Is the Canadian season still useful? Sure. Of the matches, there are 41 left to play, exactly half the way to go. Also, in the lot, there are still important dates that will mark this second half of the 2022-2023 season for all the right reasons. Or maybe not.
January 12
That’s the date of the team’s next game, which will be presented at the Bell Center against the Nashville Predators. This date will allow the Canadian to begin the second half of the season, a pivotal moment when team leaders are used to looking at the general classification to decide what to do next. On this subject, the Canadian is at 27e rank at the time of this writing, which suggests that the odds of a playoff berth are now like a Pixar movie: fantasy. This is also the time when the Bell Center press gallery will become increasingly narrow, due to the growing number of recruiters who will be settling there in the coming weeks. Finally, and at least, that night will allow fans to applaud someone, in this case PK Subban, who the organization will honor for all the right reasons.
January 24
Can you believe that it is on this date that the Canadian will meet the Boston Bruins for the first time this season? Eh yes. In the good old days of 21 clubs, CH and Bruins were already at least into a fourth all-around fight around this time in late January. But because of the vagaries of the “new” NHL calendar, it will be on this date, at the Bell Centre, that we will finally be able to see the best team in the NHL for the first time in 2022-2023. It is far from being a good deal, and we will add that it is quite complicated to maintain a rivalry with an opponent that we no longer see.
PHOTO JAE C. HONG, ASSOCIATED PRESS ARCHIVES
Patrice Bergeron and David Pastrnak, Boston Bruins
1er february
Beginning of the Canadiens’ bye week, with the next game only to be played on Super Bowl weekend, February 11. Bad tongues might say that the Canadiens don’t need a week off, since some of their players are used to taking the day off most nights anyway, but we won’t go there.
February 14th
On this Valentine’s Day, why not take your loved one to the Bell Center for an evening against the Chicago Blackhawks that promises to be nothing short of magical? A popular resale site was offering tickets to the heights of the Bell Center for the modest sum of $60 on Tuesday afternoon, but this is an amount that could drop below $20 the same morning, according to our estimates.
3rd of March
The mother of all dates. Today, at 3 p.m., is the NHL trade deadline for this season. We will not waste time here listing all the potential candidates for a move. There are too many of them, so we’ll save time by naming only those who are probably the untouchables, in our humble opinion: Cole Caufield, Nick Suzuki, Kaiden Guhle, Jordan Harris, Juraj Slafkovsky and Kirby Dach. That is just about everything. Others may live in fear and apprehension (perhaps also in excitement) staring at their phone screen until that date.
April 13, date of the last match
At last ! That’s when this season of misery will come to an end, and we can get down to business: non-stop abacus simulations, at least three times a day, until the day of the real lottery. Note, some have already started this important exercise a few days ago, since it is never too early for that.