After finishing up another homestand which finished off a 10 of 11 stretch at home, the Canadiens find themselves in fourth place in the Eastern Conference.  While this doesn’t sound like much, it’s a giant leap forward for this franchise that has never made the NEFHL playoffs.  Now the team is off on a Christmas road trip that will take them to Pittsburgh, Tampa Bay, Florida and New Jersey.  This will be a very important trip to close out the first half of the season and hopefully show some of the top Eastern teams that this team is not a fluke.

There is still a long way to go in the season, but the off season moves are starting to pay off.  After a very slow start, Shane Doan is starting to show why he is one of the elite power forwards in the game.  He has 11 points in his last 8 games after only having 4 in his previous 8.  Mike Modano is leading the team in points from the second line and has turned Richard Park into a potential all star and helping Wojtek Wolski land in the top 10 in the leagues +/- category.  This might not sound like much, but Wolski has the worst DF rating on the team.  Radek Martinek, while not putting up a lot of points, is playing a ton of important minutes and is still sporting an impressive +13.  Martin Straka and Fredrik Modin are not performing like we had hoped, but are both playing on the top line and will hopefully start producing soon.

Everything has not been perfect though, as the team lost top prospect Alexei Cherepanov.  While the loss will hurt the franchise, it’s a bigger loss to the many friends and family he had across the world.  The franchise is still trying to come up with a special tribute for Alexei and will hopefully announce something in the near future.

The future does look bright for this storied franchise that has been stuck in mediocrity for the life span of this league.   The goal last year as stated to storied NEFHL writer Ken McBobzie was to make the playoffs this year and that still looks like a possibility.  We do not plan on selling off any of the important future pieces to make a run at a playoff spot, but a small deal or two is still being looked at.