MONTREAL -- A half-dozen games into the abbreviated 2021 NHL season, the Montreal Canadiens play at home for the first time tonight when they host the Calgary Flames at the Bell Centre in the first of two games against the Albertans.
Cheers, boos, music and all other crowd noises will be piped in through the arena's sound system as fans are swapped for inanimate banners and advertising placards.
After a solid road trip to start the season, the Habs are looking to continue their hot start in the all-Canadian North Division.
SO FAR, SO GOOD
Led by first star of the week new face Tyler Toffoli, who ripped apart his former team (five goals, three asssists) when the Habs played the Vancouver Canucks three times on the Pacific Coast, Montreal is two points off division leader Toronto with two games in hand, and scoring at a quality pace.
Two overtime losses aside, the Canadiens picked up where they left off in the playoffs last season scoring at a stellar rate with a plus-11 goal differential: top of the division by four.
Sixteen different Habs have scored thus far including newbies Toffoli, Josh Anderson, Joel Edmundson, Corey Perry and rookie Alexander Romanov.
The Flames are coming off back-to-back losses to the Maple Leafs after beating the Canucks twice and losing in overtime to the Winnipeg Jets to start the season.
BACK IN THE DAY RIVALRY REBORN
In a note for the boomers, the Habs have a chance to rekindle a rivalry dating back to the Brian Mulroney administration this season against Calgary.
In the '80s Canadian teams actually won the Stanley Cup and they won it a lot.
The Flames' one Stanley Cup win in 1989 was against the Habs, and Montreal's sole cup of the '80s was in 1986 against the Flames.
This season's all-Canadian division will give plenty of opportunities for demo-reel editors to haul out footage of Bobby Smith, Hakan Loob and Kjell Dahlin and remind everyone who those people are, as well as giving a kind reminder of a) how old they are and b) how long it's been since any city administration north of the border has had to plan parade logistics.
Lawn chair sales have been depressingly steady for decades.
In fact, the Habs went from playing three teams (Boston, Tampa Bay and Detroit) with a relatively recent memory of drinking bubbly out of the world's most soiled communal cup (when's that ever going to happen again?) to being the team in the division that most recently won it!
...twenty-eight years ago!
BENCH BUDDIES
Habs head coach Claude Julien will see a friendly face when he looks across the ice at his former protege in Flames bench boss Geoff Ward.
Ward was one of Julien's assistants on the Canadian Junior Team in 2000 and later when Julien led the Hamilton Bulldogs in the AHL and the 2011 Cup-winning Boston Bruins.
NOT BUDDIES AT ALL
He may not wear the black-and-yellow sweater of the New England hockey franchise anymore, but it's a safe bet that even the banners wrapping the empty seats in the Bell Centre will be sending unkind vibes towards Flames no. 17: Milan Lucic.
Fans at home under curfew will remember the former Bruin bruiser threatening Dale Weise and Alexei Emelin in 2014 after Boston was sent packing from the playoffs, and Lucic will surely remember the sight of the RICOH advertising banner coming at him fast after Cale Fleury put him on his back in January last year.
Keep an eye on the skating patterns of hits leaders Edmundson (18), Romanov (15) and Ben Chiarot (14) when Lucic is on the ice with them.
BEWARE OF THE GUY NAMED HOCKEY
Montreal has been scoring at a solid pace, but have also been letting a few past that maybe, should have, could have, would have stayed on the other side of Carey Price's slick new red TRUE Hockey pads (he switched from CCM).
Johnny "Hockey" Gaudreau (four goals, three assists), Sean Monahan (two goals, five assists) and Elias Lindholm (two goals three assists) have all started out the season hot for the Flames, and for those Habs fans happy about not having to hear the words Brad and Marchand spoken in the same sentence when noting the opposing roster, get ready for elite-level agitator Matthew Tkachuk (three goals, one assist), who scores, plays solid defence and get a fan ready to risk a $1,500 ticket for charging to the centre of Montreal during curfew with the best of them.
Game on.
Puck drop is at 7 p.m., and the two teams do it again Saturday.
