to remember the never-before-seen adversity they had to overcome. With Martin St. Louis likely returning as head coach next year, one can assume a bounce back season is in the cards for the Bleu Blanc Rouge, as they’re bound to have more luck on the injury front next season.

Carey Price sera le 46e joueur à disputer un match avec les Canadiens cette saison.

Cela égalera la marque d'équipe établie lors de la saison 2000-2001 @RDSca #CH

— Patrick Friolet (@PFrioletRDS) April 15, 2022