Canadiens, Senators ready to create new memories in NHL100 Classic

If fans of the Montreal Canadiens have long memories, they'll recall that it took their team eight games to defeat the Ottawa Senators for the first time.
The initial seven-game Montreal losing streak stretched from 1910 into 1912, back to the days of the National Hockey Association, the NHL's predecessor.

Plenty of hockey has been played by these geographical rivals in the century since the Senators owned the Canadiens, including 136 regular-season games and 11 in the Stanley Cup Playoffs since the current edition of the Senators joined the League in 1992. So, it's not as though the Scotiabank NHL100 Classic on Saturday (7 p.m. ET; NBCSN, CBC, SN, TVA Sports), under the lights at Lansdowne Park, is going to be a grudge match.
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Two teams that have struggled this season will simply be happy to take two points from the outdoor game that will cap a remarkable year in Canada's capital city.
This is the 25th anniversary of the birth of the second Senators franchise, the first having vanished in 1934 when the Original Six edition moved to St. Louis to become the short-lived Eagles.
Ottawa has been the centerpiece this year of celebrations for the 150th anniversary of Canada's birth. In March, the city hosted the homecoming of the Stanley Cup on the 125th anniversary of Governor General Lord Stanley of Preston's stated intention to donate a trophy to be awarded to the hockey champion of what then was the pre-confederation Dominion of Canada. In late October, a monument on a major Ottawa pedestrian mall was unveiled to celebrate the trophy.

The first game in history between the Senators and the Canadiens was played Jan. 22, 1910, a 5-4 overtime victory for Ottawa on home ice. The Ottawa Citizen rather enjoyed the spectacle, its all-caps headline loudly proclaiming, "GREATEST CROWD IN THE HISTORY OF HOCKEY SAW MOST EXCITING MATCH IN MANY YEARS."
It wasn't an easy victory for the Senators, who surrendered a three-goal lead in the third period in front of an arena-bulging 7,500 fans, with kids crawling out onto steel girders over the rink for better viewing. The home team was pushed to overtime before winning on a goal by future Hockey Hall of Famer Marty Walsh.
"The Canadiens, of course, played their usual spectacular hockey," the Citizen reported, "(Jack) Laviolette and (Didier) Pitre hurdling sticks, crashing into the boards, flipping about like circus clowns and travelling backwards as neatly as trick skaters."
The game, when Ottawa goaltender Percy Lesueur outdueled Montreal's
Georges Vezina
, was notable for a flipped puck by the Senators' Hamby Shore that shattered a bulb over the rink, showering the ice with glass.
"Every French-Canadian hockey fan in Ottawa, it seemed, was also on the spot," the Citizen reported. "Whenever the Canadiens scored, their supporters almost shook the building to pieces."
Little has changed in that regard during the subsequent 100-plus years. Canadiens fans have always had a huge presence whenever their team plays in Ottawa, a mere 140 miles from Montreal. Saturday should be no different.
"I think it's going to be great," Senators defenseman Erik Karlsson said. "And just overall, playing Montreal, it's a team that has a big fan base in this city, so it's going to create a lot of good things."
The first time the Senators and Canadiens played each other in the NHL was in Ottawa on Dec. 19, 1917. "Phantom Joe" Malone put five goals behind Senators goalie Clint Benedict in a 7-4 Montreal victory. Ottawa's Cy Denneny scored a hat trick of his own.

When the Senators returned to the League in 1992, the Canadiens were there to greet them again. On Oct. 8, the Senators won 5-3 at Ottawa Civic Centre, but would lose six times to Montreal that season on their way to finishing 10-70-4.
They faced off against each other in the playoffs in 2013, creating a funny moment on the eve of the Eastern Conference Quarterfinal series when then Senators captain Daniel Alfredsson reverse trash-talked the Canadiens.
Alfredsson,
who is scheduled to play in the Senators Alumni Classic
on Parliament Hill on Friday, almost embarrassed the Canadiens while confusing Montreal fans with his gushing praise.
"I've always enjoyed playing in this building," he said of the Bell Centre. "It's a beautiful city, I don't know if that has anything to do with it. Montreal fans are really passionate. It's always a loud, energetic building. I'm really looking forward to seeing how loud they can get."

Alfredsson then waxed nostalgic about the old Montreal Forum, praising the stately building where he played a month before it closed to hockey in March 1996.
But there were few pleasantries to be found once the puck dropped. There were hard hits, verbal jabs, a Game 3 that featured 236 penalty minutes and some serious gamesmanship.
With 17 seconds left in what would be a 6-1 victory in Game 3 for the Senators, Ottawa coach Paul MacLean called a timeout, a move that turned Canadiens coach Michel Therrien's complexion a shade of red usually seen only in cartoons.
The Senators won the series in five games, but the Canadiens exacted their revenge two years later, defeating Ottawa in a six-game Eastern Conference First Round series. That one also had its surly overtones, with charges and counter-charges lobbed like grenades by both sides.
Recently, it's been all Montreal, the Canadiens winning the past five games, including two this season.
No one knows what will happen Saturday, but with the outdoor setting in Canada's capital, it's certain to be a show that will find its own place in the history books.