from Stu Cowan of the Montreal Gazette,

After the Canadiens finished with the worst record in the NHL last season, it was obvious there were going to be growing pains as the new management team of Jeff Gorton, the executive vice-president of hockey operations, GM Kent Hughes and head coach Martin St. Louis began the rebuilding process.

After the Canadiens beat the Calgary Flames 2-1 in a shootout at the Bell Centre on Dec. 12 they had a 14-12-2 record and were playing entertaining hockey — even when they lost. But things started to fall apart after that and the Canadiens went 1-9-1 in their next 11 games before beating the St. Louis Blues 5-4 at the Bell Centre last Saturday.

During that dismal 11-game stretch — including eight road games — the Canadiens scored only 20 goals. They were both bad and boring, bringing back memories of last season with Dominique Ducharme as head coach.

More memories of last season came back with a 4-0 loss to the Seattle Kraken Monday night at the Bell Centre. The Canadiens were outshot 19-6 in the first period and were trailing 3-0 after 20 minutes.

The Canadiens have officially sold out 15 of their first 19 home games — including Monday night — with a capacity of 21,105 at the Bell Centre. But there have been plenty of empty seats for most of those games as season-ticket holders decided to stay home or were unable to resell their tickets.

The Canadiens reached the midway point of the 82-game regular season with Monday’s loss and have an 8-11-0 record at home and they are 16-22-3 overall, sitting in last place in the Atlantic Division. Canadiens fans — and especially season-ticket holders — will be hoping the team can at least play some entertaining hockey again during the second half.more

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