Canadiens Prospect Shines on Sunday Night With Big 5-Point Night

It wasn’t a perfect weekend for Montreal Canadiens prospect Michael Hage and his Michigan Wolverines. On Halloween, they lost for the first time this season, falling 5-2 to Ohio State University. The scoreline makes it look worse than it was because it included two empty-netters, but it still ended the winning streak. Centerman Hage only picked up one assist in the loss.

However, on Sunday night, the Wolverines flipped the script and earned a 5-4 overtime win, with Hage as the undisputed star. The 20-year-old has a hand in each of his team’s goals, racking up a lamplighter and four assists. It was his third career five-point game in 81 contests. The feat is particularly impressive when it’s done in a high-pressure game with plenty of lead changes, rather than in a massacre where a team just destroys its opponent.

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So far this season, the Habs hopeful leads his team in scoring with 20 points in just nine games. His five-point effort allowed him to overtake teammate Jayden Perron, who now has 19 points. Their nearest rival is Minnesota Duluth’s Ty Hanson, who has 14 points in 10 games.

The deeper he gets into his season, the more obvious it is that Hage can dominate at the NCAA level, but the question is: how will that translate to the pro level? Nobody can answer that question until the centerman finally makes the jump. Of course, the hope is that he'll become the Canadiens’ long-awaited second-line center, but there are no guarantees. There’s a massive gap between the NCAA and the AHL and an ever bigger one between the NCAA and the NHL.

In an ideal world, Hage would sign his ELC at the end of his season with the Wolverines and make the jump to the NHL right away, but one has to wonder if he will be able to. The Canadiens are likely to be playing some very meaningful games by that time, and with the Atlantic Division being so tight, they may still be fighting to make the playoffs or get home-ice advantage, which would hardly be the best circumstances for the youngster to make his debut, especially if he’s gotten used to dominating his opponents; that might not be the case in the NHL.

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