Montreal Canadiens: Rem Pitlick Ranking Among Habs Goal Scorers Says A Lot

The Montreal Canadiens season has not gone according to plan. The team thought they would be a playoff contender, but they are far from it.

They sit last in the entire NHL with a 7-24-5 record and realized less than a quarter of the way through the season that they would not be making it to the postseason in 2022.

Not that it is an excuse for them being outside the playoffs, but they have dealt with a ridiculous number of injuries and absences and Covid positives. It is not enough to explain their current predicament, but it hasn’t helped them climb out of the hole they dug early on in the season.

The biggest reason for the team sitting last in the 32 team standings is the fact they can’t consistently score. The team has played 36 games so far this season and has scored 76 goals. That gives them an average of 2.1 goals per game which is just not good enough to win games at the NHL level.

The team recently picked up Rem Pitlick off waivers and this really highlighted their inability to find offence. I have to admit, I barely knew anything about Rem Pitlick when I saw he was the newest member of the Montreal Canadiens. Casula fans of the game would have never heard of the guy.

When I looked him up I realized he was a decent prospect at one time and brought plenty of offence at lower levels of the game. He also had more points this season than I would have guessed.

Pitlick played 20 games with the Minnesota Wild this season and had six goals and 11 points in those games. That’s decent production for a depth winger.

But then I looked at where he ranked in the Canadiens lineup and realized he was just one goal back of the team lead. Only Josh Anderson and Nick Suzuki have scored more goals than their new teammate and both of those players have scored seven.

Pitlick had a decent chance on a 2 on 1 in his first game with the Canadiens on Thursday night. Had he put the puck in the net, he would have been the Montreal Canadiens leading goal scorer.

That was an incredible stat that clearly shows how poorly things are going for the Canadiens this season.

No offence to Rem Pitlick, but he shouldn’t be a good shot away from leading an NHL team in goals.