The Montreal Canadiens' highest scorers were all Canadians, but that may change in the future...
Since it’s the Fourth of July and the United States of America's 250th birthday, it feels like the ideal moment to look at the highest-scoring Americans with the Montreal Canadiens. In the Habs’ 117 years of existence, there have been many great players, but most of them, in terms of scoring, were Canadians. In fact, there’s only one non-Canadian-born player in the Sainte-Flanelle’s top 10 scorers: Finnish center Saku Koivu, who has 641 points. Sweden-born Mats Naslund is in 12th place with 623 points, just in front of Czech pivot Tomas Plekanec, who’s on 606 points. Russian blueliner Andrei Markov claims the 18th spot with 572 points, followed by another 12 Canadians before you reach the first American: Max Pacioretty.
The former Canadiens captain and sniper Pacioretty ranks 31st with 448 points in 626 games. He was pushed outside of the top 30 this past season thanks to Brendan Gallagher’s 23 points and Nick Suzuki’s 101-point harvest. The New Canaan, Connecticut-born winger was a first-round pick for the Habs, the 22nd overall selection at the 2007 draft. He spent 10 seasons in Montreal and was voted captain by his teammates, who preferred him to P.K. Subban. He was ultimately traded to the Vegas Golden Knights in the 2018 off-season, which allowed Montreal to land current captain Suzuki.
You have to go all the way down to 47th place to find the next American: defenseman Chris Chelios. The offensive blueliner spent only seven seasons in town, skating in just 402 games and totaling 309 points. Former GM Serge Savard elected to trade him to the Chicago Blackhawks in 1989 because he supposedly had a bad knee. He would go on to play for 19 seasons after the trade, winning two more Stanley Cups with the Detroit Red Wings. In the end, he skated in 1,651 games, putting up 948 points, the 10th-highest total in league history. Brent Burns and Erik Karlsson could very well pass him by this upcoming season.
Finally, the third-highest scoring American player with the Habs is none other than Cole Caufield. Despite being only 25 years old, the sniper has already skated in 368 games with the Habs, during which he has put up 307 points. Two short of Chelios’ total, meaning the diminutive sniper will soon be the second highest-scoring American in Canadiens history. As things stand, with his 169 goals, he’s already the second-highest goal-scoring American with the Habs and only needs 57 to catch up to Pacioretty, who’s unsurprisingly first.
There might not have been that many Americans who made it high up in the points rankings with the Canadiens, but the presence of Caufield and blueliner Lane Hutson certainly makes it feel like that’s going to change over the coming years. Happy birthday, Uncle Sam!
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